Now there are a number of areas where Mr Kuten and I disagree - hang it all, he does not accept that the Bradford legislation amounted to a ban on smacking for corrective purposes - but it would be ungrateful of me to dwell on these. Instead, I would like to focus on an area where we are at cross-purposes - like two ships passing in the night.
It is not right at all that I regard violence against children as a problem confined to what Mr Kuten refers to as the "lower classes" for the obvious reason that it is just not true. My point is a different one. Because the pressures on families who are socially disadvantaged are much higher than the pressures on the more fortunate it is far harder for them to comply with such a ban.
"Explain to little Johnny the errors of his ways and tell him to stand in the garden until he has calmed down" is fine advice in a relaxed, well-regulated household. To the single mother struggling to keep order in three rooms on the 17th floor (remember I am talking about Britain and not New Zealand) it is both patronising and impractical.
Attempts to impose our own way of living on others without too much concern as to whether it fits their circumstances is rather in fashion at the moment.
In foreign affairs, the West is keen to push its own brand of democracy on anyone who will accept it, often ignoring the reality of tribal division; in the European Union, the southern economies are being tortured by the need to imitate those of the north; and militant Islam tries to force its practices on Christian pupils who study at schools in Muslim enclaves.
Of course none of this is new. The Crusaders gave their enemies the choice "convert or die"; and Britain lost its way in India when the memsaabs tried to make it like home. In every family and at every hearth there is someone who says that if things are not done their way then they are not being done.
To alter that tendency one would have to rewrite human nature but, before starting a programme of lobotomies for the bossy, perhaps we should begin more modestly.
Suppose we simply apply a test to all new laws and all foreign policy and ask ourselves: "Are we trying to impose something on others regardless of their circumstances just because it works for us?"
In the case of the anti-smacking law, the political class would have to answer that with a resounding "Yes".
Before retiring, John Watson was a partner in an international law firm. He now writes from Islington, London.
