Sir Elton John was asked if he could be any woman alive today, who would he be?
“John answered: “It’s hard to pick someone from today, because there are so many candidates, but I think I’d choose Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand. She’s one of the few politicians that I respect and love – she’s got dignity and she’s humane. I think she’s doing a brilliant job.”
John isn’t the first celebrity name to praise the prime minister. Ardern attracted admiration from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Russell Crowe for her response to the Christchurch mosque attacks.”
Stuff
Hollywood A-listers adore Ardern because she surpassed them at their own game of subterfuge. She is the epitome of the worldwide notoriety that they aspire to, and she achieved it by simply donning a head scarf and becoming the face of “world peace”. Naturally, A-Listers drooled.
Oh, the irony of political correctness pushing the Miss World Beauty Pageant off the world stage only to replace it with a politician doing the very same thing, granted Ardern wears more clothing.
Actors are chameleons, their success built on sham and trickery. Rocketman aspires to be Ardern because, in one fell swoop, she leapt ahead of Hollywood wannabes in the publicity stakes.
Naturally, Hollywood celebrities are not usually up to running a country, but neither is our celebrity PTPM. Non-delivery on promises and failure to perform eventually bites her at the polls. Diehard Labour voters will never abandon their princess, but there is only so much neglect even the most disinterested voter can stomach. The decline in Ardern’s popularity began last month when she took a tumble in the polls, dropping over nine points in the Newshub-Reid Research Poll. Note in Boondecker’s photoshop ‘Ship of Fools’ – shrunken ex punters awkwardly disembarking “let me out of here, anyway, anyhow!”
In reality, Ardern is little more than the carved figurehead on the prow of the old sailboat of yesteryear, decorative but completely useless at keeping the boat moving. The whole point of a boat is to go somewhere but Ardern bungles the navigation and abandons it in favour of the more comfortable figurehead role.
The carved figurehead was designed to bring good luck to the sailors and ward off evil spirits. There is a parallel between Ardern’s government and the superstitious sailors of yesteryear in that both are fearful of something that doesn’t actually exist, although they would like you to think otherwise. With sailors of old, it was the mythical sea monster and with the CoL it is climate change. There is an element of truth in each myth. A sea monster is a large whale able to sink the boat, and climate change is climate on a daily basis with the capability of sinking civilization. Irrational fear blown out of all proportion is superstition.
Adherence to the climate change myth is a step back to the dark ages. Ardern regularly bangs on about her “modern” approach but contradicts herself by imposing heavy-handed, controlling dictates. Fortunately for us, facts always trump superstition in the end. Patience, friends, patience.
Due to her fixation with appearance at the expense of managing the day to day minutiae of governance, she is inclined to drop the ball. On Monday night Newshub reported that Ardern intends to regulate social media, (God help us), and that the Minister of Internal Affairs has already begun the work.
Says Ardern: “What we are looking for here is just consistency, moving into the modern era, making sure our legislation’s up to date, aah, and that’s an area Minister Tracy Martin’s been working on” and “Minister Martin’s been doing some thinking and some work.” Blah, blah, blah.
Unfortunately for Ardern, Tracy Martin had not been doing any such thing, and immediately refuted Ardern’s claim saying “I’m not working in that space” and “It’s still a conversation to be had”. Even Ardern’s talk is unconvincing and meaningless without supporting action, but fortunately for us this is a welcome, albeit temporary, lifesaver. There is a silver lining to her inaction!
Ardern does not know what her government is doing because she does not pay attention. She cannot possibly be up to speed when her biggest chunk of time is spent in meetings, followed by time spent with the media, including photo shoots for glossy overseas magazines.
“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has released her diary as part of the coalition government’s promise of more transparency, showing what she does in her “ministerial” capacity.
And the first thing to note is that if you want to be Prime Minister, you don’t want to be afraid of meetings or the media.
According to the data released, Ardern spends 19 hours a week at diaried appointments; a third of those are meetings and a quarter are media interviews with outlets here and overseas.
By comparison, what we’ve called governance – cabinet meetings, Question Time in parliament and the like – amounts for just three percent of her time.
About 22 percent of her appointment time – or about four hours a week – is spent giving speeches or making public appearances.”
Radio NZ
Working on her public profile is Ardern’s bread and butter. Keeping the government accountable and on track is not. “Isn’t that what you have minions for?” she might as well ask. But if Ardern is not running the country, then who is?
