When Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation from the New Zealand premiership last week, she essentially admitted that her party has a better electoral chance without her. It’s not yet two years since she was on stage at an Asia summit telling Angela Merkel what a “very good person” she was. Karma has its ways and Merkel has been residing in the “where are they now?” file since the invasion of Ukraine cast a light on the dangerous missteps of (at least) her latter time in office.
Liberal-progressive icons have fallen thick and fast in the last couple of years, and even those who have showed more durability in power look bedraggled. Justin Trudeau is a survivor (into his third term), but this week his party leadership is on a retreat in Hamilton, on the Atlantic edge of Canada, to tussle with problems of dissatisfaction with the health service, cost of living pressures (ring any bells?) — and assess whether his minority government is stable enoughfor another election run.
