New zealand

The key to the Union Sir: ‘Love-bombing’ the Scottish electorate with supplemental spending in devolved areas (‘The break-up’, 27 February) is unlikely to prove a decisive tactic in the ongoing battle over Scottish independence. It will never be enough, and the average voter will not distinguish Westminster spend from Holyrood’s. Neither should opposition to an independence referendum be the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party’s primary policy in the upcoming Holyrood election. Falling into the SNP trap of focusing on this issue allows the party to pursue its agenda of confected grievance and division. Secession is the SNP’s preferred battleground, not least because it permits deflection of their record in government.

If ever there was a moment to address the issue of home-schooling, it is now. The pandemic has disrupted teaching, school life and examinations in catastrophic ways. Many children will now never get the education they would have had. But every crisis is an opportunity — and this crisis offers the chance to reform education in radical ways for the better. Britain could learn a lot from New Zealand. Since 1922, the Kiwis have run a state-funded national correspondence school, known now in Maori as Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (Te Kura for short). In Western Australia, a similar school has existed since 1918 and is known as the

I was once invited to the Cheltenham races and found the experience underwhelming. Everything was too respectable: not nearly Hibernian enough. I had expected to see Blazes Boylan, Flurry Knox, the Joxer and Christy Mahon, propping each other up in a determined attempt to drink the west of England out of Guinness. The reality was much tamer. But there was one source of amusement. By halfway through the afternoon, undeterred by their skill in dispensing losing tips, a lot of my journalistic colleagues had become equine experts. The previous day, these chaps would not have known the difference between a foal and a fetlock. Yet here they were, insisting that

The killing of 49 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, was a very modern massacre. Pacing through the Mosque, the terrorist live-streamed his killings in the style of Call of Duty, with a head-mounted camera that allowed his viewers to see the world from his deranged point of view. The terrorist was the most loathsome kind of attention seeker, and to give him attention is thus to encourage other pathologically pretentious men to ape his crimes. Still, there are aspects of this attack that should be noted. Whenever a shocking massacre happens, we see different yet similar responses from the left and right. When a jihadi is the perpetrator, lefties

As New Zealand comes to terms with the most deadly terrorist attack ever carried out on its soil, leaders from around the world will be asking their security advisors whether this marks the start of an escalation of right-wing threats and whether their current strategies for defeating this form of extremism are fit for purpose. It has been obvious for several years now that far-right extremism has been growing across western democracies with social media providing the means for a new global connectivity between far-right individuals and groups. In the past three years alone, the UK has experienced two terrorist attacks carried out by far-right extremists (the murder of Jo

The extermination of every single one of South Georgia’s rats, for the sake of its birds, was confirmed at a press conference in London last week. A summer of searching with dogs and bait two years after the last poison was deployed turned up no sign of a rodent. This achievement is remarkable, not least because it was deemed impossible right up until it was achieved. It was a barmy idea, way out there, crazy, bound to fail. Like lots of other ideas. Maybe there’s a lesson here. The island got infested with rats from whaling ships centuries ago, and they soon exterminated endemic pintails and pipits from the main

Kingsley Amis said the most depressing words in the English language were ‘Shall we go straight in?’ — meaning no pre-dinner drinks. But for many of us it’s: ‘Tonight is the folklore evening.’ At any holiday resort in the world this signals a bloke with a balalaika and plump ladies in national dress giving it large with some traditional and intermin-able dance. Time to head for the bar. So let’s look at the ‘haka’, the preamble to any All Blacks rugby match, and now more or less any game on the current Lions tour. The Auckland Blues had knocked one up for their Lions game this week. It was called