Stuff reports:

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is shutting six of his 42 Jamie’s Italian restaurants in Britain amid tough trading conditions and a lower pound following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group said Friday that five restaurants in England and one in Scotland would close in the first quarter of 2017.

Chief executive Simon Blagden said “this is a tough market and, post-Brexit, the pressures and unknowns have made it even harder”.

The company has been stung by the slide in the pound, which has increased the cost of buying ingredients from Italy.

100 Euros costed around 80 Sterling before Brexit vote and is now around 85 Sterling. So around a 6% increase in food costs.

I would be very surprised if this is the real reason for the restaurants closing. The major costs of restaurants tends to be staff and overheads – not food costs. I suspect the real reason is not enough people were eating at them.

Despite the pressure on prices triggered by the pound’s fall, Britain’s economy has outperformed many economists’ expectations since the June vote.

The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, conceded Thursday that forecasters got it wrong when they predicted a sharp economic downturn in the event of a vote to leave.

Before the referendum, many forecasters said a vote to leave the EU could cause the pound to fall by as much as 20 percent and push the economy back into recession.

The pound did plummet, but unemployment remains low and other economic indicators such as service-sector growth remain strong.

The pound has actually increased in value since October.

AP report:

Congress certified Donald Trump’s presidential victory Friday over the objections of a handful of House Democrats, with Vice President Joe Biden pronouncing, “It is over.”

This is the final stage following the popular vote and the Electoral College voting. Now it is 100% final, and Trump will get sworn in on the 20th of January as the 45th President of the United States.

So it is all over. Have all the celebrities left yet?

House Democrats objected to the votes from at least 10 states, raising issues of voter suppression as well as American intelligence showing that Russia tried to sway the election in favor of Trump. In each case, their objections were denied because they didn’t have the support of any senators.

The House Democrats that did this are playing with fire. Objections to votes should not just be because they don’t like the winner. They risk setting a precedent that could burn them badly in the future if say a Democrat wins the Electoral College but Republicans control Congress.

It’s like the Democrats in the Senate who did away with the rules protecting the minority when it comes to confirming appointments. Now they are in the minority and have lost the ability to block nominations.

Trump finished with 304 electoral votes and Democrat Hillary Clinton got 227. There were seven protest votes for other candidates. It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.

There are 535 members of Congress yet 538 electoral college votes. Who knows what makes up the difference?

Stuff reports:

It was a long road to New Zealand for US Ambassador Mark Gilbert and wife Nancy. There was a two year wait for the former professional baseball player to be confirmed in the post thanks to a Senate filibuster.

But the road back to America is a quicker one. The shock US election, installing Donald Trump as President elect, ends Gilbert’s tenure here. He was a Barrack Obama appointee, a good personal friend as well as a key money man for the outgoing US President.

Gilbert flies back to the US early next year. Based on past experience, it could be a long wait for the next US Ambassador.

Had the pleasure of meeting Ambassador Gilbert several times. A charming and effective Ambassador who saw the end of the US Navy stand off during his time.

It will be interesting to see who Trump nominates to be Ambassador.

Stuff reports:

Third-term Nelson city councillor Kate Fulton is going Green.

Fulton has confirmed that she is seeking nomination as the Green Party candidate for the West Coast-Tasman electorate in this year’s general elections.

Fulton said with the Greens, she could see an opportunity to find a new voice to represent both environmental and socialist values. 

Socialist values have worked so well in Venezuela. It must be exciting to try and get to put them in place in New Zealand.

The Herald reports:

New legislation in France around set hours for responding to work emails is something New Zealand should consider, says the Council of Trade Unions.

Does the CTU also want France’s unemployment rate of 10.5%, which is partly due to their ridiculous employment laws. Or their anemic 1.0% economic growth.

On Sunday the new law came into force in France stating that companies with more than 50 employees have to negotiate and set out hours for when staff are, and are not required to check their emails or respond to work enquiries.

Incredibly stupid. Situations change. You may have quiet periods and then periods where a major project is on, and you are on the phone in the evenings.  Legislating that everything must have set hours agreed in advance for checking e-mails is pathetic.

News.com.au reports:

What terrible terrible people. May they go to prison for a very long time.

Stuff reports:

It used to sell out in minutes, but by mid-December less than 4 per cent of tickets for the Wellington Sevens have been sold.

