It’s payback time for voters
When the public are let down once again, where will they turn next?
Jacinda ardern
Monday
Thursday
New Zealand’s culture wars backlash
I’m in New Zealand on a speaking tour organised by the Kiwi Free Speech Union, and in some ways it’s like visiting Britain in a more innocent era. This struck me when I went on a tour of the Hobbiton movie set, where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed. The Shire of Tolkien’s imagination, lovingly created by Peter Jackson, is an idealised version of rural England – and New Zealand, with its perfectly manicured lawns and open-faced, friendly people, is a bit like that. Although, to be fair, I may be viewing the country through rose-tinted spectacles because Labour was heavily defeated in the most recent
Wednesday
Why New Zealand is cracking down on immigration
The new government now says it will be more rigorous in requiring greater levels of English proficiency
Saturday
How the National party toppled Labour in New Zealand
Just three years on from Jacinda Ardern’s phenomenal outright victory, New Zealand’s Labour government has collapsed, slumping to half its vote from 2020. It is on the verge of losing some of its safest seats and languishing behind in most of the Māori electorates. The centre-right National party has won, with Labour prime minister Chris Hipkins calling Christopher Luxon to concede defeat. The National party and its libertarian coalition party, ACT, are in a strong position to form a government, with Luxon, a relative newcomer to politics, becoming the country’s next prime minister. With more than three-quarters of the vote counted, Labour’s vote was a shade higher than 26 per cent
Thursday
Kiwis are tiring of New Zealand's blundering prime minister
A wider set of ministerial mishaps is forming in relation to his government
Tuesday
Saint Jacinda becomes a dame
Nominally republican politicians have a funny habit of dropping their values when the royal accolades come gonging in
Wednesday
Is New Zealand that bothered about becoming a republic?
Kiwis are wanly reticent and ambivalent about change
Sunday
Jacinda Ardern's disappearing act
Policies launched with much fanfare early in her tenure are being tossed out
Thursday
Sanna Marin and the female leadership myth
The notion that women make better political leaders than men is one of the two main shibboleths of present-day feminism
Monday
Why I’m sticking up for science
Air New Zealand think it a cute idea to invoke Māori gods in their safety briefing
Wednesday
New Zealand's PM is a welcome change from Jacinda Ardern
A bit more tedium at the top might not be such a bad thing
Monday
Will Christopher Luxon be New Zealand’s prime minister?
He has the greatest attribute a center-right leader can have in New Zealand: blandness
Saturday
Jacinda Ardern was the queen of coercive kindness
Jacinda Ardern has resigned as Prime Minister of New Zealand. After a period of reflection over the summer break, she concluded that she no longer had ‘enough left in the tank’ to do the job justice. Fakery wasn’t the problem with Ardern. Sincerity was Cynics claim she is jumping ship before the electoral defeat that opinion polls suggest she and her Labour party will suffer in October’s general election. That’s an unkind thing to say. It must disappoint Ardern that, after almost six years at the helm, New Zealand still contains such unpleasant people. If there is one thing that Ardern is all about, and to which she has dedicated
Why did Jacinda Ardern resign?
24 min listen
Kate Andrews talks to Fraser Nelson and the New Zealand based journalist and author Andrea Vance about the surprise announcement from Jacinda Ardern that she will be leaving the world stage next month.
Thursday
Jacinda Ardern’s tattered legacy
The outgoing prime minister leaves New Zealand in a worse state than when she took office
Wednesday
Harry and Meghan have put Jacinda Ardern in an awkward position
New Zealand’s PM has been put in an awkward position by the pair
Wednesday
Will New Zealand ever become a republic?
For several generations we have resided in a liminal, transitional space. We are a geopolitical gap year student
Monday
The shine comes off Saint Jacinda’s halo
Cast your mind back to 2020. Back then, in the dark days of Covid, a ray of light was apparently offered in the form of New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern. Here, we were told, was the shining beacon of hope, the solution to all our ails. A ‘zero Covid’ approach and a total national lockdown; closed borders and open hearts. Across the country Guardianistas gushed praise and oozed platitudes: here, at last, was the ideal model of a sensible, liberal, centrist leader. Fast forward two years and all that has now changed. First Ardern managed to irritate both right and left with her clampdown on immigration and complacency on China. Then she was forced to admit what
Friday
The death of political authority
We are facing a crisis in democratic leadership
Thursday
In Fortress New Zealand, faith in Saint Jacinda is starting to fade
Wellington Jacinda Ardern recently told an American television host that she finds it ‘slightly offensive’ when outsiders assume every other New Zealander starred in Lord of the Rings. Quite so. New Zealand has only one real film star in 2022, and that’s the Prime Minister herself. But the way things are heading, she might best suit an adaptation of Lord of the Flies. The place has gone mad. Many countries, even nearby Australia, have responded to the arrival of the Omicron variant by drastically easing many of their formerly draconian measures in response to Covid, in particular the widespread use of lockdowns, or what some might prefer to describe as
