New Zealand

New Zealand sees the light on Aukus

10 February 2024 9:00 am

Thanks to Winston Peters

Has Bazball rescued — or ruined — cricket?

21 October 2023 9:00 am

Thanks to Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, English Test cricket has been revolutionised – at the expense of the gentle, contemplative game

How the National party toppled Labour in New Zealand

14 October 2023 10:42 pm

Just three years on from Jacinda Ardern’s phenomenal outright victory, New Zealand’s Labour government has collapsed, slumping to half its…

Diary

22 July 2023 9:00 am

When someone asks ‘How are you?’ you have to assume your interlocutor is only being polite. Anyone who returns a…

Jacinda Ardern was the queen of coercive kindness

21 January 2023 9:43 pm

Jacinda Ardern has resigned as Prime Minister of New Zealand. After a period of reflection over the summer break, she…

Must we now despise colonial architecture too?

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Here’s a thing. A disturbing book about disturbing cities. And it’s full of loaded questions. Like Hezbollah, the publisher uses…

Jacinda Adern’s tricky China policy

3 July 2022 7:00 pm

New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Adern, has had a busy week on the international circuit. On Friday she appeared in…

Jacinda Ardern is New Zealand’s Gorbachev

30 May 2022 11:00 pm

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is currently leading a trade mission to the United States, with a meeting between…

The danger of learning too much from Covid

21 May 2022 9:00 am

When Ray Bradbury was asked if his dystopian vision in Fahrenheit 451 would become a reality, he replied: ‘I don’t…

In Fortress New Zealand, faith in Saint Jacinda is starting to fade

29 January 2022 9:00 am

Faith in ‘Saint Jacinda’ is starting to fade

New Zealand’s zero Covid strategy is becoming unsustainable

22 August 2021 5:00 pm

New Zealand has done remarkably well over the past 18 months at protecting its citizens from the worst of the…

Putting the commie in committee

7 August 2021 9:00 am

Last month an epidemiologist called Professor Michael Baker described the UK government’s decision to free its people from Covid restrictions…

New Zealand’s worrying battle over transgender rights

4 July 2021 11:00 am

Last year, the equalities minister Liz Truss set aside laws which would have allowed people to self-identity as the legal…

A new take on New Zealand wine

3 July 2021 9:00 am

‘The doors clap to, the pane is bright with showers.’ With ‘summer’ determined to do its worst, there is one…

Laurel Hubbard is the beginning of the end of women’s sports

22 June 2021 8:33 pm

When women’s professional soccer was deemed good enough for our TV screens a couple of years ago, I was watching…

A novel approach to New Zealand’s wine

22 May 2021 9:00 am

The last Saturday of lockdown — inshallah — and we were discussing literature. Specifically, when does a detective story become…

The Australian trade deal is about more than just trade

19 May 2021 8:55 pm

What happens with an Australia trade deal won’t just reveal how serious this country is about free trade but also…

The strangeness of Britain’s BLM mania

24 April 2021 9:00 am

The conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd makes last summer’s Black Lives Matter mania in British…

Has the shine come off Saint Jacinda?

20 April 2021 7:47 pm

For a short time it seemed as if Jacinda Ardern, the popular premier of New Zealand, could do no wrong…

Why is New Zealand afraid of criticising China?

2 April 2021 2:27 am

It is becoming harder and harder to ignore China’s aggressive behaviour. As I say in the magazine this week, China…

Letters: The key to Scotland’s future

6 March 2021 9:00 am

The key to the Union Sir: ‘Love-bombing’ the Scottish electorate with supplemental spending in devolved areas (‘The break-up’, 27 February)…

What Britain could learn from New Zealand about home-schooling

20 February 2021 9:00 am

Britain needs a Kiwi-style national correspondence school

The myth of Saint Jacinda

6 February 2021 7:00 pm

Every time I read another excitable media article about New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, I am reminded of an…

Our recent stockpiling is nothing to what ‘preppers’ lay in store

13 June 2020 9:00 am

This book could not have been published at a better time — nor, in a way, at a worse time.…

The best New Zealand wine I’ve come across

16 May 2020 9:00 am

I was once invited to the Cheltenham races and found the experience underwhelming. Everything was too respectable: not nearly Hibernian…