LBC reports:

PC Cliff Mitchell applied to join the Met in 2020, but the vetting process flagged up a previous allegation of raping a child in 2017, and his application was rejected.

However, a vetting panel, made up partly of senior officers, overturned the decision because the force wanted to improve the number of officers from ethnic minorities.

PC Mitchell went on to carry out a “campaign of rape” against two victims, including a child under the age of 13, while he was a serving officer.

Once upon a time being an alleged child rapist would be disqualifying to become a UK police officer. No longer!

I spent my summer holiday sprawled on Takapuna beach reading the memoirs of Eli Sharabi, an Israeli who was held hostage by Hamas following October 7 2023. It was a highly thought provoking book for all sorts of reasons, which I cannot cover here in full. However, one thing which stood out to me was that Sharabi narrates that Hamas dramatically reduced the hostages’ food at one point, claiming that the Israelis had just done the same to Palestinian security prisoners.

To my surprise, when I looked this up I found it was true. Far-right Israeli politician Itamar Ben Gvir did sharply decrease living conditions for Palestinian security prisoners, including among other things a reduction in food: https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-rules-state-failed-its-duty-to-feed-palestinian-prisoners-in-slap-to-ben-gvir/ The Israeli High Court has found that Palestinian security prisoners were not being given enough food for basic sustenance, “essentially […] starving” them.

This is especially horrifying to me because Israel’s understanding of “security prisoners” includes all Palestinians held without trial in administrative detention, which means that if an Israeli soldier arrests an innocent Palestinian out of hatred for Palestinians or simply on a power trip, then a person who hasn’t done anything wrong can face starvation in prison without having legal representation to prove their innocence.

While the High Court’s findings were enough to persuade me, I was a little sceptical due to reliance on affidavit evidence from Palestinian prisoners themselves. However, the Times of Israel published a further article on the subject today, saying that inspectors from the Public Defender’s Office visited four Israeli prisons and documented “skeletal” prisoners and evidence of beatings and medical neglect: https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-in-israeli-jails-face-conditions-unfit-for-human-beings-state-agency-says/

I quote: “The Public Defender’s Office of the Justice Ministry show that Palestinian security detainees held in Israeli prisons have suffered from severe and systematic violence from prison guards, deprivation of food, and medical neglect, while also having been subjected to insanitary conditions that caused and exacerbated outbreaks of disease in the prisons.” The inspectors described one prison they visited as “not fit to hold human beings”, and said of another that their findings showed “unnecessary and unjustified violence against prisoners” carried out “on a regular basis and on numerous occasions.”

I note by the way that The Times of Israel is not a leftwing newspaper and cannot be accused of anti-Israel bias.

Of course, Israel has an independent judiciary and accountability mechanisms for when people like Ben Gvir overreach like this, whereas an independent Hamas judiciary defying Sinwar and ordering that the Israeli hostages be given more food would never happen. (The very idea is laughable.) But I think it’s important for Westerners to be aware of the treatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel in order to understand that the situation is not black and white.

This week the NZ Herald reported that Mangere College was put under statutory management.

While appointing a limited statutory manager for a school in NZ is not highly unusual – this is the first time I can recall that academic achievement is cited so highly as the reason.

Here is why it is an interesting precedent. There are a lot of schools who see their students perform worse the Mangere College.

There are approximately 460 high schools in NZ.

School Leavers results is the data-set that has the highest credibility. I process that data set each August – when the raw data becomes available (I am happy to provide on request). The most recent set is for 2024 school leavers.

– For Level 2 NCEA  69% of Mangere College’s 2024 Leavers had that qualification. 111 high schools did worse than that.

– For Level 3 NCEA 48% of Mangere College’s 2024 Leavers had that qualification. 175 high schools did worse than that.

– For University Entrance 7% of Mangere College’s 2024 Leavers had that qualification (not flash!). 30 high schools did worse than that.

– In terms of retaining students until 17yo … Mangere College has 77% of their students stay until then. That is better than 175 other high schools – some of them high profile as “good schools”.

