FRIENDS TOGETHER

"Let's compare austerity policies!"

Jacinda Ardern laughs it up with some fellow warmongers and political centrists. She also manages to avoid talking to U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn...

WE SHOULD NOT be surprised that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern obviously enjoyed her time with some of her fellow representatives of the one percent. She certainly enjoyed a laugh or two with British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron. Of course, she would of already been in their good books for supporting the illegal military strike on Syria.

Not like old party pooper Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader and next British Prime Minister has described the military attack as "wrong and misconceived'. Ardern didn't quite get round to meeting her fellow Labour Party leader. Perhaps she feels they have little in common.

Being a fellow centrist, Ardern would of no doubt felt some sympathy for Macron who is presently trying to push through a neoliberal agenda and is being resisted by the French working class. On March 22 over half a million workers were marching in the streets. Perhaps Jacinda had a word or two of encouragement for Emmanuel.

She also laughed it up with another politician she has been likened to, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada.

When Trudeau's Liberal Party was elected in October 2015 hopes were raised that there would be new start for Canada under a 'progressive' federal government. But the opposite has proved to be true. Writer, activist and fellow Canadian Naomi Klein has described Trudeau as "the photogenic face of neoliberalism'.

John Clarke, an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty , writes:

'Justin Trudeau is the leader for the present round of Liberal duplicity. He has struck a pose of photogenic enlightened capitalism with considerable cynicism and, we may hope, with passing success.His progressive credentials are a sham and he represents everything in this society we need to fight and to defeat."

Clearly Jacinda Ardern  also has a natural and easy political affinity with Justin Trudeau.

But it took the incisive journalism of the NZ Herald to lock on to the really crucial issue - what Jacinda Ardern was wearing.  It announced that "Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's choice of outfit for a state banquet at Buckingham Palace has grabbed the attention of the British media." Important stuff indeed. 

Meanwhile Martyn Bradbury of The Daily Blog, who still claims to be left wing, has decided that this was a good week for the left because, wait for it, 'Jacinda + Clarke at Buckingham Palace trumps Key + Obama on the golf course.'  No wonder the readership of The Daily Blog is declining when this kind of nonsense is passed off as informed comment..