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What does the rise of Jacinda Ardern, 37, in New Zealand, and Sebastian Kurz, 31, in Austria say about public attitudes to youth in a leader, someone whose decisions have a material effect on national security and prosperity?
Perhaps only that voters in those countries believe their national security and prosperity no longer depends on their own leaders. In other words that it doesn’t much matter who is titular premier. Austria’s defence and security strategy seems anyway to be one of hopeful ambiguity. Since regaining sovereignty in 1955, the country has been constitutionally “permanently neutral.” Yet while Austria is not in Nato therefore, as a member of the EU she is associated with the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the aspirations for an EU army. As a member of the Eurozone, her prosperity is effectively managed by the ECB in Frankfurt, while the wealth itself is created smoothly by the Austrians’ own modified Germanic work ethic (It is no coincidence that their kaffe und kuchen is better than that of their larger neighbour, or that the Vienna Philharmonic’s playing is more pleasing than that of Berlin’s).
Chancellor of Austria? Anyone could do it.
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New Zealand may be a far away country of which we directly know comparatively little, but is the challenge of leadership that great? There’s little more that anyone could do to weaken New Zealand’s national security anyway, since Helen Clark, the then prime minister, effectively scrapped the air force in 2001. (The first “courtesy visit” by the new Chinese aircraft carriers will no doubt generate anxious telephone calls to Canberra and Washington). As for the economy, the OECD’s recent forecast suggests that “a strong recovery in business investment, ongoing strength in tourism and the recent increase in dairy prices should support growth.”
Prime Minister of New Zealand? No big deal.
But leader of big neighbour Australia, or in Austria’s case, Germany? That’s a different matter. And what suggests it’s a different matter is the age of their present leaders: Malcolm Turnbull, 63 yesterday [his birthday is Tue 24 Oct], and Angela Merkel, also 63.
Hearing truth spoken unto power
Perhaps that’s why, at 39, President Macron is so troubling, even though his wife is older than both Turnbull and Merkel. Within months of becoming president he managed to lose his chief of defence, Général d’armée Pierre de Villiers (61). Aristocracy and generalship have not always been a good combination – in France as well as Britain; but aristocracy has often proved more prepared to speak truth unto power. The former French chief’s full name is Pierre Le Jolis de Villiers de Saintignon. A French general with a particule speaking his mind to a president young enough to be his son: it must have been an interesting occasion.
Tony Blair’s former speech writer, Philip Collins, wrote a thoughtful piece in The Times on Saturday under the headline “Youth is no substitute for wisdom of age”. Although focusing on political leadership, Collins included some non-political reminders of youthful prodigy – men and women who did great things in their early thirties, including Claude Monet, Alan Turing and Marie Curie (though not, interestingly, Jesus Christ, crucified c. 33). Nor did he include any military leaders, such as Napoleon Bonaparte, who commanded the Army of Italy at 26 and became First Consul at 30, though in fairness, in recent times there have been few successful military leaders who were not in their late 40s or 50s.
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