– In terms of progression to degree level study … Mangere College has 15% of their students move on to that level. That is better than 129 other high schools.

– The Equity Index Number for Mangere College is 525. There are only 40 high schools whose children are deemed to be worse off. It could be argued that many of the results for Mangere College are above expectations.

High schools do not have to set achievement goals – either for outcomes our improvements. It is major weakness of our system and could have been fixed by a stroke of the Minister’s pen. I work with a number of schools on a 5 year improvement plan and it is making a difference.

Here is the key question: Given that Mangere College is under statutory management due to their students’ results – will the many schools that are doing worse, or only marginally better, also face that situation? Why or why not?

Have “acceptable” levels of achievement been communicated to schools?

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The BBC reports:

Andy Reid had been in Afghanistan for three months when the incident happened that would change his life forever. 

Out on a routine patrol in the Helmand Province, he stood on a Taliban improvised explosive device, resulting in him losing both legs and an arm. 

“I was there on the floor on my back, a big dust cloud all around me. I couldn’t hear anything,” he says. 

“I wasn’t really in any pain at the time, but I felt some numbness throughout my body.”

“I knew something bad had happened to me. I looked down and I couldn’t see my legs at that stage.”

He was one of thousands of British troops injured in Afghanistan. A further 457 British service personnel were killed in the conflict.

For the injured and the families of the deceased, many are deeply offended at US President Donald Trump’s claim in an interview that America’s Nato allies sent “some troops” to Afghanistan, but “stayed a little back, a little off the front lines”.

Over 800 mainly NATO troops died in Afghanistan, responding to the attack on the US on 9/11. They did not stay back from the front lines. 457 UK and 159 Canadian soldiers were killed.

The death rate per million population was:

1. Georgia 8.42
2. US 7.96
3. Denmark 7.82
4. UK 7.25
5. Estonia 6.92
6. Canada 4.68
7. NZ 2.27
8. Norway 2.04
9. Australia 1.86
10. Latvia 1.82

43 Danish troops died fighting for the US in Afghanistan. It is no surprise that they feel aggrieved with his threats over Greenland. It is a shameful way to treat an ally whose soldiers died fighting for you.

There is real anger in the UK. Even Keir Starmer has come out swinging as families of dead soldiers have been very vocal about how insulted they feel – especially coming from someone who avoided the draft for Vietnam.

YouGov has the latest royal ratings. In order:

1. Prince William +62%
2. Catherine, Princess of Wales +62%
3. Princess Anne +58%
4. Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh +38%
5. Prince Edward +32%
6. King Charles +29%
7. Princess Beatrice +12%
8. Princess Eugenie +11%
9. Queen Camilla -3%
10. Prince Harry -29%
11. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex -47%
12. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor -87%

A bit rough on Camilla!

As almost everyone knows, Manage my Health was hacked by someone seeking a $60,000 ransom in return for not releasing the hacked files, which appear to be uploaded health documents.

I don’t criticise MMH for being hacked. It is hard to be hack proof. There may be legitimate criticism for them not encrypting uploaded documents and/or not having multi-factor authentication.

What I find incredible is that it took them 10 days to e-mail users to tell them if they had been affected or not. And even worse, they got it wrong, and had to do a second lot of e-mails saying you haven’t been affected after all. I’m one of those who got both e-mails. And annoying because I’m overseas, MMH won’t even allow me to log in and see any details.

A well governed and managed health software company should have hacking as one of their major risks in their risk matrix, and they should have a detailed contingency plan setting out what to do if it happens. As far as I can tell, MMH were not prepared in any way, and had to be prompted by the Ministry of Health to call in external advisors to help them manage it.

The MMH software is pretty good. I can book GP appointments with it. I can see all my test results and vaccinations. I can see all the reports from specialists. I’m glad my GP uses them.

But software is only part of it. They need to also be well governed and managed for situations like what just happened. And the evidence to date is they have not been.

