Who is popular today?

Perhaps it’s an affliction of only the most able. Compare the records of New Zealand’s PM and some male leaders
By most standards Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand, has shown herself a competent politician. Notable achievements include winning two elections, demonstrating (since some men questioned it) that maternity is compatible with national leadership, and guiding her country through the shocks of the Christchurch terrorist attack, a volcanic eruption and now the pandemic. New Zealand, cautious from the start, is likely to end this year with 25 deaths from Covid, having apparently achieved this result without Ardern quietly enriching her friends or exposing her country to international contempt.
Compared, then, with prevailing British standards, her record is dazzling, or to render it into Johnsonian, world-beating. As Britons resign themselves to years more chaotic, divisive, corrupt, untrustworthy and fatally incompetent governance, Ardern’s period in office, while imperfect, has been good enough to win international tributes, including recently an International Activist Award whose first recipient was Nelson Mandela. Continue reading...