Tickets for the two-day event, which is being played at Westpac Stadium on January 28 and 29, went on sale in September.

In its heyday, the event sold out in a matter of minutes but it is understood that by mid-December only 1300 tickets had been sold for the tournament, despite the stadium having a capacity of 34,500.

I remember those days. The queues at Post Offices, the impatiently trying to order online before the system went down. That is when it was a great fun event.

The Herald reports:

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining has been denied charitable status and the accompanying tax benefits as it’s considered an advocacy group, rather than an educational group as it argued.

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) describes itself as a community-based action group that raises awareness of mining proposals and educates the public.

A clearly correct decision. Far too many lobby groups masquerade as charities.

The Charities Registration Board, in a decision reached on December 15, said that while it accepts KASM has a charitable end of protecting the environment, the main way that it aims to achieve this is by advocating against seabed mining applications, putting a moratorium on seabed mining and promoting its views to the public.

To be a charity you actually need to go out there and help people and spend your money on helping people. Spending your money on political advocacy is not charitable.

There has been surprisingly little sensible reporting on what Israel is likely to do, in response to the role of NZ in the UN Security Council vote.

As I have previously blogged, Israel did not threaten war. The normally very sensible Patrick Smellie has done a silly article speculating that Israel may launch cyber attacks on NZ. This is just nonsense. Some of his other suggestions may be closer to the mark such as private sector trade missions won’t be allowed.

Let’s start with what we do know. Israel has withdrawn their Ambassador for consultations and has banned the NZ Ambassador from visiting.

This is actually a very serious step for a country to take. In terms of diplomatic responses, this is only below cutting off diplomatic representation.

Most diplomatic issues between countries are dealt with by way of private or public note between foreign ministries. Sometimes this will be elevated to Ambassadors or Ministers or even Prime Ministers.

To give an analogy, NZ has (off memory) only recalled an Ambassador in situations like with Fiji. So Israel regards NZ’s actions akin to how NZ has regarded Fiji.

This means that it won’t just stop with the recalling the Ambassador for consultation. I expect there will be profound negative impact on relations, beyond just the diplomatic.

Israel will of course make decisions based on its national interest, as does New Zealand. If they go overboard with their response, it may backfire in terms of public support.

News.com.au reports:

Hawke necked the frothy while on the big screen during the third Test against Pakistan.

Legend.

The Herald reports:

Foreign Minister and East Coast Bays MP Murray McCully’s office has been vandalised after New Zealand co-sponsored a UN resolution against Israeli settlements.

A photograph posted to Reddit shows graffiti on the frontage of McCully’s electorate office in Browns Bay, calling him a “traitor” and “Jew hater”.

A reminder that fanaticism can run both ways.

Being against the current Israeli Government’s policy of unilateral building of settlements on occupied territory does not make you a Jew hater. In fact 40% of Israeli citizens are against the policy also.

With the Sir Peter Leitch controversy, I guess no one knows for sure what was said, except those there. But the allegation is he said:

“I go ‘Yeah, I’m actually born here’. That’s when he said ‘Well this is a white man’s island and you should acknowledge that’,” she said.

To me this fails the sniff test. It is not just something that anyone would say – demanding a Maori women should acknowledge that Waiheke is a white man’s island.

Sure this might be what she genuinely thinks he said, but the wording seems preposterous. While Sir Peter’s version of events does not.

Such a pity that today people feel the way to do deal with a conversation that upset them is to rush to Facebook and demonise the other person.

This graph is from Croaking Cassandra. He comments:

These numbers shouldn’t really be a surprise.  Space is a normal good –  people typically want more of it, all else equal, when they can afford it –  and technological advances make longer distance commutes feasible.

No doubt there will be some issues with how the data are compiled/estimated –  quite where are the boundaries around the “built up area”, and how well is that known for, say, 1855.  But the general proposition shouldn’t be surprising: it is easy enough to think of the cramped tenement dwellings of New York in the late 19th century.

So what does this mean for today:

And the constant refrain locally is for “more density”, when there is little or no evidence that such densification is what residents would prefer for themselves.  Indeed, it would be surprising if the revealed preferences across time and across countries/cultures had suddenly reversed.

