This is edition 2026/148 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. Anatomy of a Failed Coup
Bryce Edwards — The Democracy Project
- 🧩 Day after Luxon’s second confidence win: Penk canvassed Stanford–Penk ticket (Stanford leader, Penk deputy); Bishop also in the mix. Someone talked to the Herald Monday night → Luxon hauled MPs to Wellington before numbers settled.
- 📉 Tuesday afternoon numbers firming for change; by ~8pm “defecting back.” Verbal assurances not written commitments; Stanford and Bishop competing, neither would go second. Hooton: five “villains” who’d rather stick with Luxon than not be PM.
- ⚡ Luxon forced confidence before challenger emerged — agitators unexposed. Penk sacked and quitting Parliament; Stanford/Bishop too big to punish. Competing accounts of whether Penk formally challenged in the room.
- 🎯 Takeaway: Luxon won the vote. Plotters lost the coup. National lost the week — wounded leader, disloyalty + incompetence stains on would-be successors.
2. Why Isn’t Labour Doing Better?
Bryce Edwards — The Democracy Project
- 📊 National just ate another leadership crisis; 1News-Verian still Lab 30 (−2), Nat 29. Luxon preferred PM 17–15 over Hipkins. Lab peaked Verian 37 mid-April → 32 June → still sliding. Why not +10?
- 🎯 Small-target/“Ming vase” after 2023 collapse made Lab electable again — not compelling. Ipsos: Lab most trusted on all five top issues; still can’t capitalise. TOP 6–8% with one clear idea (LVT + UBI). Combined Nat+Lab under 60% first time in Curia series.
- 💰 “Affordability” without banks/gentailers/duopoly fight. Coalition clarity ditch: three statements one afternoon on Opportunity/TPM. Starmer warning: win without mandate, then unravel.
- 🎯 Takeaway: unpopular PM ≠ policy. Blank-cheque politics is one reason voters are despondent. Sleepwalk into government — then what?
3. How to Win the Election
Liam Hehir — The Blue Review
- 🏉 Nat clinging to Key like Uncle Rico to 1982. Key at 45–47% with tame partners ≠ Luxon at ~30% dependent on Winston and Seymour. Market for “sensible people in charge” has shrunk.
- 🇦🇺 Model: Keating 1993 — not Hawke cosplay. Own the hard decisions; make the election about the alternative. Fightback!/GST → Labour’s 28% CGT on residential investment + commercial from July 2027 as the sun the campaign orbits.
- 🏠 Couple with rental; shopkeeper’s building; kids’ flat; bach — not bloodless “investors.” Every promise: how far must CGT expand? Defend delivery; end every speech like Cato on Carthage.
- 🎯 Takeaway: twelve weeks left. Long enough only if CGT starts now — not one Q+A item then move on.
4. I Took Bradbury to Court — and Still Want HDCA Reform
Ani O’Brien — Thought Crimes
- ⚖️ Civil HDCA application vs Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury — not criminal charge, not gagging political criticism. Interim orders: takedown + restrain personal harassment. He went full Shawshank/“prison for free speech” theatre.
- 🗣️ Affidavit and Judge Davenport: about sustained personal campaign across platforms, not opinions on her work. Netsafe first after he told her to go there. FSU Council member; Franks publicly non-support; she recused, didn’t stand down; term ends AGM.
- 📰 Anonymity → Streisand: Stuff filed as “FSU v Bradbury” with right file number, wrong applicant. She asked Court to name her. Fictional Ani (Doyle/Sherman myths) easier to hate than real one.
- 🎯 Takeaway: still wants HDCA reformed (truth defence, revenge porn/deepfakes). Experience proved bad law and weak protection. Law’s outer boundary; culture does the rest.
5. Harmed by Harm: How a Word Is Swallowing Freedom
Roger Partridge — Plain Thinking
- 📜 Ten ethnic/faith groups demand pre-election hate-speech laws after Tamaki “purge” posts (firearms licence already revoked). Greens yes RC; Lab “in due course”; ACT status quo; Nat Peace & Harmony Accord, no new statute.
- 📖 Mill/Feinberg: harm = setback to interests; offence ≠ harm. Concept creep (Haslam): distress → unsafe → “normalising” attitudes. HDCA already criminalises “serious emotional distress.” 2021–23 incitement bills died after 19k submissions.
