Ian Taylor: What shocked me most about the fallout over criticising Jacinda Ardern

Thursday, 17 July 2025

Top businessman tells Paddy Gower he was surprised by the backlash to his open letter to Dame Jacinda Ardern.

This video originally appeared as part of Paddy Gower’s weekly show, The F#$%ing News. Watch or listen to the full interview at the bottom of this story.

Kiwi entrepreneur Sir Ian Taylor is standing by his criticism of Dame Jacinda Ardern’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Taylor’s open letter to the former prime minister prompted a furore and he’s been surprised by the backlash from some quarters.

But what shocked him the most was that none of the debate covered his criticism of Ardern’s wider record, and opinion that she failed in other key areas, including child poverty.

“Nothing changed, in fact it got worse. Nobody mentioned that. It was just full-on. You couldn’t attack Dame Jacinda.”

Sir Ian Taylor’s opinion piece about Dame Jacinda Ardern was published in early July.

The letter, published by Stuff, prompted a huge response from readers and much wider debate in the media.

Taylor wrote it not long after speaking at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19. He told the inquiry his offer of real solutions to handling the impact of the pandemic were dismissed by Ardern and her Government.

“The first response was the best in the world,” he told me. “What happened after that was what concerned me. [They] sat for 16 months and didn't get ready for what was coming and we tried to say, ‘It's coming, it will come across the border’.

Readers responded in huge numbers - with many defending Ardern.

“Nothing happened, and we ended up with an $8 billion Auckland lockdown that I believe didn't have to happen.”

Taylor is a global citizen. We spoke by videolink as he was travelling to this weekend’s British Open golf championship in Northern Ireland.

There’s been a lot of talk about how many lives were saved in New Zealand during the pandemic - but Taylor argued we’d been comparing ourselves to the wrong places.

Taylor was on his way to this weekend’s British Open golf championship when he spoke to Paddy Gower.

“We’re an island nation, we just locked the doors, we locked the gates,” he said. “It is really easy to just shut the borders when you're an island nation.

“So we shouldn't be comparing ourselves with Finland and Switzerland and all of those places.”

Taylor urged the inquiry to consider whether the response to any future pandemic should be managed from beyond the Beehive.

“I think the most important thing now is we should be thinking apolitically.

“The first recommendation I would make to the Commission is that politicians are probably the worst people in the world to handle a crisis like this.

“That's not just in New Zealand, it happened all over the world.”

Despite all that, Taylor said he would still love to sit down face-to-face with Ardern - and discuss his ideas for tackling the pandemic.

The businessman talks to Paddy Gower about the response to his 'Dear Jacinda' letter, doubles down on his criticism of the former PM's wider record and argues that politicians are probably the worst people to handle pandemic responses.

“I thought of all the people I knew in politics, that Dame Jacinda would respond to people who were saying, ‘we think we've got a positive solution’.

“I still believe we had a positive solution, and it's one that should still be addressed today.”

Check out more of Paddy’s great stories here. If you’ve got one, email paddy@paddygower.kiwi

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