Behind every good woman...

Babies are excellent. My wife had one. We still have it somewhere. Great fun. Sadly, my wife doesn’t run the country, because if she did she’d have a far better reason for not ironing my shirts than her current refusal on rather vague grounds regarding my ability to iron my own damn shirts.

Although not relevant to the great issue facing the nation this week, un-ironed shirts has been a source of tension in the Grant household for well over a decade. I’ve been steadfastly refusing to iron in expectation that the wife will eventually crack. Any day now. I’m sure.

So I feel for ‘‘Mr Ardern’’, whose shirts will go un-ironed, whose supper will go unmade and, worst of all, who’ll be stuck at home all day with a baby.

This is no trivial matter. I’ve spent the occasional day with the parasite and let me tell you, more than 20 minutes is excruciating for those of us not biologically equipped to cope.

I can describe my own experience as tears, excessive wind, more tears, vomit, inability to pass wind, diarrhoea, more tears, brief nap, constipation, more tears and more excessive wind. Although to be fair I’m like that a lot these days and the baby slept most of the time. But regardless, it was stressful.

Still, everyone is talking about the PM’s pregnancy. Excellent. Lovely. Must be positive. My editor says I need be on my best behaviour (which is a pretty low standard as regular readers will appreciate). This is brilliant news and we should congratulate Ardern, of course.

But let’s not forget the man at the centre of this. The gentleman who has brought our PM such joy and happiness and without whose support and partnership her success would not be possible. Behind many successful women there is an unsung gentleman and this special time will be a moment of great happiness and joy for him. Winston Peters has been a rock for Ardern and we should all be very happy for him.

Indeed, now Ardern has revealed she was suffering from morning sickness during coalition negotiations, Peters must be pleased to know the prospect of sharing power wasn’t the cause of her distress.

So, with the prospect of the government being handed into the gentle care of Peters, the nation (and Owen Glenn in particular) wishes Ardern a successful pregnancy, a noncolicky baby and a very speedy recovery and return to work.