Beware the Churchill effect
Will the Government’s bungling of managed isolation and border controls make Labour test negative to the electorate come September? Team 5 million got on board with the notion of being kind and compassionate under lockdown, and if there are no more major botch-ups, the electorate might find it in their hearts to forgive and forget.
For weeks and months, Jacinda & Ashley (Jashley), with their daily debriefs, were admired and adored throughout the land. With the exception of the adulation shown to sporting greats, New Zealand is relatively unaccustomed to hero worship.
The double act of a prime minister and a director-general putting a stoic, laconic – some would say, dour – nation into a collective swoon was a surprise to all of us.
The duo’s winning combo had woven themselves into our cultural fabric, and it came as a rude shock when the fairy tale ended and we discovered that our toothsome leader and her floppy-haired general didn’t actually fart rainbows.
Even though the prime minister repeatedly warned that the euphoric bubble from being Covidfree was going to burst and the disease would return, when it did, the nation was incensed by the slackness over quarantine at the borders. Just as well Jashley statues hadn’t been erected for they would’ve been torn down by the baying mob.
Suddenly the tight five million was being joined by returnees, who might carry the disease and could take us back to a Stone Age lockdown. Some of us felt suspicious and resentful of the Johnnycome-lately deserters, who, when it suited, had decided to return to Godzone to hole up in hotels at our expense.
With our low wages and geographical isolation, we weren’t good enough for the expats, then suddenly they couldn’t get enough of boring old us. Back here on the frontier of kindness and compassion, we were expected to be the bigger person, to welcome with open arms and be without shuns for the returned home.
The myth is that the brightest and the best quit our shores. When the cloud of Covid lifts, will they stay to fight the good fight, or rush back from whence they came? Those who remain will put pressure on the housing market with a rise in prices and rentals. But they have every right to be here.
With a superstar political leader at the helm, New Zealand has enjoyed the admiration of those living in countries that didn’t go hard or early and are now swamped in infection.
We watched in horror as the former superpower US and the ailing Atlanticist nation Britain, under the weak leadership of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, turned countries into failed states.
As the world order reshapes, those disillusioned with democracies have looked to New Zealand and the leadership style of Ardern. Our multi-geared Covid-19 levels system proved so effective it was shamelessly copied by Boris Johnson.
Jacinda, the great communicator and emoter, has an established international brand recognition, which will be needed for the economic recovery. In the aftermath of the mosque attacks, through her relentless positivity, we discovered the better nature of the angels in ourselves.
Todd Muller, a Johnny-come-lately to kindness and compassion, is an untried copycat and a dull alternative. Jacinda has cheer-led us through Covid and is ahead in the polls but could suffer the fate of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who successfully navigated Britain through World War II, only to be voted out in the following election.