Tim Stanley is a former UK Labour Party candidate, and writer for The Telegraph. He reviews the recent autobiography by Jacinda Ardern:

Don’t read this book. You won’t, anyway: it’s by Jacinda Ardern. But if I tell you that it’s a memoir dedicated to “the criers, worriers, and huggers,” you’ll have an idea of the nightmare you’ve dodged. A Different Kind of Power reads like a 350-page transcript of a therapy session: “My whole short life,” the author writes, “I had grappled with the idea that I was never quite good enough.”

Regrettably, she persisted, rising through the two or three ranks of New Zealand society to become prime minister at the age of 37, from 2017 to 2023. And yet the practicalities of the job don’t interest her: this book hinges on how everything felt.

A fairly brutal introduction.

As for what drew her into politics: was it Marx? Or Mahatma Gandhi? Well, one influence came early on: she saw a newspaper cartoon of a Tory stealing soup from children and thought, “that definitely didn’t feel right.”

Few people know this, but this is factually correct. In the 1990s, teams of Young Nationals roved the nation breaking into the homes of poor people, and stealing soup from them.

she wants us to know, too, that she replied to every child who wrote to her

As did John Key, just that he didn’t feel the need to tell everyone about it.

By contrast, the anti-lockdown crowd Ardern describes protesting outside New Zealand’s Parliament, wore “literal tinfoil hats”, flew “swastikas” and “Trump flags”.

This is exactly how centrist dads (and mums) subtly vilify their opponents: set a perfect example and imply a comparison. I am so kind that anyone who disagrees with me must be nasty; so reasonable that my critics must be nuts.

There were a few fringe figures there, but the vast majority were just people angry that they had lost their jobs on the basis of vaccine mandates that turned out to be based on an incorrect assumption that they would stop transmission.

A poll of around a third of the protesters done by Curia staff found that 27% of the protesters were Maori (so unlikely to be Nazis!) and 40% of the protesters voted for Labour, Greens or Te Pati Maori in 2020.

Post-office, Ardern became a fellow at Harvard University, teaching a course in… you guessed it: “empathetic leadership”. The principle that the world would be a better place if we just empathised with each other is nice in theory, but codswallop in practice. How does that work with Vladimir Putin or the boys in Hamas? On the contrary, true leadership is about making tough judgments, guided by sound philosophy: St Jacinda bungled the former, lacked the latter. By reducing all government to thoughts and prayers, she transformed humility into vanity – a softly photographed carnival of her own emotions.

Ouch, and a final jab:

But there is one wonderful moment of zen. It comes when Ardern meets the late Queen in 2018, and asks whether she has any advice on raising children. “You just get on with it,” said the monarch. It must have been a put-down; it sounds like a put-down – and yet Ardern is too naive to notice.

The Queen of course became Queen at age 26, and had two children while in office.

Friends then ….

Elon points out the spending bill increases spending and the deficit and debt, not cuts it.

Trump attacks Elon. Incidentally Musk is on record numerous times saying he supports ending the EV subsidies and mandates.

Trump then says he wants to terminate all government contracts with companies owned by Elon.

Elon goes nuclear.

Elon has 220 million followers on Twitter and is worth around US$420 billion. This is going to be spectacular.

Stuff owner Sinead Boucher has sold 50% of Stuff Digital to Trade Me, which in turn is 100% owned by Apax Partners, a British private equity firm with around US$77 billion in assets.

Good on Boucher. I have no issue with foreign investment in media companies. The discipline they may bring to Stuff Digital could be very good for them.

In 2021, Stuff reported:

Stuff owner and chief executive Sinead Boucher is gifting a 10 per cent share of the media firm to the company’s close to 900 staff.

The stake in the company will be transferred to a trust controlled by employee representatives, rather than the shares being directly owned by staff members.

The arrangement means staff would receive through the trust a share of any dividends Stuff pays out, and 10 per cent of the sale proceeds if Stuff was later sold or listed, she said.

This never happened, as it was later modified to happening if any shares were sold or exited. Presumably this has happened, so we will see 10% of Stuff Digital transferred to a staff trust?

Radio NZ report:

After Boucher bought Stuff for $1 in 2020, she told staff that a 10 percent stake of the company would be put into a staff trust in the event that the business was sold or listed.

A spokesperson said that, while there was still some time until the deal was to be completed, it was Boucher’s expectation that a payment would be made into the staff trust.

A payment? Would it be a payment equal to one fifth of what Trade Me paid? Shouldn’t it be non-voting shares of 10% of Stuff Digital, rather than a payment? After all, that is what was promised?