While personally I’m not worried if some hacker has the results of my shoulder and ankle ultrasounds and x-rays, there will be many people very concerned about their health records. Bryce Edwards made the point:

The potential harms are immense. Think about what’s in these files. Psychiatric diagnoses. Sexual health information. Details of domestic violence. Records of abortions. The intimate confessions people make to their doctors believing, as they should, that such information is sacrosanct.

People could be blackmailed over sensitive diagnoses or traumatic histories. Identities could be stolen. As one furious patient told RNZ, she is “one part terrified, one part really angry, like ragingly angry” that details of her past sexual assault – secrets she hasn’t even told some family members – might be made public. This isn’t just a bureaucratic failure. Real people will suffer real consequences.

So this is a very big deal for some.

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NZ First scored 11.9% in the January 2026 Taxpayers’ Union – Curia poll. This is a very high level of support for NZ First generally, but especially for them in Government.

The last time NZ First polled this high was in the lead up to the 2017 election. They also spiked up there in 2003. Prior to that you would be talking about their formative period in the mid 1990s.

What makes their result even more exceptional is that it has occurred while they are in Government. Normally being in Government results in NZ First doing very badly in the polls, and at the subsequent election. I’ve charted below the four periods NZ First has been in Government.

The paywalled article shows you the comparison, and also shows you what share of the coalition vote NZ First has received this term.

Hipkins also ignores that Clark called a snap election in 2002, meaning the 2002 and 2005 election could not be held in November (or October). So if you exclude those you have November for 1999, 2008 and 2011 and October only in 2020 and 2023. Any time between September and November is not unusual for an election date.

Also worth noting every non snap election from 1946 to 1981 was also in November.

Newsroom asked some pollsters for their predictions for 2026. Mine are below:

Every poll (or almost every poll) will show that both National and Labour will need two partner parties to govern, not just one – that is: only National/Act/New Zealand First and Labour/Greens/Te Pāti Māori will have enough seats to make 61. 

All 71 public polls since the election have said Labour can’t govern without both the Greens and Te Pāti Māori and only two out of 71 have National and Act able to govern without New Zealand First.

New Zealand First will continue to poll above its 2023 result. The party has been above its 6.1 percent results in the past 20 public polls. 

The top three issues will remain cost of living, economy and health. These have been the top three issues in every Taxpayers’ Union–Curia poll since July 2024.

The vast majority of polls, before the campaign period, will have a narrow margin between the Government and Opposition – no bloc greater than 65 seats. No poll since November 2024 has had a bloc projected to win over 65 seats.

Key things which I will be looking out for are:

The state of the economy. I think this will be hugely influential. As well as economic data, and what the right/wrong direction polls are saying as a proxy for that.

What happens with Te Pāti Maori will also be important to keep an eye on. With the polls so close, the party’s current two-seat overhang could determine who gets to form government. But if they go into an election with new Te Pāti Māori candidates against incumbent MPs, then I think Labour will win those seats and Te Pāti Māori will not get overhang seats.

I’ll also be watching for any polls showing Labour can govern without Te Pāti Māori. This will boost Labour if they do, and damage them if Te Pāti Māori looks essential to their path to power.

How high New Zealand First rises, and whether that support is coming from former National or Labour voters is also something to watch.

A moving story at The Free Press about Mark Swidan who spent 12 years in a Chinese prison on trumped up charges. Basically totalitarian states arrest random US citizens from time top time to use as bargaining chips to get their spies etc released. Some extracts:

For more than a decade, he had been served two meals a day, the same meal every meal: a bowl of mushy, yellowish rice with a quarter-size morsel of pork fat. Sometimes, there would be boiled bits of pumpkin or cabbage.

Swidan, who is 6-feet-2, said: “I was 225 pounds when I went in, and then I went down to the 120s, and I was about 140, 145 when I got out.”

In prison, they rarely let him outside. His immune system had taken a hit from the lack of sun. He also got frequent fungal infections—mostly from showering on grimy, concrete floors. “It would go all over your head and face and down your neck,” he said. He would get red and splotchy. It made sleeping for weeks at a time nearly impossible.

