Helen Clark in Europe
Our venerable leader has been pressing the flesh (and getting the flesh kissed) around Europe over the last couple of weeks, doing a bit of PR post-Iraq conflict to make sure that, should the USA get all sniffy with us over our lack of enthusiasm to join the 'Coalition of the Willing', we'd have a few old mates back on the continent that might be more responsive (and politically likeminded) to calls for some relaxed trade rules.

She really is rather good. While Bill English continues in his attempts to snaffle the redneck element of the NZ voting population away from the likes of Winston Peters (with his call for the abolition of the Maori Seats, and 'one standard of citizenship'), Helen has been getting on with the job of firming up our international relations at a time when some nations seem to have forgotten who their 'mates' actually are. Unemployment is down (indeed, the problem seems to be filling jobs), growth is good, the surplus is still there, other than traffic and continuing education and health issues, things seem to be as good as they've ever been down here in godzone.

Still doesn't stop her catching some flak though. The Guardian printed a story about the PM stating that Britain and America they might live to regret unleashing the "law of the jungle" through their war in Iraq. It was quickly picked up here by One News and the Dominion Post (funnily enough, the One News article, which ends up on the Nzoom megasite, has now been tagged as DON'T RELATE TO THIS STORY, but some stories are still doing just that). But good old Russell Brown over at publicaddress.net pointed out the PM never used those words (despite the quote marks), and that the whole story was something of a beat up from journos who should have known better. Russell also published an email from the original author of the Guardian piece here, in which the UK journos responsible for the initial muck-up come off seeming a little, uh, disingenuous.

Anyway, this entire post was kick-started by the amazing lack of coverage (other than the Guardian's 'jungle' piece, which probably only caused a ruckus back here in NZ) that Helen's visit has been making in the world media. Obviously, John Howard is grabbing some of the limelight with his stay at the ranch, and Dubya himself has upped the stakes of leadership photo opportunities with his shenanigans, but our PM's European sojourn has registered as but a faint blip on the mainstream world media's radar. Oh well. If the big newspapers aren't interested, then I'd be thinking the terrorist threats that occasionally hit the headlines here in NZ are more the work of bored, slightly sociopathic individuals, than actual, bomb-toting jihadists. Or that's the hope, anyway.
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