I have just read Mike Munro’s article in the Weekend Herald. The thrust of the piece is about the hard yakka that’s about to hit Chris Luxon with the opening of Parliament this week. The big problem for Luxon, according to Mike, is that he’s going to face someone by the name of Jacinda Ardern in Question Time. I say ‘someone’ because I don’t recognise Ardern from his description of her.
Mike, a Labour Party hack of old, is very keen to bring up every negative fact he can find about Luxon to give the impression that the mission he has chosen to take will not turn out well. By contrast he barely refrains from painting Ardern as the best Prime Minister this country’s ever had while putting her at least on a par with Helen Clark. This is about as believable as Simon Wilson’s dreamy picture of a leafy tree-lined Dominion Road with trams running on grass.
Jacinda Ardern is no Helen Clark. Like Clark or not, she had real leadership skills that saw her run a very tight ship. She also had an understanding of business and the economy. You couldn’t, in your wildest dreams, say that about Ardern.
Mike’s first observation is that Luxon is National’s fifth leader in a tad over four years. He seems to have forgotten his own party went through the same experience during the Key years. According to Mike, Luxon spent the summer ticking off the soft media routines for new party bosses. Soft media routines are all Ardern does, period. She was unable to handle interviews with Mike Hosking so gave up on them like a coward.
Interesting then that Mike says in his article that Ardern goes to the debating chamber meticulously prepared. He says she has a formidable appetite for detailed information and an unmatched ability to communicate it. I’ll give him the last point but as for detailed information, give me a break. All we get is spin, lies and waffle.
Having worked in Clark’s office, Mike says Ardern absorbed the lessons, as her own performances in Parliament demonstrate. Really? This woman is a lightweight of the highest order. She only gets through Question Time through the protection offered by Big Daddy in the Speaker’s Chair, who continually lets her get away with not answering the question.
Mike compares Ardern, who he describes as an experienced hand, to Luxon, a novice. Ardern is certainly experienced at spin, obfuscation, theatrical stand-ups and dress ups for whatever the occasion demands.
Mike Munro painted a picture of a woman far removed from the reality. The Ardern we know is a control freak, has achieved very little, is doing her best to destroy the country and is smiling all the while. A woman who has gleefully used Covid for her own ends and has another eighteen months or so to continue her wave of economic and social destruction. Mike is her former chief of staff but obviously, blinded by ideology and philosophy, sees a different Ardern to the one we on The BFD see.
I think there is a better than even chance, when Luxon finds his feet, that even Big Daddy won’t be able to save her. The difference between Luxon and Ardern can be summed up in three words: the real world.
With inflation looming as a bigger issue than Covid, Luxon will turn out to be the Hosking in the debating chamber. She might be able to avoid Hosking in the studio but she can’t avoid Luxon in the House. There’s every chance Ardern is about to feel the blowtorch. Things are about to heat up.