Not counting students/families opting for private, state integrated and designated character school options – there are five major features of our current enrolment and attendance in the NZ Education system that need sunlight.

1. Enrolments in Te Kura (formerly the Correspondence School) are now at 31,000 – a 32% increase since 2018. The achievement levels of this school are very low with 8.7% of leavers having UE.

2. Our attendance statistics remain in an incredibly poor state:

– full attendance (90%) for all ethnicities in Term 4 2024 was 58%

– full attendance for Maori was 44.1%

– full attendance for Pasifika was 42.4%

3. There is a massive amount of students not enrolled anywhere at all …

“Figures released under the Official Information Act to Newstalk ZB show nearly 10,000 5 to 13-year-olds were not enrolled in the official school system as of 2022 – a significant jump from slightly more than 6300 reported in the year before.”

Please note that the figure is just primary school students.

4. Home-school figures remain very high.

“At the middle of last year there were 10,757 children in homeschooling, about the same as in 2023 and not much less than 2022’s all-time high of 10,899.

Prior to the pandemic, homeschooling enrolments were increasing by 200-300 each year and in 2019 there were 6573 enrolments.”

National are treating all of these problems with their heads in the sand and only making incremental changes that will have marginal effects – at best.

5. Retention until 17yo contiues to diminish.

In 2023, 79 percent of school leavers remained at school until their 17th birthday. This is the lowest retention rate since 2013. Retention of senior students has dropped 6.4 percentage points since the peak rate in 2015.

Alwyn Poole
[email protected]
https://alwynpoole.substack.com/

The House has voted to suspend Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke for seven days, Rawiri Waititi for 21 days and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer for 21 days. The punishment was not for doing a haka. MPs can and do do hakas. It was for doing it during a vote, preventing the House from concluding the vote – and also for crossing the floor to intimidate ACT MPs.

One thing I will almost guarantee – they will not do it again. A 24 hour suspension as Chris Hipkins pleaded for would be a zero disincentive. In fact it would be an incentive. They have never shown one ounce of contrition or apology. A 21 day suspension is long enough to be meaningful and deter them doing it again.

A Radio NZ Reid Research poll has found support for the Privileges Committee recommendation of a three week suspension for the TPM co-leaders.

The co-leaders forgot to turn up not only to speak in the Budget debate, but even to vote on the Budget. Really will anyone notice they’re not there for three weeks?

Anyway the net support for the suspensions (those saying too lenient or about right less those saying too harsh is:

• All voters +18%
• Nat voters +67%
• Lab voters -13%
• Green voters -59%
• NZ First voters +73%
• ACT voters +90%

A significant minority of Labour voters, 38%, thought the proposed punishments were too lenient or about right. This is in contrast to Chris Hipkins who said they should be for 24 hours instead of 21 days.

I am a resolute defender of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state (as are all two state solution proponents), and of its right to defend itself after the terrible 7 October attacks which saw civilians, women, children tortured, raped and murdered.

A huge amount of the criticism of Israel’s response has been hysterical and illegitimate. Those who label it genocide just wish to smear Israel, and make the Holocaust seem less uniquely evil. No country in the world would not respond with ferocity and military might to an attack like October 7.

However being a defender of the right of Israel to respond, doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything the Netanyahu Government does. While many of the attacks on the response are bad faith, there is considerable division inside Israel about whether the continued military action is a good idea. The way you can tell a good faith criticism from a bad faith criticism is often by whom the criticism is targeted at. If they refer to Zionists of the State of Israel, it is almost always bad faith. If they refer to the Netanyahu Government, then it is more likely to be good faith – recognising Governments take actions that not everyone in a country supports.

I am now one of those who finds it hard to see a coherent strategic end game from the Netanyahu Government. I can’t honestly say that I see a military strategy that will result in a safer Israel. Look there are no easy options. The longer the military action goes on, the more Palestine civilians get killed, and the more future terrorists you end up with. But leaving Hamas in power isn’t a great idea either. However the ratio of legitimate targets to collateral damage is getting uncomfortably high.

One solution I have been toying with, is to abandon Gaza entirely. Don’t just have one wall, but have a massive DMZ like between North and South Korea. Build two massive walls around a km apart, and have the space in between littered with mines so no attacks can be made through the DMZ.

This would mean abandoning the policy of allowing people to cross from Palestinian territory into Israel for work. It was a noble goal that boost incomes through employment, and working together would lead to peaceful co-existence. Around 200,000 Palestinians were able to cross into Israel every day to work. Peace through prosperity gas failed as a strategy though.

