LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS

Jacinda Ardern's upcoming wedding may prove that she's not as popular as she thinks she is.

CLINT SMITH has been defending the good name of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. According to him the many stories about Ardern's upcoming wedding have been a media beat-up. In response to claims that Ardern will use her wedding to boost her stuttering popularity, Smith has tweeted 'Jacinda has done nothing at all to make her wedding a 'distraction'. These stories are coming from journos digging or others talking to media. Jacinda has repeatedly refused to comment.'

Smith though isn't a disinterested observer. He's Ardern's former Senior Policy and Communications Strategist. He's now Director of Wellington PR firm Victor Strategy and Communications. On its website we read : 'Our director, Clint Smith, uses his wealth of experience in the heart of politics and deep connections with the Government to get results.'

So its hardly a surprise that Smith should go into bat for his former boss. But his is a fallacious argument. What a Prime Minister does or say will always be of interest to the media. And this Prime Minister, in particular, has not been slow to exploit the media for her own benefit. Whether its appearing on the cover of yet another woman's magazine or laughing it up with Stephen Colbert of The Late Show, Ardern has been right in there -  ratcheting up her celebrity status another point or two. She knows it plays well in the international media.

Celebrities being clueless is nothing new, but Ardern must be especially clueless if she doesn't think her wedding will continue to be of intense interest to a celebrity-obsessed media. We've come a long way from 2017 when Ardern briefly hinted that capitalism wasn't working as well as it should to her wedding taking place on the lavish rural property of an American hedge fund billionaire. But the dodgy politics will continue to go uncommented on by a media much more interested in what Ardern will be wearing and who's on the guest list. Expect a whole lot of gushiness from the six o'clock television news bulletins on the day of the wedding.  

Already the media is salivating at the prospect of some juicy stories. The Editor of the Woman's Day told the ABC recently:

'All Black weddings, like Richie and Gemma McCaw or Dan and Honor Carter, have always been huge for Woman's Day, with people queuing outside supermarkets and dairies to buy their copies," 

'A leader who's been so popular locally and even captured the imagination of a global audience, it's going to be huge.

'And that's not to mention the fact the groom is a current TV host and former radio presenter. Add in Neve as a flower girl and it's a wedding made in Woman's Day heaven.'

While Ardern has proven to be an insubstantial Prime Minister leading a government intent on maintaining the neoliberal status quo, she is media savvy. Ardern knows too well, having lit the fuse, she can now stand well back and let an obliging media do the rest. And Ardern apologists like Clint Smith will continue to claim that any fracas surrounding her wedding is all the fault of those annoying journalists.

But we'll have to see whether Jacinda Ardern has overplayed her hand this time. Apart from the country's rich elite who have been the beneficiaries of the Labour Government's largesse, everyone else has mostly been doing it hard - as the long queues outside the food banks this Christmas have demonstrated yet again. The coronavirus pandemic has only intensified New Zealand's already chronic levels of poverty and inequality and this no-expenses-spared wedding may well be viewed as insensitive to the realities of life for many. Maybe what this wedding will prove is that Jacinda Ardern is not as popular as she thinks she is.