“Prime Minister Helen Clark today outlined new government policy for all young people to be in school or some other form of education or training until the age of eighteen.” H Clark will be grumpy tonight. She’s made a bad start.

She knows National’s current strategy is a match racing election. Someone’s told her that in match racing the competitors track each other turn for turn. Perhaps Mr Rudd told her “don’t let daylight between you”.

But she’s not realised that it only works when you’re behind if your matching move is snappier than the leader’s. 

Her announcement should have been substantially modified when she found out that John Key had both sticks and carrots for rotting youth. Her “everyone at school till 18” policy does nothing about the ones who don’t want to be there, or for whom its a waste of time.

It has none of John’s hardheadedness about life on the benefit for under 18s who won’t work or study.

So if she’s lucky her policy will just be a fizzer.

I predict it will be worse than that. It shows the Labour bossiness the public are now wary of – relying on telling unwilling people what to do (stay at school) but without any effective sanctions for those they are too scared to deal with, who’ll scoff at the law.