New Zealand has named a new ferry linking its main islands after Captain Cook — and told “snivelling wokesters” to accept the decision.

Winston Peters, the foreign minister, said those who considered the British Royal Navy officer and explorer to be a “harbinger of colonisation” should be more aware of the country’s past.

“A mature country does not run from its history. A serious country does not vandalise its memory to satisfy the latest fashion in whinger politics,” Peters told parliament in Wellington.

The other new ferry will be named Kupe, after the Polynesian navigator who first reached New Zealand, according to Maori tradition.

Read the full story at The Times