I have no particular problem if people wish to live in high-rise apartments, or in small townhouses with no garden.  And people will choose to do so if regulatory constraints limit their options –  eg if land simply becomes too expensive –  but it doesn’t look like a first-best unconstrained preferred choice for most people.  We don’t, for example, see such bunching in our own provincial cities –  where housing is less unaffordable than in, say, Auckland –  and of course by international standards even our own largest city, Auckland, is not much more than a large provincial city (just a bit smaller than, say, Nashville).

Freeing up the use of land around cities remains the key to making housing affordable again and providing the choices/options that people value.  Experience suggests more populous cities will cover more space.  That isn’t something officials and politicians should be trying to stop.

I agree. I’d do what Phil Twyford proposed and abolish the MUB for Auckland. Let people build out and up.

The Washington Post reports:

A group of more than 1,100 law school professors from across the country is sending a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general.

The letter, signed by professors from 170 law schools in 48 states, is also scheduled to run as a full-page newspaper ad aimed at members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding confirmation hearings for Sessions on Jan. 10-11.

“We are convinced that Jeff Sessions will not fairly enforce our nation’s laws and promote justice and equality in the United States,” states the letter, signed by prominent legal scholars including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Geoffrey R. Stone of the University of Chicago Law School, Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Irvine School of Law.

Having 1,100 law professors come out against you will only make it more likely he gets confirmed by the Senate, I’d say.

I might be wrong but I suspect those law professors have signed lettsr against pretty much every Republican nominee for Attorney General.

USA Today reports:

Megyn Kelly is signing off on Fox News to join rival NBC News.

The popular cable network personality is joining the peacock network, where she will anchor a new, one-hour daytime program, Andrew Lack, chairman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a statement today.

As part of a broad, multi-year deal, Kelly will also anchor a new Sunday evening news magazine show and contribute to NBC’s breaking news, political and special events coverage.

Kelly was arguably the second biggest star on Fox. It will be interesting to see if her viewers follow her to NBC.

Kelly, who anchored The Kelly File since 2013, delivered top ratings to Fox while playing a prominent role in the 2016 presidential election. She repeatedly sparred with president-elect Donald Trump, punctuated by a contentious showdown at the first GOP debate, in which she confronted him about his insulting remarks about women.

Trump countered with slashing remarks in which he insinuated Kelly was antagonistic to him in the debate because she was menstruating. The two eventually met in Trump’s office to hash out their differences.

She also clashed with former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who left the top-rated news organization he helped shape over accusations of sexual harassment. She said Ailes harassed her starting in 2005, according to her book, Settle for More.

Amazing Ailes got away with it for so long.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand has been named the world’s best country by readers of Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

The winners of the annual Telegraph Travel Awards were voted on by more than 75,000 readers, with New Zealand emerging as the clear winner for the fourth consecutive year.

The Telegraph listed 26 reasons why New Zealand was best in the world, including landscapes that “make you want to applaud”, “magnificent Maori culture” and that “it really does look like Middle Earth”.

Some local doomsayers try to talk NZ down as we are not environmentally perfect (you know unlike every other country on Earth) but the reality is the vast vast majority of people from other countries are amazed by our lakes, rovers, forests and mountains.

Stuff reports:

The country’s only convicted plane hijacker has almost completed her prison sentence and is threatening to hijack another aircraft if she gets the chance.

Asha Abdille stabbed both pilots on an Air New Zealand flight from Blenheim to Christchurch in February 2008. One passenger was injured in the incident.

The Somali refugee took knives onto the 19-seater plane, which was forced to make an emergency landing.

Abdille was sentenced to nine years in prison, and her sentence expires on February 7.

She is currently held in a psychiatric unit in the Wellington region, but refused to attend her final Parole Board hearing in early December.

A written summary of the hearing, obtained by RNZ, said Abdille was still classified as high risk and has “said that she will attempt to hijack another plane and has threatened to set herself on fire”.

The decision noted no reintegration plan has been developed for the 42-year-old by the unidentified hospital she was held in. But it said “work is being undertaken by the hospital together with the [Corrections] Department about the best way of managing Ms Abdille in the future”.

The Parole Board went on to say hospital staff have “ongoing concerns about potential risky behaviour in the community on any release”. A 2014 report said Abdille had agreed to trial an antipsychotic medication, Clozapine.

It is understood Abdille, who is currently regarded as a special patient, will transfer into the mental health system on a compulsory treatment order (CTO) when her sentence ends next month.

That seems like the only safe outcome.