This is edition 2025/47 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Welcome back. It's 2025 and 20 years since I started writing about politics and anything else that took my fancy. Thank to my VIP members for making this site what it is today. In July we will be having a 20th birthday celebration. Stay tuned for more announcements.
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Luxon and Hipkins: assessing their leadership capital
Grant Duncan
- 📊 Leadership Capital: Both Luxon and Hipkins are in the low 20s in preferred PM polls, with unimpressive ratings from voters.
- 💼 Leadership Capital Index (LCI): A framework assessing leaders' performance using 10 factors like skills, support, and reputation. The index evaluates both objective and subjective factors.
- 🔴 Political Vision: Both leaders are rated 4/5, having presented clear and consistent political visions.
- 🗣️ Communication: Luxon struggles with inauthenticity (2/5), while Hipkins performs well as a communicator (4/5).
- 📉 Poll Ratings: Both leaders score 3/5, with Luxon at 3% and Hipkins slightly rising.
- ⏳ Longevity: Luxon has 2/5 for less than two years in office, while Hipkins has 1/5 for a shorter tenure.
- 🏛️ Re-election Margin: Both leaders had strong initial support, receiving 5/5 for large margins in party leadership elections.
- 📊 Party Polling: Luxon scores 2/5 with National polling lower, while Hipkins earns 4/5 due to Labour's increase.
- 🤝 Public Trust: Luxon’s trust rating is 37%, earning 2/5, while Hipkins scores 3/5 with 53% trust.
- 🔄 Leadership Challenge: Luxon faces a moderate risk of a leadership spill (3/5), while Hipkins has a low risk (4/5).
- 💡 Policy Influence: Both leaders score 3/5 for shaping their party's platform, though neither has fully clarified their policies.
- 🏛️ Parliamentary Effectiveness: Hipkins, with more experience, is rated 4/5, while Luxon struggles with coalition dynamics, earning 2/5.
- 🔼 Overall Rating: Luxon’s leadership capital is "politically weakened" (28/50), while Hipkins is "muddling through" (35/50). Neither leader is thriving, but both have potential for improvement.
