The royal wave

Former PM Jacinda Ardern departs with dignity while the mean Greens scrap among themselves.

- MICHELE HEWITSON

Once upon a time, the kingdom known poetically as the Land of the Long White Cloud was ruled by a kindly princess. She was empathetic and smart. She cared for all of us, for the team of five million. She wanted to save us from the hellfire and watery torrents of climate change. From the dragon's breath of a virus called Covid.

She had the requisite princessy flowing locks and air of optimism. She was lauded, mostly, throughout her land, but mostly in other lands. She appeared in prestigious publications and on American talk shows.

In 2020, Sam Neill, probably our other most famous New Zealander, told Time magazine that wherever he went, "People say, 'You think we could have Jacinda this week? Could we just borrow her for a while?""

She was on the cover of Time, of British Vogue. In 2021, a German magazine, View, put her on their cover with the headline: "The best politician in the world". There was no question mark.

She was photographed looking serene and yet strong, with her hair wafting gently and prettily about her face. She looked like the cover girl she was. The cover girl with power. And a baby. When she addressed the United Nations in 2018, Neve went along, too, another first - a baby at the UN.

She was mates with famous people, most famously with American talk show host Stephen Colbert. When he came to New Zealand in 2019, she picked him up from the airport and drove him to her place for an interview. There just happened to be a camera in the car - surprise! - which captured the pair doing a carpool karaoke version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Our princess was funny, and cool. Until she wasn't. When she quit her job at the beginning of the year, Colbert did a segment on his The Late Show. In her resignation speech she included an aside to her fiancé, Clarke Gayford: "Let's finally get married." Colbert offered to be their flower girl.