Jacinda Ardern has been made a dame for her services to politics during the five turbulent years she spent as prime minister of New Zealand. An ‘incredibly honoured and very humbled’ Ardern was officially recognised by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle.
This week’s investiture came more than a year after she was first appointed a Dame Grand Companion in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours. That was four or so months after she abruptly stepped down from the position she had held since taking office in 2017 at the still-tender age of 37, later winning plaudits around the world for her leadership during Covid.
Ardern’s departure was anything but a career-capping swansong
Ardern had plenty of fans during her years in office, but towards the end of her term more and more of them tended to live abroad. Closer to home, her poll numbers became dire as the perception of telegenic style over policy substance grew. At the time of her resignation, she said she no longer had ‘enough in the tank’ to do the role justice and was departing the scene for the quieter life and the opportunity to spend more time with her family.
In the event, Ardern’s departure was anything but a career-capping swansong. Skilfully building on the international profile she fashioned during her time in office, she received dual fellowships at Harvard University and has enjoyed in-demand work on the North American celebrity circuit. She was also given a brief speaking spot in Chicago at the recent Democratic National Convention. Part of the reason she was not able to attend an investiture ceremony in New Zealand last year was because of this hectic international schedule, including a trustee role with Prince William’s own Earthshot Prize for which she was already in London this past week.
Most former prime ministers in New Zealand are knighted as a matter of course. The only notable holdouts over recent decades have been Jim Bolger, the son of republican-minded Irish migrants from Wexford, and another previous Labour leader, Helen Clark, a flinty social democrat who scrapped the titles altogether only to see them reintroduced almost as soon as she left office. New Zealand doesn’t have much in the way of cultural history to uniquely call its own and most Kiwis seem to rather like remaining plugged into the ancient British system.
Still, the timing of Ardern’s appointment was a bit unusual. The gong is usually not awarded mere months after a prime minister leaves office, since that would usually require the recipient herself to sign off on the honour. The investiture also comes as New Zealand is knee-deep in a wide-ranging Royal Commission of Inquiry into her government’s sometimes controversial response to the pandemic.
Initially, Ardern was widely praised at home and abroad for her perceived steeliness in facing down the contagion. But more than two years of draconian lockdowns and the near-complete shuttering of New Zealand from the outside world saw her self-styled ‘politics of kindness’ fall on decidedly fallow ground as her signature pearly-gated smile failed to work the popular magic.
The dissatisfaction culminated in an explosive three-week occupation of the grounds of Parliament by around a thousand protesters aghast at her handling of the crisis and the requirement for workers in many occupations to receive mandatory vaccine shots. The occupation later descended into running street battles between the campers and local police.
While the protest was forcibly ended, public sympathy for what spurred the campers was notably more open-ended; all the more so as evidence for the vaccine’s touted benefits in preventing transmission became evermore thin and local Covid cases multiplied apace. Shortly before signing off from her premiership, Ardern admitted that the final chapter in the viral saga had been ‘very upsetting’ for her.
All of this was a distant memory at the handing out of the latest accolade in London this week, of course. William pinned the honour on to the ‘incredibly humbled’ media princess’s sash after earlier praising his Antipodean ‘friend’ in an effusive Instagram post. Ardern says she intends to use her new status to ‘spread a little kindness’ in the next stage of a global career which obviously still has plenty left in the tank.
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