How low can she go?

by | Apr 25, 2008


It’s not just Australia that’s been getting it in the neck this week, New Zealand’s PM, Helen Clark, has been compared to a cockroach by Hilary Clinton, in another deft display of foreign policy experience.

This from an interview with Newsweek:

You have any good jokes?
Here’s a good one. Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand: her opponents have observed that in the event of a nuclear war, the two things that will emerge from the rubble are the cockroaches and Helen Clark. [Laughs]

Ho ho.

Clark has been rather good-natured about the cockroach comparison, but less impressed by the reference to her being a ‘former’ Prime Minister. She advised Hilary to have a word with her husband:

As a current prime minister I spoke with him as a former US president in London only two weeks ago.

I wonder if Clinton’s got it in for other female leaders as well – or is it just Clark she doesn’t like?

Author

  • David Steven is a senior fellow at the UN Foundation and at New York University, where he founded the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, a multi-stakeholder partnership to deliver the SDG targets for preventing all forms of violence, strengthening governance, and promoting justice and inclusion. He was lead author for the ministerial Task Force on Justice for All and senior external adviser for the UN-World Bank flagship study on prevention, Pathways for Peace. He is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security, and the Energy Revolution (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). In 2001, he helped develop and launch the UK’s network of climate diplomats. David lives in and works from Pisa, Italy.

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