Recovering returning rider ๐ Snr lecturer. Journalist. SocMed protest. Brit/Kiwi. Science grad. Bridport (UK) Berlin, Auckland.
Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Joined October 2010
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Election night here in NZโฆ Labour making good gains but itโs too close for comfort ๐ค #nzelection
New Zealand election: Governing coalition loses parliamentary majority as Labour extends its national lead.
With 30 per cent of party votes counted, the National-led coalition has fallen to 65 seats in the projected 130-seat Parliament, one short of a majority.
#NZElection2026 #NewZealandElection
Labour now leads National by 7,696 votes, securing 29.9 per cent against 29.4 per cent.
National has lost 8.7 percentage points since 2023, while Labour has gained 3.0 points. The Greens stand at 14.0 per cent, New Zealand First at 9.4 per cent, and Opportunity at 5.4 per cent.
National still leads in 41 electorates against Labour's 21, but the parliamentary balance is now evenly divided, with 65 seats held by the governing parties and 65 by all others.
Live results: politiviewer.com/elections/nโฆ
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
New Zealand election: Governing coalition loses parliamentary majority as Labour extends its national lead.
With 30 per cent of party votes counted, the National-led coalition has fallen to 65 seats in the projected 130-seat Parliament, one short of a majority.
#NZElection2026 #NewZealandElection
Labour now leads National by 7,696 votes, securing 29.9 per cent against 29.4 per cent.
National has lost 8.7 percentage points since 2023, while Labour has gained 3.0 points. The Greens stand at 14.0 per cent, New Zealand First at 9.4 per cent, and Opportunity at 5.4 per cent.
National still leads in 41 electorates against Labour's 21, but the parliamentary balance is now evenly divided, with 65 seats held by the governing parties and 65 by all others.
Live results: politiviewer.com/elections/nโฆ
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Europeans ๐ช๐บ and Canadians ๐จ๐ฆ right now, watching the US midterm results.
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Austin Texas sounds like an Eastern European city that just overthrew a dictator
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Democrat Nancy Lacore, a retired Navy admiral who was FIRED by Pete Hegseth, is projected to WIN the congressional seat formerly held by Republican Nancy Mace, according to Decision Desk HQ.
Trump won this district by 13 POINTS in 2024!
Lacore, who served more than 30 years in the Navy and oversaw more than 60,000 sailors, campaigned against Hegsethโs disastrous Pentagon leadership and Trumpโs increasingly unpopular war in Iran.
Now sheโs headed to Congress after flipping a traditionally Republican district that had been gerrymandered to favor the GOP.
๐ฅณ
Democrats will retake control of both the House and Senate, CNN projects, winning significant power to check the White House for the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency. Follow live updates. cnn.it/4izI1xA
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Worth a read.
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
โAustralia without migrant workersโ
Who made this? ๐
Mandatory viewing for any fool who still doesnโt understand the implications of slamming the gates shut.
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Sure, this app hates me, but where else can you see a Ukrainian drone manufacturer trolling Russian internet executives after blowing up their data centers?
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Maybe have a look at the ๐ฎ๐น tyres spinning under this Cybertruck of yours. And while youโre at itโฆ
Look around. Every morning, millions wake up on ๐ธ๐ช mattresses. Coffee comes out of ๐ฎ๐น machines. A ๐ฉ๐ช aspirin after a long night, some ๐ซ๐ท moisturiser to look human again.
They lace up ๐ฉ๐ช trainers, check the time on a ๐จ๐ญ watch and grab phones powered by ๐ฌ๐ง chip architecture and built with ๐ณ๐ฑ machines.
On the way to work, playlists stream through the speakers courtesy of a ๐ธ๐ช service.
At the office, ๐ซ๐ท lenses get a quick wipe. Wireless headphones connect through a ๐ธ๐ช invention. At lunch, the chip in a bank card may well be ๐ณ๐ฑ.
By 3pm, some are already dreaming of a holiday. A ๐ซ๐ท๐ฉ๐ช๐ช๐ธ๐ฌ๐ง plane might fly them off for a well-earned change of scenery.
Europe. Apparently nowhere to be seen.
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
๐คก Eric Schmitt beclowns himself during Jack Smith hearing ๐คก
Schmitt concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory that Smith traveled to Atlanta to go to a Hawks game and collude with Fani Willis, and briefly displayed his "evidence" on a poster board before accusing Smith of perjury. There's just one problem -- Schmitt's facts were totally wrong. Smith was actually in Maryland at a Hawkeyes (not a Hawks) game and never met Willis. As Klobuchar told him, "You have your teams wrong."
Here's the whole deeply embarrassing sequence:
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
๐จ Posts on @X & Telegram have circulated names, photos, and at least one address of @RNLI crew from a recent Portsmouth rescue, leading to reports of intimidation and family distress.
Defective, radicalised, far-right men openly refer to these brave RNLI heroes as "traitors".
The X account below is run by Ryan Ferguson, a far-right shit-stirring "content creator" from the Liverpool area.
He uses TikTok and YouTube to spread his divisive hate, describes himself as a nationalist, and posts frequently about immigration, asylum hotels, and related protests.
Local reporting describes him as a former football hooligan with convictions including racially aggravated offences and wasting police time; he later became a visible figure at anti-migrant demonstrations in the North West.
These broken far-right men are already ruining lives: without urgent action, they are going to get someone killed.
It makes me fucking sick to see people like Zia Yusuf nodding along to what the organisers of these unlawful masked protests have got to say, while Rupert Lowe sings their praises.
What a fucking country we've become where senior political figures can normalise racism, use dangerously irresponsible dehumanising bigoted rhetoric almost daily, and praise intimidating masked vigilantes wearing militaristic uniforms reminiscent of Oswald Mosley's fascist blackshirts.
Did they learn nothing from history? Or are they themselves just bigoted, radicalised extremists who have far more in common with the actual Nazis than any of us want to believe?
Maybe Rupert Lowe, Zia Yusuf, Danny Tammo, Tommy Robinson and all the British far-right masked men blocking roads genuinely donโt know that in WWII, many British people and foreign-born allies died fighting against a regime which:
- embraced the ideology of ethnic nationalism
- treated migration as an existential threat
- pushed a story of national decline caused by 'outsiders' and a disloyal indigenous 'elite'
- claimed their own culture was superior to others
- treated ideological opponents as "traitors"
- scapegoated a visible out-group
- deployed street mobilisation to intimidate fellow citizens and force the stateโs hand
- had a stated preference for authoritarian order and expulsion over liberal democracy and individual rights
- embraced conspiracy thinking around race 'replacement' and who is 'really' opening the borders.
Sound familiar?
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
Since its foundation in 1824 the bravery of Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers has saved more than 146,700 lives at sea.
Hundreds of those volunteers have died attempting to save others. They are the best of us.
Any person or organisation questioning their actions or loyalty to this country should be corrected and ostracised.
Anyone can drown, but no one should.
rnli.org/support-us
Dr Louise Matthews ๐๐+ retweeted
American author Bill Bryson summed up the Britishness I admire, as shown by the RNLI. The haters are the traitors to our nation.
