Chris Hipkins’ initial success as Labour’s fresh Messiah after Jacinda Ardern’s resignation in January has largely rested on the promise that his party’s focus henceforth would be on “bread-and-butter” issues such as the cost of living.
This recasting of a prominent member of Ardern’s close-knit kitchen Cabinet as a working-class hero (“I’m just Chippy from the Hutt”) was snappily summarised by the mainstream media as a shift from “woke” to “bloke”. But why journalists would promote that view is hard to understand given that even a cursory review of Hipkins’ role as Education minister makes it clear that Hipkins is an ideologue, of the intensely woke variety.
