Caleb Anderson: Humility and the tyranny of certainty

Sometimes I wonder if the biggest problems we face in the West today are our lack of genuine humility, and our preoccupation with the pursuit of certainty (in the form of absolute conviction).

Is it possible that we have forgotten what humility is, and how elusive, and unwarranted, certainty can be (or necessarily is)?

Breaking Views Update: Week of 18.1.26

Sunday January 18, 2026 

News:
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei accompany America’s Cup to Italy
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei will accompany Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) to Naples, Italy, to attend an America’s Cup ceremony marking the next phase of the competition.

For more than 30 years, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei has stood alongside ETNZ as iwi manaaki, a relationship both parties say has contributed to the team’s global success.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Mad Miliband pushes ahead with Big Wind rip-off

UK

AR7: Miliband secures 8.4GW of new offshore wind

Hundreds of new wind turbines are to be built around Britain’s coastline after Ed Miliband awarded yearly subsidies of up to £1.8bn to green energy developers. The Energy Secretary has approved plans for six new offshore wind farms following an auction of renewables contracts known as Allocation Round 7 (AR7). He secured a strike price of £95/MWh (2026 prices). As one of the UK’s largest-ever subsidy rounds, the costs will be borne by billpayers over a period of 20 years under Labour’s plans to hit net zero.

Ani O'Brien: A week is a long time: 10 January 2026

Iran is burning and the world is hesitating

Iran’s internal crisis has moved into a phase of mass repression, with the regime responding to a nationwide uprising with lethal force and information blackouts. Human rights groups now estimate the death toll at more than 3,000. New Zealand has temporarily closed its embassy in Iran, relocating operations to Turkey.

Dr Noah Carl: Has Britain Shifted to the Right?

Since the 2024 election and the dramatic rise of Reform, numerous commentators have argued that Britain is ‘shifting to the Right’. And you can see where they are coming from.

Reform is the most right-wing party Britain has had since the BNP contested the 2010 election, and it has led in every single poll since April of 2025. Over the last six months or so, 30% of prospective voters have said they would back Reform — about 10 points more than have said they would back Labour, the next most popular party.

John McLean: Fonterra Fiasco Finale

My final chapter in a sad serial saga

This is my final Substack of a series I’ve published on the Financial Markets Authority doing nothing about behemoth dairy co-operative Fonterra deliberately cooking its financial books.

I’ve catalogued Fonterra’s gross financial reporting misconduct, and my protracted attempts to use the Official Information Act (OIA) to find out why the FMA let Fonterra off, scot-free.

Tim Donner: Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and the Domino Theory

The once-discredited hypothesis might be proving true – again

Those who lived through the horrors of the Vietnam War will remember the justification for American involvement in a conflict on the other side of the world. It was called the domino theory, based on the notion that communism in one country would trigger a chain reaction, toppling neighboring nations like dominoes. And while the theory has largely been discredited because it is so closely associated with a lost war Americans would rather forget, it is not without logic or merit. In fact, the domino theorists were eventually proven right after the US quit the war, as South Vietnam was swallowed up by North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos also went Communist, and Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines normalized ties with Communist China. History is replete with events of great magnitude in one country that, for better or worse, spilled over into other nations and regions. So, since Venezuela has fallen, Iran is falling, and Cuba may well be next, let’s consider whether a less regional and more global application of the domino theory could be in play right now.

Melanie Phillips: The high stakes in Iran

The stupendous courage of the Iranian people has inspired awe at this massive display of unquenchable human spirit. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian demonstrators literally walked into the guns in their struggle for freedom from the monstrous Islamic regime.

At time of writing, it’s unclear whether US President Donald Trump will come to their aid as he promised. An apparently planned US attack on Wednesday night was reportedly called off at the last minute.

Bob Edlin: McClay (a Vice Chair again) is braced for another bout of WTO talks ......

