Episode 169: Jacinda Ardern

Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Kat Rulach

Kids & Family, Arts, Music, Parenting

4.8 • 527 Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dame Jacinda Ardern is the former prime minister of New Zealand, who was elected in 2017 and in post for 6 years.

In 2018 she became the second elected World leader to ever give birth. Her partner Clarke (often referred to as 'first bloke'!) frequently took on the role of stay-at-home dad. Together they took baby Neve with them to many important meetings, including the UN summit in New York in 2018, while she was still breastfeeding.

Jacinda told me she felt she needed to prove she could lead the country despite being a mother... and also show the world she was a mother, in order to be a positive role model.

Jacinda and I talked about the fascinating and intimate documentary ‘Prime Minister’ which will have its UK release on December 5th, in which we get to see behind the scenes both in government, and at home through videos shot by Clarke. It really brings a humanity to the role of leadership and this insight makes Jacinda’s style of leadership all the more impressive, modern and inspirational.

Jacinda really wanted to reiterate that she was lucky enough to have support, that she never did anything alone, and that we should not expect women to do everything on their own: ‘Yes, we can be wonder woman… but even wonder woman deserves a sidekick.’ She now still remains dedicated to helping encourage leaders to highlight their humantity by teaching empathetic leadership.

Special shoutout to her gorgeous children’s book, Mum’s Busy Work. It’s so sweet to see a lovely picture book for young kids where the mum works hard, yes, but it doesn’t mean she’s any less dedicated to motherhood. Cheers to that! X

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Sophia Lyspexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to
0:09.6	busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work.
0:14.0	I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16
0:19.6	years, so I spin a few plates myself.
0:21.6	Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself
0:26.6	and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything.
0:31.6	Welcome to spinning plates.
0:34.6	Hey, I'm back in London town. How nice. I'm speaking to you from home. I had such a glorious tour, but I can't lie, I'm so happy to be back.
0:45.6	And I've been doing lots of like, you know, organizing drawers and cupboards. And I went through all of my kids' books the other day since I got back on Thursday
0:54.9	just to kind of have that nice grounding feeling of being back in the house.
1:00.6	It was such a good trip though.
1:02.1	So since I recorded today's guest, which I did the week leading up to leaving to go to the States,
1:10.9	I've been to L.A., San Francisco, Vancouver, Mexico City, Toronto and New York.
1:17.1	And it's been absolutely glorious.
1:20.3	But I'm just saying it out loud actually makes me feel a bit tired.
1:23.9	And I got back on Thursday morning.
1:26.0	We landed at like 6 in the morning, so I got back in time to the school round, which is pretty cute. And I've just flung myself back into UK timings, UK routine, up at whatever time with the kids for school, that kind of stuff. I got slightly thrown out of whack yesterday, though, because we had a really nice day celebrating my fourth born's
1:46.5	10th birthday and yes that does mean i do need to update the little voiceover at the top of this
1:51.9	podcast i promise i'll do it for the next series i know i say i have five children aged between
1:56.6	16 months and 16 years i don't They're now between 6 and 21.
2:02.6	So just a teeny bit out of date.
2:05.1	But yeah, my fourth born has just turned 10.
	...

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