Iron Ladies show their mettle

National Business Review

15 hours ago

Publishers have never under-estimated the appeal of prime ministerial memoirs, particularly if they are female.
A primary example is Margaret Thatcher, a conviction politician who revelled in her reputation as the ''Iron Lady' who resisted any concession to communism. In fact, the epithet was first used in a Soviet newspaper in 1977.
Thatcher pursued radical economic reforms and fought the Falklands War. She was tough on her cabinet colleagues and was 'not for turning' once she had decided on a course of action.
As a woman, she was also judged for her emotional quotient, being reduced to tears on occasions of national and personal tragedy, while showing courage after an Irish bombing attempt on her life.
Yet her period in power ended badly and Thatcherism is still a catchcry on the left for all of Britain's economic and other ills.
Margaret Thatcher, by Iain Dale.
A new biography, Margaret Thatcher, by Iain Dale, has just appeared, aimed at a new generation who were born after she left office in November 1990. Dale says he isn't trying to replace Charles Moore's magisterial three-volume biography or the dozens of others on her 11 and a half years as prime minister.
Rather, it was to explain those 'basking in the glory of her achievements, or formed in the shadow of her failures … [and] to bust the many myths that have grown up about her'.
Future task
That will also be the future task for political scientists and historians studying the phenomenon of Dame Jacinda Ardern, the third of New Zealand's female prime ministers.
Her autobiography, A Different Kind of Power, was launched globally this week, in the same way as books by the Clintons and the Obamas. The world's largest publisher, German-owned Penguin Random House, specialises in getting returns from million-dollar-plus advances.
It must be emphasised, despite the widespread publicity about the strengths and weaknesses of its insights into the local political scene, New Zealanders are not the book's primary audience.
Instead, it has been honed by a gifted communicator, aided by skilful editors and marketers, as an inspirational story about a woman's rise to international celebrity status and empathetic power from humble beginnings.
It's mainly a human drama with strong emotional content, sufficient doses of levity to keep you reading, and an uplifting message of self-help if you want it. Most book buyers are women, and many of them want to read a true-life story of someone who aspired to make the world a better place, while also raising a family.
The Ardern story is hard to beat in ticking those boxes. Two-thirds of the book is devoted to her rise to fame and overcoming the mental doubts of anxiety, imposter syndrome, and inferiority complex.
Early childhood
It starts with an early childhood growing up in a gang-infested forestry town, Murupara, that would rate among this country's worst. Young Jacinda and her older sister, Louise, had to be removed from the local school because of bullying.
Her hard-working parents moved on to dairying and orcharding in Waikato to supplement their incomes (her father was in the Police). They were unusual among other Kiwi families because of their Mormon religion, which emphasised family values and women's roles as mothers. They spurned caffeine and alcohol. (Mormon families are also required to have three months' supply of food, we learn.)
The outside world penetrated this life only through the six o'clock news. The Lockerbie bombing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the tanks in Tiananmen Square, and Nelson Mandela walking free from prison all made their mark on young Jacinda. She writes, in italics: 'The world is so big and life could be fragile, I understood. But not so big that one person can't do something to change it.'
Anecdotes abound through life in high school and university, as the 'political' Ardern takes shape through organising youth events, debating, and culminating in helping to run an election campaign for Harry Duynhoven, Labour MP for New Plymouth.
You can almost hear the intervention of an editor as Ardern is prompted, 'Tell us more about this and that.' She kept a diary, so readers learn about the boy who robbed the fish-and-chip shop where she worked, later turning up at a party that night; the tragic account of a teenage suicide; an heirloom violin that was lost in a swindle; a long-buried family secret; and, in a longshot coincidence, a boy from Murupara who played with the Ardern girls later turning up as a drag queen in Wellington.
Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark, posted on Clark's X feed.
Rapid rise
As they say, you can't make this stuff up. The Duynhoven campaigning was followed by an internship in Parliament and a rapid rise to working in Helen Clark's Office of the Prime Minister. Only in New Zealand, overseas readers might wonder, could a 20-something be so quickly employed by the country's most powerful politician.
This closeness to power proves too intoxicating. A brief interlude follows of an OE in London. Older sister Louise is already there, and Labour connections provide a public servant job advising on policy for Tony Blair.
A single reference is made to the International Union of Socialist Youth, where at 27, Ardern was elected unopposed as president for a two-year term at the world congress in the Dominican Republic in 2008. This should be big news but only her opportunity for travel is recorded.
Nothing is said about these travels to places such as Hungary, Jordan, Israel, Algeria, and China. That editor must have signalled – 'don't bother with the political stuff'. (IUSY has 122 leftwing, non-communist member organisations from more than 100 countries.)
The story moves back to New Zealand as Ardern's political career takes off, landing her 20th on the Labour list of candidates in the 2008 election, which Labour lost. She begins her parliamentary career in opposition, but that nosey editor ensures the boring stuff is left out.
The focus remains on the personal as the young politician begins dating on advice that she should have a life outside politics. Readers are introduced to the alpha male Clarke Gayford, who has a higher profile as a broadcasting personality. That changes when Andrew Little steps aside as leader and Ardern, deputy for just five months, is elevated just weeks before the 2017 general election.
Clarke Gayford, Jacinda Ardern, and baby Neve at the United Nations.
Worlds collide
The couple's desire for a family becomes paramount and the two worlds collide in a dramatic climax as Ardern learns she is pregnant on election night after years of failed fertility treatments. Again, you can't make this stuff up.
As coalition negotiations start on the formation of a Labour-New Zealand First Government, Ardern is chomping on water biscuits and salt-and-vinegar chips to stave off bouts of morning sickness.
Amazingly, her pregnancy remains secret from her colleagues and the Diplomatic Protection Service, who do not twig when they drop the couple off to a medical appointment, thinking they are calling on a friend with a bottle of wine.
The birth of baby Neve in June 2018 and the beginnings of motherhood are given as much prominence as other early milestones of the prime ministership. The visit to the annual United Nations annual leaders' meeting is a logistical nightmare if you are a breastfeeding mum, and Neve makes history as the first baby to appear on the UN General Assembly floor.
We are reminded of the editor's presence as a teenage infatuation with the 'Peace Train' song by Cat Stevens contributes another flukey coincidence – the appearance of Yusuf Islam at the We Are One memorial concert for the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
Only four brief chapters, out of 30, are left to cover subsequent events, including the most contentious period of Ardern's term as prime minister. This has disappointed reviewers, who note the lack of references to issues that saw a sharp drop in support for the Government after Labour's 2020 election win that produced the first single-party majority under MMP.
It comes as a surprise, in the memoir's final melodramatic reveal, that the resignation announcement on January 19, 2023, was partly caused by a cancer scare rather than not having 'enough fuel in the tank' to continue the onerous duties of public leadership and raising a family.
A Different Kind of Power: A memoir, by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin).
Nevil Gibson is a former editor at large for NBR. He has contributed film and book reviews to various publications.
This is supplied content and not paid for by NBR.