THE PEOPLE ARE REVOLTING!

Jacinda Ardern has discovered that a lot of New Zealanders aren't interested in obeying her commands. 

JUST AS King Canute thought he could command the tides to stop, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been under the misimpression that she can command the Wellington protesters to go home. All she needed to do, she assumed, was to raise her hand and say 'Stop!'.

Even while the police have been scuffling with protesters, the voice of Queen Ardern has been heard above the ruckus, ordering her subjects to return forthwith to whence they came. 

Having the machinery of the state at her disposal and surrounded by politicians and bureaucrats whose function is to carry out her commands and tell her how great she is, means that Ardern rarely has to deal with flat out non-compliance to her commands. She lives in a cocooned political environment that breeds arrogance, like a virus.

While she would agree with her faithful deputy Grant Robertson that the people are indeed revolting, its still been a shock for Ardern to be confronted with lots of people who don't adore her. Obviously battling to retain her 'regality', she's looking strained and unhappy. No longer do we hear her waxing lyrical about her 'team of five million'. That's been replaced with angry talk about the 'disgraceful' behaviour of protesters and the prevalence of bad parenting skills among the serfs.

The failure of political leaders to recognise the political reality in front of their eyes until its far too late is a common flaw. This is a failure shared by dictators who send in the police and army to crush an uprising by the people who are supposed to love their 'leader'. This is  the failure of dictators who hurriedly pack their bags with cash and skip the country - usually in a helicopter - in order to escape the attention of 'the angry mob'.

But its also a failure of leaders in countries with greater democratic freedoms. So in Canada 'beloved' liberal hope, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has invoked rarely used draconian emergency measures to stop the protests by truckers. This has occurred after attempts to delegitimise the protest as the work of 'fringe' and 'extremists' completely failed. Much to Trudeau's chagrin, the polls have consistently shown that around a third of Canadians have been supporting the truckies.

Jacinda Ardern's attempt to delegitimise the occupation has failed as well and she's reminded of that failure every time she looks down at the occupation from the ninth floor of the Beehive. Surrounded by protesters, Ardern seems to be entirely unaware that her political authority has been much diminished.

But, in her defence, she's not the only one suffering such unawareness. Last Friday, a number of self-described Wellington community leaders signed a joint letter calling on protesters to go home. It was signed by the likes of Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, Green co-leader James Shaw and Wellington mayor Andy Foster.

But, five days later, the protesters are still there - strangely unimpressed that political 'leaders' like Grant Robertson and James Shaw have told them all to go home.