If Hamas remains in Gaza, you can’t have border crossings. So build a huge DMZ to secure Israel’s border with Gaza. Drop bombs on it every so often to take out any attempted tunnels. That will prevent another 7 October. Sure there may still be missile attacks from Gaza, but you just retaliate to those as they occur (as you do with the Houthi etc).

So I am no longer convinced that the current military strategy of the Netanyahu Government is justified. If 21 months of military attacks hasn’t got rid of Hamas, then how confident are you another six months will? Or another 12 months or 24 months? Do you have continual war?

But returning to pre-October 7 settings is not an option either. I think you need to be pragmatic and say that peaceful co-existence is off the agenda for decades. Therefore Israel should effectively recognise Gaza as part of a Palestinian State, and build a huge DMZ to prevent any crossings between Israel and Gaza. This is not an ideal solution, but it works in Korea and has kept the peace for decades.

Stuff reported:

In July 2024 Zara*, a Wellington sex worker, had a sickening realisation when her client went to shower at the beginning of their session: his phone’s voice recorder was allegedly activated.

That client was Michael Forbes, who at the time was press secretary to Minister for Social Development Louise Upston, a former Minister for Women. In February this year he was appointed acting deputy chief press secretary to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Asked why it was decided no charges would be laid, Wellington District Manager Criminal Investigations, Detective Inspector John Van Den Heuvel, said, “ Police received a complaint from a Wellington brothel in July last year, after a client was found to have concerning images and recordings on his phone.

While the law may not have been broken, it is of course morally wrong to record someone having sex without their consent – even if it is audio, not video.

It is good that the Prime Minister acted so decisively, with Forbes exiting his role within hours of the PM being informed of what happened.

The bigger issue is why the Police didn’t notify the Beehive last July, as they should under the No Surprises policy. A press secretary for a front bench Minister under police investigation definitely is the sort of thing that should be notified to the Minister of Police.

A reader has read Jacinda Ardern’s autobiography and sent in this book review of it:

Jacinda Ardern has bestowed upon the nation a gift – a memoir as warm as a winter sunrise and just as forgiving of shadows. Every page hums with kindness, the quality that first sent global headlines floating south across the Pacific.

What captivates is the considerate restraint. Entire policy battles slip past like polite strangers while budget lines stay unruffled and statistics remain at home. Ardern spares us the burden of numbers – empathy for those who deem arithmetic discourteous.

She prefers melody to measurement, and her speeches rippling through these chapters are silky and consoling. Outcomes make only cameo appearances, which feel oddly soothing. Leadership, we learn, is about tone, not toil.

That resonance endures. Corridors of Wellington still echo with her gentle cadence while Cabinets yet unborn prepare announcements that glide majestically beyond detail. The belief blooms that spirit alone will close deficit gaps, plant forests and build houses.

Any later occupant of the Ninth Floor will draw from this manual. Each may decide that certainty is overrated and that firmness of vision need never be encumbered by measurable plans. In this, the memoir rebadges itself as an evergreen field guide for administrations that prize applause above arithmetic.

Ardern’s handling of memory is equally elegant. Lockdowns become communal song sessions, quarantine queues a study in national patience. The months when vaccines waited fashionably offshore look like lessons in mindfulness, each omission glowing like a candle left intentionally unlit.

Readers hunting for a critique will find none, and therein lies the mischief. Such abundant praise inevitably frames the absent explanations. The kindness is infectious, the selectivity instructive.

A Different Kind of Power reminds us that feeling good is half the battle and often the whole campaign. Results may fade, yet moods endure. In celebrating that truth, the memoir offers a compass for every government bold enough to govern by hope alone, secure in the belief that smiles travel further than spreadsheets.

ABC reports:

It happens every week in Boulder, Colorado.

A group of volunteers from the Run for Their Lives organisation silently march through the streets to raise awareness of the hostages still held in Gaza. …

The FBI said the suspect allegedly shouted “Free Palestine” while using a makeshift flamethrower at a crowd of people.

So a group of Jewish Americans do a silent march every week to raise awareness of hostages, and an illegal overstayer attacked them with a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails.

How many pro-Hamas people in the West have been randomly attacked, and compare that to the numerous attacks on Jews who think Israel has a right to exist.

The Radio NZ Reid Research poll is:

Vote

• National 30.7% (-2.2% from March)
• Labour 33.2% (+0.9%)
• Greens 11.6% (+1.6%)
• ACT 6.6% (-2.8%)
• NZ First 9.1% (+1.9%)
• TPM 5.5% (+0.5%)

Seats

• National 38 (-10 from election)
• Labour 43 (+9)
• Greens 14 (-1)
• ACT 8 (-3)
• NZ First 11 (+3)
• TPM 7 (+1)

Govt

• CR 57
• CL 63

Preferred PM

News.com.au reports:

On Wednesday, Labor approved a 40-year extension of Australia’s largest gas plant. Newly appointed Environment Minister Murray Watt’s decision on Wednesday to grant approval for Woodside’s North West Shelf extension in Western Australia’s Pilbara has drawn praise from industry and unions and condemnation from conservationists and First Nations groups.

