Rodney Hide: Reflecting on five years under Ardern

The column below, The Limits of Cleverness versus Capitalism, appeared in The NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW, October 27th, 2017. It is followed by a postscript.

I have concluded our new prime minister Jacinda Ardern is clever stupid.

She's quick, has good analytical skills and communicates well. There's no doubt she's clever.

But she's stupid on how the world works and lacks thought-through principles and values. She bobs along on feelings and sounding good and thereby perfectly in tune with a media that emotes rather than reports and analyses.