As someone who frequently takes a gander at his longtime blog, Bowalley Road, I had wondered if this was a permanent move, abandoning his blog:
Monday, 24 March 2025
Chris Trotter
is now on
Substack
visit him at
christrotter418256.substack.com
There have also been no further updates, including comments on this post or others, on Bowalley Road since then, and Chris has been increasingly slow on such in recent weeks, to the extent that some commentators have complained and said it’s not worth commenting further. Looks like that was the intention because another sign is that there are numerous articles on his Substack account since March 24 that are not matched on his blog.
There are also hints in his first Substack post, Red Flagged:
“Nah. Trotter’s not a right-winger. He’s one of those old-fashioned lefties marooned by the tides of history. He never signed on to the whole Identity Politics thing. I recall him being described as a ‘Marshmallow Marxist” – which was pretty apt. He’s an idealist, in love with the idea of revolution, but a good enough historian to deplore the reality.”
It’s probably a sensible move. Substack is more suited to long-form essay writing than blog platforms, with more control over the comments that perhaps don’t require him to be as involved in the approval of every one of them. As his blog says in the margins about the Bowalley rules:
The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.
So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.
These are based on two very simple principles:
Courtesy and Respect.
Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.
Anonymous comments will not be published.
Notably he doesn’t have to say that on his Substack account.
It does leave me wondering what will happen to blogs, given their uneasy balance between the short-form of social media platforms like X, Facebook and such, and the long-form of Substack? Perhaps blogs are simply out-of-date as they bridged both forms but not as well as either?
The fact that one can also earn money from Substack subscriptions has certainly tempted a lot of journalists to the forum from their dying MSM sites.
So, I guess I’ll have to update our links to Chris, and I’ll leave you with a typically Trotterish piece, Ring Around The Moon, about the day Norman Kirk died in New Zealand in 1974, with this as a nostalgic sigh of what the country was once like – admittedly something Chris has never recovered from:
I was just eighteen and the world was a beautiful place. Life was easy in the early Seventies. Wages were good and jobs were everywhere. It seems inconceivable now, after decades of structural unemployment, but all that thousands of young people like me had to do was buy a newspaper, pick up a phone, and there was a job for as long as you wanted it. We would work for a few weeks in factory, warehouse or office, until the bank balance recovered, or the boredom began to get to us, and then leave – just like that. It must have driven the employers crazy, but it was heaven for the young.
My Gen-Z kids also felt a touch of wistfulness in reading that, given their employment prospects in this nation – but they also dismissed it as the same sort of nostalgia they see about America in the 60’s from US Boomers.
No Minister 
I’ve always like Chris and reading his pieces. I may not agree with him about a lot of things but I found his views worth the time to read and think about.
It was interesting watching people like Bomber turn on him after the last election, accusing Chris of everything under the sun. The only reason I could find was that Chris was at least honest enough to say “hey, some of the reason that the left lost may have been our own fault”.
But like Bryce Edwards, the fact that he didn’t worship Saint Jacinda meant that he must now be a zionist/nazi/whatever.
As an aside I’ve noticed that The Working Group hasn’t been mentioned this year. I can only assume the Damien Grant and his friend that sponsored the show finally had enough of the hosts unhinged rants.
Hence my selection of the cartoon! 🙂
Re TWG: I had wondered what was going on but had not considered that possibility, not knowing anything about how it was backed.
Instead it looks like “Bomber” is going full on with Waetea? News, thus cuddling up to TPM and, I assume, trying to link them to the Greens as much as possible. I understand that he’s been good mates with John Tamahere and Willie Jackson for decades so there’s also that. Also they are pretty much the Far Left in NZ today, so from Bomber’s perspective it makes sense.
Yes I’ve noticed that he is on Waetea News as well, so I assume the reasons the you say.
And Chris just got a months subscription from me and I already completely disagree with his first article – but life would be boring if we all thought the same.