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  • New Zealand Listener

    Jacinda goes the way of Churchill

    Jan 29, 2023 5 minutes

    How many New Zealanders, I wonder, share my deep disquiet, not at Jacinda Ardern’s not-totally-unexpected resignation as prime minister, but because she seems to have been driven from office by the growing torrent of abuse to which she was subjected.

    What has happened to Kiwis’ legendary tolerance and fair-mindedness – national qualities I have admired above all others in my near half-century in New Zealand, but which lately appear to have deserted some.

    For the first time, I am deeply ashamed of the behaviour of too many of my fellow Kiwis.

    At 86, my memories of prime ministers go all the way back to Winston Churchill in war-time Britain. He was rewarded for saving his country from Nazi occupation by being defeated in the postwar general election (many Londoners of my acquaintance referring to him as “a warmonger”).

    Ardern is now

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