Ardern says she does not want to be PM

Stuff reports:

Labour’s rising star Jacinda Ardern says she is too “selfish” to want to lead the Labour Party – she’d rather have a private life.

In an interview announcing her new role as a Sunday Star-Times columnist, Ardern says people are wasting their time speculating about her as a future leader … she doesn’t want the job.

Winston also claimed for some decades he was happy to be the member for Tauranga.

The playbook is you deny any interest in the job, so that when you do stand for leader, you say that you do this reluctantly, and at great personal sacrifice, but your party and country needs you.

The latest 3 News-Reid Research Poll has Ardern at 4.2 per cent in the preferred prime minister stakes, fourth behind John Key (38,3 per cent), Andrew Little (10.4 per cent), and Winston Peters (9.3 per cent).

Ardern’s rise is as rare as it is meteoric for a lower-ranked MP.

What I can’t work out is if you don’t want the job, and your rationale is you want a private life, why do you do the multi-page spreads in the Women’s Weekly where not a word of politics is discussed, but it is all about your family, and partner?

There’s one way you could put the speculation to bed, and that is a Shermanesque statement, the short version being:

“If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.”