- 🇫🇮 Finland: MP Räsänen convicted over 2004 church booklet — no violence, statements destroyed. Race/religion line: race isn’t a proposition; religion is. One NZ racial-incitement conviction since 1971 (1977).
- 🎯 Takeaway: ask parties what they mean by harm. Violence → Crimes Act. “Feeling hated” → blank cheque on liberty. Don’t re-enact blasphemy.
6. Form Guide: August
Liam Hehir — The Blue Review
- 📈 Curia Nat 31 / Lab ~28; then Talbot Mills Nat 29 / Lab 34 framed as sequence — survey windows overlap (1–4 Aug vs 1–11). Hipkins “overtaking” Luxon on preferred PM is apples-to-oranges; he’s led every TM poll for a year.
- 📊 Within-series story: opposition peaked early year, Lab eroding; governing bloc held by strong ACT/NZF not Nat recovery; unambiguous TOP surge.
- 🎲 <3 months out: knife-edge. TOP over 5% = kingmaker (Luxon ruled out — watch the bush-lawyering). TOP short → numbers lean coalition. TPM overhang = wildcard.
- 🎯 Takeaway: in three and a half words — it’s anyone’s game.
7. EV or Not EV, That Is the Question
John Raine
- 🔋 Oil spike briefly boosted EVs; restabilise and rethink. Battery energy density <2% of petrol — EVs ~500kg heavier. Payload/EI: ships/rail win; electric aircraft never significant; long-haul freight still diesel/HFO.
- 💸 TCO: crossover often needs home charge + subsidies; range fade, multi-k battery swaps, savage depreciation (Model 3 ~77% / 5yrs). Porsche killing Taycan focus. Hydrogen: costly, poor EROI unless subsidised.
- 🗳 ACT/NZF market-led; Nat 10k chargers by 2030 closer to Lab/Green subsidy-and-ban impulse. Lab/Greens ignore grid pressure solar/wind can’t fix. Gradual transition while tech evolves.
- 🎯 Takeaway: energy policy after Nov must be economics-first, not green ideology.
8. Will the Culture Wars Kill the WNBA?
Joe Nocera — The Free Press
- 🏀 Clark = Bird/Magic for a 30-year also-ran: sellouts, TV deal $50m→$200m, private jets, doubled ratings. Six weeks left in regular season — nobody talking about the money she minted.
- 📢 Subtitle flags Sophie Cunningham + trans sports as the distraction. (Full investigation paywalled.)
- 🎯 Takeaway: league sitting on a once-in-a-generation boom and doing its best to squander it.
9. Racism and the Left
Chris Trotter
- 🎤 Peters vs Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan (29 Jul) → Left/media demand sack for “character,” not structural analysis. Absurd ask: Luxon fire the partner keeping him in office.
- 📜 Old Left: contextualise prejudice (King’s forgiveness; CPUSA class division). BLM/Kendi era: only victims define antiracism; dispute = expulsion; two-minutes-hate without end. Kendi’s unelected Department of Antiracism.
- 🗺 Missing from Lab/Green/TPM critique: Asian share nearing Māori; Indo-Pacific briefings on Beijing say/do gap. Antiracist action = pull warrant — may be exactly what NZF wants (“woke establishment”).
- 🎯 Takeaway: punish-character politics may increase the racism they define. <3 months to the test. (First on The Good Oil.)
10. FBI Laptop Censorship Was Part of a Larger Partisan Op
Michael Shellenberger — Public
- 📁 ODNI docs: Dec 2019 FITF-R “Round River” — gather all derogatory CHS reporting on Joe/Hunter/Burisma/Ukraine and red-flag as Russian disinfo. One month after FBI already held the laptop.
- 📋 Spreadsheet of “conduits”: Giuliani #1; Grassley & Johnson #6–7; Jim Jordan #8. “Defensive briefings” to the senators investigating Hunter — then leaked. Same ecosystem as Twitter Files laptop censorship via Jim Baker.
- 🎯 Takeaway: not just one Post article — partisan framing of legitimate oversight as Russian ops while sitting on authentic evidence.
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