As Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to Britain, Thae Yong Ho sang the praises of his socialist homeland where “everything is guaranteed”. Yesterday South Korea said Mr Thae had defected there with his family. Such desertions from North Korea’s elite are rare. The few whom the gangster state sends abroad—mostly to earn foreign currency—are among its most fiercely loyal; Mr Thae, it seems, was a master dissembler. Yet his defection follows that of 13 employees of a North Korean restaurant in China, and a colonel in the country’s spy agency. South Korea has been quick to publicise the abandonments: the more privileged the defectors, the worse it looks for Kim Jong Un’s regime. Under the young despot’s rule, draconian border controls and a slight economic uptick have sharply reduced the total number of defectors. Now more of those who flee do so not in search of food, but of freedom.