Opinion Henry Cooke

Jacinda Ardern woke up one year ago today deputy leader of a flailing Labour Party. By the time she went to sleep that night she was leader of the party and well on the way to becoming Prime Minister.

Two nights before Andrew Little had done the unthinkable: spoke truthfully about his party’s failing fortunes.

In an interview with One News following a disastrous Sunday night poll that had Labour on 24 per cent and the Greens on 15, Little admitted that he had considered resigning.

‘‘I’d be lying to you if I said I hadn’t thought about that. In fact I spoke to senior colleagues about that,’’ he said.

Little said his senior colleagues had urged him to stay on. Indeed – it’s understood Ardern herself was one of those colleagues refusing to consider a ‘‘plan B’’.

But the next day, a Monday, a Newshub poll had confirmed the terrible numbers for Little. Labour MPs say nobody was doing ‘‘the numbers’’ but there were clearly phone calls – led by Kris Faafoi – about that ‘‘plan B’’ that were starting to happen.

The Tuesday morning caucus meeting became the natural deadline for Little to make a call.

We all awoke to plenty of signs that his leadership was on shaky ground, with reports of a no-confidence vote looming at the meeting. But Little confused the narrative a tad by telling a