Matthew Plummer 🇳🇿🇬🇧🇺🇦🌻🇮🇴

The last trolley bus service in Wellington – the No.3 to Kilbirnie. The end of an era.

Appeasement leads to wars. Corporal JD Vance should read his history and do his homework. He has never visited Ukraine and was wrong on his facts at Munich. 2/2

The best response to a bully is to stand up to them. The best thing for Europe and the UK to do is to step up, fund our security properly ( not with Treasury tricks and spin) and be prepared to use all means possible to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine. 1/2

The Chagos is one of the largest Marine Protected Areas in the world. Giving away sovereignty to Mauritius is a disaster for marine biodiversity. 50% of corals in their lagoons are destroyed by overfishing & pollution. The same fate now awaits this MPA in the Chagos archipelago

I looked at the Chagos Islands deal for @TheEconomist today and came out pretty concerned. Key points: — Mauritius' claim is quite flimsy — Ghastly exclusion of the Chagossians in this — Chinese spying gets easier — Foolish to trade hard power for soft economist.com/britain/2024/1…

Parliament must be able to scrutinise Starmer’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands — before a treaty is signed. I have written to @DavidLammy to request an urgent debate and a vote in the House on Monday. This surrender was not in the Labour manifesto.

The social democracy experiment of the last 30 years – bigger state, smaller private sector and high tax – has been disastrous Read the full story below ⬇️ #Echobox=1723969162" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/…

"British politics as we know it is broken. Here's how we Conservatives must rebuild it" I have a long essay in the @Telegraph today on what has gone wrong in how we run our country and how we can start to fix it: telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/… I argue that Britain faces a complex mixture of economic, governance, and values problems: the collapse of growth, the import of European-style governance methods, and post-modern anti-truth anti-free speech value systems. Changing this requires freeing up the economy on the one hand to get more growth, and redressing state weakness on the other. "The dysfunctional bureaucracy, the failure to deal with corporatism and rent-seeking in the privatised and quango state; the inability to enforce border control and even the decline in belief of its moral necessity, and the undermining of a British national narrative and the moral basis of the British state: all these have weakened the sense, perhaps more so than in any other major Western country, that the United Kingdom is a valid, properly controlled and effectively run nation state with a set of defining values worthy of allegiance." The Conservative Party is the natural vehicle for changing these things, but it has gradually lost its ideological coherence. "If it is to survive and prosper, it must find its centre of gravity once again and reunite around a set of core principles. And – crucially – it must require its candidates and members to stand by them." I finish by suggesting four such core principles for modern conservatism: the freedom to govern ourselves; the freedom to create, to protect, and to hand on; economic freedom, to generate wealth; and the freedom to speak freely. "All of us who want to see a political project based on freedom, the nation, and Western civilisational values need to come together to make it happen. Otherwise, the fraying project of British conservatism may continue to unravel painfully and, perhaps, irrevocably in the months and years to come."

Activist judges and unelected bureaucrats have twisted the meaning of our founding document to give different groups of people different rights. New Zealanders were never consulted on this. 🧵

International law is not sacred – but securing our borders is a duty. My column today is about the Channel crossings and blind faith in the ECHR: telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/1…

Lord Hannan discusses equality, the Treaty and the Taxpayers' Union in Wellington

Every occupational licensing body is exercising the State’s coercive power. So delegated Crown power is being used by these ideologues effectively to make our professionals lie to get/keep their jobs. Ministers control most Crown delegations. They should be targeted to stop this . In this case the Minister of Health. I’m drafting statute amendments to help negate such superstitious abuses of power for one profession. A successful model could be extended to others. If you want a model reform tailored for your profession (and you’re up for the fight) get in touch.

"Free"

Migrants can make their new countries a lot like the ones they left. This is why it's right we should be concerned about the numbers coming here, but we should also become radically selective about who gets to come here. My column today: telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/2…

What a way to win! Massive congratulations @PortugalRugby. A 24 team World Cup is a tantalising prospect.

🇺🇦 All of occupied Ukraine is within firing range of what has become Kyiv’s most feared weapon, and new missiles are on the way that will define the next phase of the war Find out more below ⬇️ telegraph.co.uk/world-news/sto…

In years to come, the question will be how HS2 budget jumped from £16bn to £100bn - and why no one pulled the plug earlier. These things CAN work. HS1 was on time/budget. Dittio LHR T5. But HS2 was a calamity.

Today’s decision on HS2 is the wrong one. It will help to fuel the views of those who argue that we can no longer think or act for the long-term as a country; that we are heading in the wrong direction. HS2 was about investing for the long-term, bringing the country together, ensuring a more balanced economy and delivering the Northern Powerhouse. We achieved historic, cross-party support, with extensive buy-in from city and local authority leaders across the Midlands and North of England. Today’s announcement throws away fifteen years of cross-party consensus, sustained over six administrations, and will make it much harder to build consensus for any future long-term projects. All across the world, we see transformative, long-term infrastructure projects completed or underway. They show countries on the rise, building for future generations, thinking big and getting things done. I regret this decision and in years to come I suspect many will look back at today’s announcement and wonder how this once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.

@Wellingtoncomm Let me guess the impact on my rates bill... going up? x.com/GeorgeKCampbel…

Following the announcement of the Town Hall's huge cost overrun, the Wellington City Council has just made a terrible decision in public excluded (vote: 10 for and 6 against). If the public knew the details of this decision they would be incandescent.

Wellington City councillors have met behind closed doors today about the future of the shut-up Reading Cinema building on Courtenay Pl, the Herald understands. @nzherald nzherald.co.nz/nz/meeting-hel…