The aftereffects were visible: His skin was covered in tiny lines and scars. And his teeth were a mess. His eyesight had been compromised.

Worst of all were his hands—over the years, he’d broken lots of bones in his fingers and wrists and hands from fights with other prisoners but mostly with guards. “I’m not the guy who’s just going to stand there when you threaten me,” Swidan said. “Someone would put his finger in my face, and I’d knock him the fuck out, and there would be four or five of them—I didn’t give a shit. You’ve given me two death penalties already.” He learned how to scrounge for bits of cardboard and tape so he could set his broken fingers. The Air Force doctors in San Antonio said there wasn’t a lot they could do about his hands. “They said it’s worse to rebreak and then fix them,” he said.

What is scary is this could happen to anyone randomly.

Do you recall Labour MPs and others saying that the changes National made to speed limits (basically reversing Labour’s across the board reductions, and replacing them with case by case limits) would kill many more NZers.

Well the 2025 road toll was the lowest per capita in 100 years and the second lowest in gross terms in 73 years.

Of course the road toll is about more than speed limits. It is car safety, drink driving etc. But Labour MPs insisted that the changes would kill people.

A crazy article by Halim Rane at the ABC:

In the aftermath of violent attacks, public commentary quickly reaches for a familiar label like “religiously motivated terrorism”. The term sounds intuitive but it is analytically flawed, socially harmful and counter-productive to both national security and social cohesion.

I would argue that a more accurate and useful concept is “identity-motivated terrorism”: the use or threat of violence against civilians to advance an agenda grounded in the perceived defence, restoration or supremacy of a collective identity.

This shift in language is not semantic politeness. It reflects what decades of research in political violence, radicalisation and security studies have consistently shown — namely, that religion is not the causal driver of terrorism, even when religious language is loudly invoked. The underlying motivation is identity: racial, political and/or civilisational.

This is like 1984. You can’t speak the truth.

It is quite correct to say that Islamist terrorism is based on an extreme minority interpretation of Islam. It is not correct to say that it isn’t based on religious belief.

The attackers were supporters of Islamic State – whose mission is to explicitly have a state run on 9th century Islamic rules.

Since the 9/11 2011 attacks there have been over 50,000 seperate attacks where Islam was a factor. Not 50, not 500, not even 5,000 but 50,000. To claim religion is not a factor is crazy.

The death toll since 9/11 is 313,262 killed and 380,603 wounded. I don;t think those victims think it is socially harmful to call a spade a spade.

The election will be on Saturday 7 November

Have spent two weeks in Bali doing an extended family holidays with the boys, their cousins, mother, uncle and grandparents.

A long wait for bags at Denpasar Airport, with Sam having a rest. There was around 45 minutes gap between the first and last bags coming off.

We were staying (at Garden View Ubud – highly recommended) near the Monkey Forest in Ubud and if you open your bag for any reasons a monkey will jump down and try to get into it. We also had them come around our hotel swimming pool and steal a bag of chips off us.

We visited Taman Safari Bali which I highly recommend. Heaps and heaps of animals and encounters.

If you think climbing a tree to get away from a tiger works, I have bad news for you!

This is the view from the toilets at the restaurant!

Feeding a giant turtle.

The first part of the visit is walking around, and then you get to do a bus, jeep or cage visit around the wilder animals.

Not often you see the double humped camels.

You can even stay at the safari, so wake up to a rhino outside your place!

An elephant looking for food.

And after all that walking about, they have a water park to cool off on.

If you go to Bali with kids (or without), I highly recommend the Safari Park. We thought we’d be there for two to three hours and ended up there for eight hours.

Where do you start. First of all the Norwegian Government has zero votes on who gets the Nobel Peace Prize. But to link him not getting the prize to the US demanding Greenland is like a two year old having a temper tantrum. He really is deranged.

Mockery is the best response. Well the 25th Amendment would be the best response, but this is second best.

The various memes of Trump claiming prizes won by others have been good. My favourites are Serena Williams and Milli Vanilli.

