Jacinda Ardern’s disappearing act

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern bade farewell to parliament a few weeks ago. Ardern had resigned as PM in January, saying she no longer had ‘enough in the tank’ to lead the country. After half-a-decade in charge, and regularly feted on the world stage, Ardern has all but vanished as a ubiquitous figure of the age; but more striking is the extent to which her political legacy has, too.

So what has she been up to since? Ardern has been appointed a trustee of a Prince of Wales’ environment award, named the Earthshot Prize. The prize was created by Prince William to fund projects that, in a not-unimpressive mission statement, ‘aim to save the planet.’ On joining the board of trustees, Ardern said, in a statement that might have been generated by ChatGPT, she had believed in the prize’s ‘power to encourage and spread not only the innovation we desperately need, but also optimism’.