Former New Zealand PM likens her exit from politics to Nicola Sturgeon’s

The former prime minister of New Zealand has likened her experience of politics to that of former Scotland first minister Nicola Sturgeon as both have now left the profession.

Dame Jacinda Ardern, who served as New Zealand’s 40th prime minister and leader of the country’s Labour Party from 2017 to 2023, was speaking at the Glasgow Film Theatre on Friday evening after a screening of a documentary on her life as the nation’s leader.

Titled Prime Minister, the documentary featured how she dealt with the coronavirus pandemic, the Christchurch mosque shooting, and how she balanced leading the nation while just having become a mother.

The documentary was largely filmed by her husband Clarke Gayford, a broadcaster.

Following the screening, a Q&A session was hosted by Kezia Dugdale, who formerly served as leader of Scottish Labour.

Reflecting on the documentary, Ms Dugdale asked Dame Jacinda: “You conclude post-pandemic that governing almost became the easy bit, and it was the politics of politics that you found just unrelenting; just tired of it, and that’s actually very similar to Nicola Sturgeon’s experience.

“If you read her book, I just wonder, given two such strong female leaders saying that same thing, what can we do about it, or should we become more comfortable with the idea that people will come into politics for five or 10 years, it doesn’t have to be this life-long vocation like men did in the past.

“What should we take from that?”

Dame Jacinda replied: “It is so unrelenting that I think five years can feel like 10.”

She added: “You’re in an environment where the news will break in the early morning, you need a response by mid-morning, you need to have solved it by mid-afternoon, otherwise there’ll be that instantaneous reaction and then that demand for political responses.

“And so that makes the cycle that much more complex as well.

“I think that the issue I take with it is that when it’s just about the politics, sometimes you know that your time has been dominated on things that actually people don’t want you spending all your time on.”

Dame Jacinda concluded: “Not only was I spending all my energy on it, it wasn’t the right place to spend my energy. I couldn’t unshackle that.

“It was so much a part of the system, and I wonder if that was Nicola Sturgeon’s experience.”

Prime Minister will be released in cinemas nationwide on December 5.