Jacinda’s celebrity status overseas continues to grow. With her jaunt to Paris last week, where she tried to control the internet, she had lots of photo opportunities and took advantage of every one. The fact that her mission ended in the signing of a document that will make no difference whatsoever to terrorism or true hate speech doesn’t worry Jacinda in the slightest. The world saw her looking serious and concerned, and the photo opportunities were priceless.
Henry Cooke went with her to Paris, and it sounds as if it is the first time he has been overseas. In fact, it sounds as if this is the first time he has been in a big aeroplane. The media fawning over Jacinda is bad enough at the best of times, but for those journalists enjoying the perks of the job for the first time, she has reached cult status. quote.
Ardern is famous now. Take a random sample of people worldwide and I would wager more had heard of her than Scott Morrison, who was still Australian Prime Minister when I wrote this. end quote.
I have realised that the trouble with journalists is that they live in a bubble, but because they write for publications, they make the mistake of thinking everyone reads what they say. Hint to Henry Cooke: they don’t. Ask my family in the UK who Jacinda Ardern is. They really wouldn’t have a clue. quote.
Two hundred and fifty journalists from around the world were accredited to the Christchurch Call summit in Paris, and every one of them I talked to said Ardern’s presence had made the trip to come that much easier. To be sure, it is always newsworthy when Theresa May or Emmanuel Macron or Justin Trudeau does anything – but these people were in one room because of Ardern.
end quote.
This stuff is really getting silly now. What else would international journalists say to a boy from New Zealand who is clearly extremely wet behind the ears? quote.
Favourable overseas coverage tracks quite well with rises in her opinion polls, even long before Christchurch.
There will be a sizeable minority who feel Ardern is “milking it” but these are people who Ardern was likely never going to win over.
Stuff. end quote.
Ardern is milking it. Sure, I am no fan, but ask the striking teachers, or families with no housing security, or first-time buyers who were promised that 100,000 houses would be built. Some of them will have been ‘won over’ but by now they are realising that a prime minister who is more interested in her international rock star career, who drops everything and jumps on a plane the minute even a tiny opportunity presents itself, is not going to make their lives better, even though she said she would. Those people can vote for her, or not vote for her, unlike those 250 supposedly fawning international journalists that Henry Cooke spent time with.
The quality of journalism today is abysmal. With all information a click away, Cooke couldn’t even be bothered to update his fawning article and acknowledge that Scott Morrison is still the Australian Prime Minister, even though his victory was two days ago. I guess he is just keeping form with all of the other graceless socialists on this side of the Tasman who cannot be bothered to acknowledge it because Labor lost. Jacinda leads the pack here, and Cooke breathlessly follows.
I understand that these days, it is a public image that wins elections, but with leaders such as Ardern, Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, I am hopeful that voters are beginning to see the error of their ways. They need to.
We used to have a rock star prime minister, and his name was John Key. Sure, he had the presence and personality, but he also had skill and knowledge. He actually tried to make people’s lives better… not that he ever got much credit for it. Now we have an empty vessel that looks good on the world stage, but has nothing to offer.
You know what they say about empty vessels, don’t you? They make all the noise, but that is all that they do.