Trump is not just sending demented e-mails over Greenland. He has said he will impose 10% punitive tariffs on all the NATO allies like the UK and Germany who don’t back his campaign to take over Greenland. The US is now more of a threat to NATO than Russia!

Nick Shirley has had over 135 million views of his video where he went around various Minnesota state funded daycare centres and found no pupils. It gave the visual element to the reporting around fraud in the state, especially involving Somalis who makes up around 3% of the Twin Cities population.

Tim Walz who was standing for a third term as Governor has now withdrawn. A year ago he was close to becoming Vice-President and today he can’t get re-elected in his own state.

1. At last count 10,000 5 to 13 year olds in NZ were not enrolled anywhere and no one was actively looking for them.
   
2. Approx. 11,000 children are home-schooled. These children are not “truant” but it does indicate an amount of dis-engagement with our state system.
   
3. Term 3 2025 attendance data showed a statistically significant decline on Term 3 2024.
   
4. Daily attendance statistics in term 4 2025 showed more decline:
   
   “The government wanted 80 percent of students attending more than 90 percent of their classes – the benchmark for regular attendance. To reach that goal, daily attendance needed to reach and remain at 94 percent, but the highest point reached in term four was 90 percent, with 88-89 percent recorded often and average daily attendance of 85 percent, similar to term three.”
   
5. Australia considers themselves to be in deep crisis mode with attendance as their full attendance (students attending 90% of the time) is at 60%. Ours is at 50%.
   
   These comments are important:
   
   “We can’t nudge our way out of this crisis. Australia needs a wholesale rethink of how to get children back into the classroom. We are not alone. Many countries have had problems getting school attendance to where it needs to be. But some have taken the issue far more seriously than us. England is one such country we can learn from. Students in England attend school 94 per cent of the time, compared to Australia’s 89 per cent. England has made attendance a national priority, driving a relentless public messaging campaign to elevate the importance of school attendance, radically increasing the transparency of attendance data, setting higher expectations for families and schools, and adopting a whole-of-government approach to tackle barriers to attendance.”

As I have said many times, curriculum changes, “structured literacy”, etc – can only produce marginal gains if the children who need help the most are attending school irregularly – at best.

Just released NCEA/UE cohort data (as opposed to leavers data that comes out later) shows a small improvement in L1 NCEA but declines in Level 2 NCEA and UE (key indicators).

Education in NZ in 2026 needs a great deal of work – from attendance to achievement. Let’s hope.

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Day 4 was a fairly short 7 kms to the water taxi pick up. But we left early again as it was now a 10 am pick up. Again a bit undulating.

A nice view of the last hut as we went around the track.

Nice and easy track here.

Opening up a bit.

Again so many beautiful lakeside views.

This is where the water taxi picks us up. I went swimming for around 20 minutes before it arrived and wow was it a great way to end the tramp – very refreshing.

This is the view from the water taxi of the climb on Day 1.

Got back to the holiday park where I had a much needed ice cream and pie!

The original plan was to get the water taxi at 4 pm and stay overnight in Wairoa. But as I got out at 10.30 am I decided to just drive back to Wellington that day. I offered to pay for the night I had booked at Vista Motor Lodge (where I had left spare luggage) but the owner kindly refused and said they were just glad I had a great time. Definitely a good place to stay at in Wairoa.

I went into the tramp with similar views to many that the Great Walk was going to be inferior to others, and this was due to the Tuhoe taking over management of the Ureweras. But I was pleasantly surprised by how good the track was, and I actually really enjoyed hearing from the Tuhoe wardens and water taxi skipper about the area.

Like many I was aghast at the removal of private huts in the area (they explained they want to plan where huts are needed in the future, but my view is they should leave the current huts in place until they have such a plan), but this didn’t extend to the Great Walk, and despite tensions the partnership between DOC and Tuhoe in running it is working.

I would definitely recommend doing the track. I’d happily go back and do it again.

Next summer is Great Walk No 10 – the Routeburn!