Mr Watt announced the long-awaited call on the North West Shelf gas processing plant in Karratha, twice delayed by former Minister Tanya Plibersek in Labor’s first term, allowing Woodside to extend production and supply the domestic market by another 40 years until 2070.

Australian Labor, unlike NZ Labour, recognises you need gas for secure supply.

The 1 News Verian poll is:

Vote

• National 34% (-2% from April)
• Labour 29% (-3%)
• Greens 12% (+2%)
• ACT 8% (-1%)
• NZ First 8% (+1%)
• TPM 3.7% (+0.3%)

Seats

• National 43 (-5 from election)
• Labour 37 (+3)
• Greens 15 (nc)
• ACT 10 (-1)
• NZ First 10 (+2)
• TPM 6 (nc)

Govt

• CR 63
• CL 58

Preferred PM

• Luxon 23% (nc)
• Hipkins 19% (-1%)
• Peters 6% (-1%)
• Swarbrick 5% (+1%)
• Seymour 4% (+1%)

Economic Outlook next 12 months

• Better 41% (+2%)
• Same 38% (-2%)
• Worse 21% (nc)

Sci Tech Daily reports:

Previous studies have consistently shown a long-term trend of mass loss, particularly in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, while glaciers in East Antarctica appeared relatively stable. However, a recent study led by Dr. Wang and Prof. Shen at Tongji University has found a surprising shift: between 2021 and 2023, the AIS experienced a record-breaking increase in overall mass.

This is very good news. This doesn’t mean of course temperatures are not rising (they are) and that sea levels are not increasing (they are, but modestly). But what it reinforces is the climate system is very complex, and we don’t understand all aspects of it.

So a very clear trend of ice loss from 2002 to 2020, and then an abrupt gain.

In terms of sea level, the melting ice was increasing sea levels by 0.4 ml/yr but since 2021 it has been offsetting any increase by 0.3 ml/yr.

The Ukrainian military have managed to take out 40 nuclear-capable long-range Russian bombers, representing a third of the Russian air missile carrier fleet.

The cost of the damaged or destroyed planes is estimated to be between US$2 and US$7 billion.

They were taken out by 117 drones that cost around $4,000 each, but not launched from Ukrainian territory. It was a cunning plan, that was 18 months in the planning.

The drones were smuggled into Russia in trucks and then placed into mobile wooden kit houses. The trucks went around 4,.000 kms into Russia and then the roofs of the kit houses were remotely retracted, and the drones took off and targeted planes at five different airports.

Slava Ukraini!

UPDATE: Further details are that the truck drivers were not Ukranians but just Russians who had been hired, with no idea what was hidden in the roof of the truck. Can you imagine their surprise when you’re driving along, and suddenly a few dozen drones blast off from your truck!

The full list is here. Titular honours are:

DNZM

To be Dames Companion of the said Order:

Ms Ranjna Patel, ONZM, QSM, JP, of Auckland. For services to ethnic communities, health and family violence prevention.

Emeritus Distinguished Professor Alison Stewart, CNZM, of Prebbleton. For services to plant science and the arable sector.

Mrs Catriona Ruth Williams, MNZM, of Masterton. For services to spinal cord injury research and equestrian sport.

KNZM

To be Knights Companion of the said Order:

The Honourable Mark Leslie Smith Cooper, KC, of Martinborough. For services to the judiciary.

Mr Brendan Jon Lindsay, MNZM, of Auckland. For services to business and philanthropy.

Mr Ewan Francis Smith, CNZM, of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. For services to Cook Islands business and tourism.

Now we have a final result for the Australian election, we can look at how the Australian pollsters did.

This shows the primary and then TPP vote for each pollsters’s final pre-election poll.

The final TPP result of 55.2% to 44.8% was greater than all the polls. Four had it 53 to 47, so were out by 2.2% only. Those most out on the TPP were Ipsos followed by Freshwater and Demos.

In terms of the primary vote, YouGov were closest to the Coalition at 31.4% to 31.8%. The most out went to Freshwater who had them 5.2% too high, and then Resolve at 3.2%.

For the ALP, Redbridge were only 0.6% out and Ipsos had them a massive 6.6% too low.

Four pollsters got the Greens almost spot on. The furthest out was YouGov at 2.4%.