McClay (a Vice Chair again) is braced for another bout of WTO talks – but the future looks tariffying for free trade buffs

Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay is bound to have been chuffed at being appointed Vice Chair for the World Trade Organisation’s 14th Ministerial Trade Negotiation Conference, “for a second consecutive time following his role at MC13 in Abu Dhabi two years ago”.

Saturday January 17, 2026 

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Clive Bibby: A Leopard never changes its spots

One of the features of modern politics that continues to baffle me is the number of so called “authoritative” commentators who want us to believe past leaders have become reformed characters and are no longer a danger to the public health.

Chris Lynch: Web series gives voice to New Zealanders suffering Covid 19 vaccine injuries

A new web series is set to launch this week giving a platform to New Zealanders who say they suffered serious and lasting injuries after receiving Covid 19 vaccines.

The series called The Tribute, co-produced by award winning film maker Gaylene Barnes, will release its first episode on Thursday and focuses on the experience of Tauranga woman Ange, a former yoga teacher and rest home healthcare worker.

Ani O'Brien: RNZ’s X/Grok political hit job is not a child-safety story

X is simply the space the managerial class can't control

I want to preface this piece with a concession that RNZ’s reporting has improved a lot lately. Their articles are more fulsome and usually present a variety of perspectives. Their online written reporting is on the whole very good, but unfortunately their radio content is not and hiring John Campbell will make things worse. Private media companies like Stuff and NZME regularly republish RNZ articles to the extent that I wonder why the Herald in particular doesn’t fire all of their journalists and just syndicate RNZ content.

The articles I discuss here are not good examples of the quality of RNZ’s reporting. They are indulgences in reflecting the meta-narratives of the leftist managerial class.

JC: What Is It With the Left?

The moral is to never let the left near the levers of power, or disaster will surely follow.

When the left hold power, there only disaster, born out of ideology and ignorance. They don’t have a rational understanding of economics or wealth growing and their ideology has more holes in it than a watering can rose so the population gets hit with floods of legislation that only hinder and damage growth. This is apparent currently in the United Kingdom and in many American States.

Roger Partridge: The High Cost of Luxury Beliefs

Some ideas cost nothing to believe but a great deal to implement. Political commentator Rob Henderson calls them “luxury beliefs” – convictions that signal virtue among the comfortable while imposing very real costs on those with much less room to manoeuvre.

New Zealand, for reasons cultural as much as political, has become fertile ground for them. We are a small, highly educated country that prizes good intentions. Yet too often, the people who congratulate themselves for their ideals are not the ones who bear their consequences.

Sean Rush: No, the Supreme Court Didn’t Hand Climate Activists a Victory. It was an own goal.

If you’ve read the headlines about Climate Clinic Aotearoa v Minister of Energy, you might believe a group of law students marched into the Supreme Court and reshaped New Zealand’s climate policy. The popular narrative suggests a solid victory to the students, with reports that the students created new law, that climate is now a mandatory consideration when offering petroleum permits. But the reality is the decision lands as an own goal against climate activism.

Bob Edlin: What our PM and Chlöe Swarbrick have in common....

What our PM and Chlöe Swarbrick have in common – they are quiet about the protests and killings in Iran

It looks like Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick have something in common, when it comes to the issue of nationwide political demonstrations in Iran in the first weeks of the New Year and the Iranian government’s violent response.

David Harvey: The Maduro Indictment

Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela who was captured in a military raid on Caracas, faces charges in the Southern District of New York, where prosecutors have targeted him for years.

The original indictment was obtained in 2020 when he was first charged with narco-terrorism and other crimes. The indictment recently unsealed and which can be seen in full here says he worked with traffickers to send cocaine from Venezuela to the United States.

Melanie Phillips: Britain’s cultural emergency

A deadly combination of Islamist intimidation and indigenous cultural collapse is roaring out of control

There’s been deep shock that a Jewish MP, Damien Egan, was barred by a school in his constituency, Bristol Brunel Academy, from visiting it last September after being invited to speak there about democracy and public service.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, teachers and activists from the school and the National Education Union objected to him being given a platform on the grounds that he is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

The union wrote gloatingly in September:

Friday January 16, 2026 

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