Women’s empowerment or what political scientists would call “another politics” can be tangibly historic, when not a topic of fashionable discourse at the centres for women’s studies. Rated very recently as the “world’s happiest country”, Finland, alone in the world, has now reinforced that happiness with a distinction that can turn out to be famously unique. First, the country is poised to have a woman Prime Minister in Sanna Marin.

While this by itself is not exceptional, the unprecedented feature is that at the age of 34, Ms Marin will become the world’s youngest serving Prime Minister when she is sworn in later this week. “It is heartening to see a new generation of women step forward to address some of the many challenges that we all face,” was her gracious response on Monday. Yet another remarkable facet of her appointment must be that she will be helming a coalition of parties led by women, indeed underlining the concept of empowerment of women.

In Finland, the Social Democrat follows in the footsteps of another young, progressive PM ~ New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, who was 37 when her Labour party won the 2017 election, and the first woman to give birth in office since Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. Ms Marin’s appointment must rank as the grand corollary of the women’s right to vote, which was granted to Finland ~ indeed, the first country in Europe to boast the privilege ~ in 1906. Ms Marin can be trusted to preserve the tradition of what the Left regards as “something akin to utopia”, indeed an example of what huge public spending can achieve.

Its wellfunded universal education system is among the most successful in the world. Between 2017 and 2019, it initiated the experiment in universal basic income. This summer a new left-leaning government pledged to make Finland carbon neutral by 2035 ~ a target accurately described by Finnish Greens as “probably the most ambitious in the world”. Ergo, the new PM has a rich legacy to sustain. No less a striking feature of the new government is that the four other parties in the new coalition are all headed by women, three of them in their 30s.

New Zealand has more than 40 per cent women in its House of Representatives (compared with 32 per cent in the UK’s previous Parliament). It is more than sheer coincidence that Finland and New Zealand, both rated as progressive in the era of the nationalist Right, have women in charge of governance. While Ms Marin will become Finland’s third female Prime Minister, Ms Ardern is New Zealand’s third. Just as Greta Thunberg’s leadership has given an impetus to the climate movement, it is heartening to see a new generation of women in government to address some of the many challenges that the world will have to countenance.