And One Nation had Roy Morgan get them almost spot on, while Essential had them 3.6% too low.

If we look at how many results were within the margin of error for their sample size we have:

1. Roy Morgan 6/6
2. Newspoll, Redbridge 5/6
3. Spectre, Resolve 3/6
4. Ipsos, Freshwater, Demos, Essential 2/6
5. YouGov 1/6

And the average error for each pollster was:

1. Redbridge 1.5%
2. Roy Morgan 1.7%
3. Newspoll 1.9%
4. Demos 2.3%
5. resolve 2.3%
6. YouGov 2.4%
7. Spectre 2.6%
8. Essential 2.6%
9. Freshwater 2.7%
10. Ipsos 3.0%

As always you should never judge a pollster off just one poll. And all pollsters did get it right that Labor would win – but they all underestimated the degree.

David Seymour said:

Not only is our mission fundamentally hard, but sometimes we’ve made it harder than necessary. I hesitate to bring it up, but we’ve burned ourselves on one or two of our own brushfires along the way.

Our perk buster took a perk. Our tough on crime guy got convicted. Our leadership had a civil war. We were subject to an unconventional coup.

In 2012 I wrote an obituary for the ACT Party. I said:

Trauma surgeons at Wellington Political Hospital announced today that the ACT Party was judged clinically dead after succumbing to a grievous assault from Kim Dotcom.

Surgeons battled all night to save the political party, but the accumulated trauma from years of abuse meant that the patient was already in critical condition when Dotcom fell on it, crushing the remaining life out of the teenage political party.

I traversed their many challenges:

Stepdad Richard Prebble moved out, and Father Roger disapproved of Rodney, the new stepdad. They started to argue in front of the kids. Even worse, suave Don stole away ACT’s first girlfriend, so at age 12 ACT got reduced to two MPs in 2005.

Rodney and Heather just wouldn’t stop throwing things at each other. ACT didn’t even know who started the fights, but it normally ended up in the middle with the bruises to show from the domestic abuse. CYFS were called in, but the fighting and abuse continued.

A worse bruise came when Rodney and his girlfriend were playing with their model plane and it ended up scarring and concussing ACT. ACT’s friends say that ACT’s good looks never fully recovered from that. But worse was to come when David stole someone’s wallet and ID as a joke. It was no joke, when it turned out that David had done this before, and ACT knew about it and never told anyone. ACT got beaten up by all its mates at school for not telling them about this earlier.

Even at this stage, ACT had some hope of a normal life ahead. But then Don turned up again and told ACT that he was going to take over or he would beat ACT up so badly it would die. So ACT was forced to become friends with Don and Don then got ACT stoned on cannabis. Some kids can handle cannabis, but not ACT. It fell off a cliff breaking its arms and legs.

I concluded:

ACT’s friends are very sad at this prognosis. They recall the good times they had with ACT. They remember the good things ACT achieved. They don’t want to see ACT dead and buried, but they know that true friends don’t let mates suffer in agony. They know it is time to turn off the life support, and let ACT die.

ACT had got 1.1% at the 2011 election and only hing on with John Banks winning Epsom. They generally polled around 0.5% for the next three years and got 0.7% in 2014, again just winning Epsom with David Seymour as the sole MP.

2017 saw an even worse result with just 0.5%. The thought that in eight years time Seymour would be Deputy Prime Minister would have got you locked up in Carrington. And in 2018, ACT continued to poll under 1%. But in 2019 their support ticked up to 2% and just before Covid struck they even made 3.5%. Covid-19 saw their support drop back to 1.8% but then it climbed and by June they had hit 5%, then 6%, then 7% and got 7.6%. An amazing performance, and not a flash in the pan due to an election debate worm.

Then despite all those new MPs, the much larger caucus kept it together and as National has internal issues, ACT hit 18.5% in late 2021. They dropped back as National recovered but still went on to get an increased vote of 8.6% in 2023, and the coalition agreement that saw David Seymour become Deputy Prime Minister on Sunday.

I am very glad I was wrong in 2012, and it is a tribute to ACT and Seymour that they have gone from a 0.5% party to a major force in NZ politics.

John Tyler was born in 1790 – 235 years ago. He became the 10th President of the United States, yet his grandson has just died.

He had 15 children between 1815 (when he was 25) and 1860 (when he was 70). He was President from 1841 to 1845.

One of the 150 was Lyon Tyler who was born in 1853 (when John was 63) and lived until 1935. He had six children including Harrison Tyler who was born in 1928 (when Lyon was 75!) and Harrison died on 25 May 2025, aged 96.

So by having children at age 63 and then age 75 and then living to be 96, you have the grandson of the 10th US President alive until 2025.