The next morning, all his media engagements were cancelled and Little flew back to Wellington to tell the caucus. Right up until the announcement, there was speculation about what he was going to do - very few people knew his decision.

And he sat back and watched as the election campaign took a dramatic twist.

He and Leigh spent a few days in Sydney with friends of his from university, a chance to get away from the inevitable autopsies and media storm. He was comforted by support from his family, including his twin sister, and close friends, and even kind messages from strangers (which still arrive in his office).

Back in Parliament, Little told caucus, nominated Ardern as his replacement, then fronted the media to announce his decision. And then he packed his office and, together with Leigh, headed home in a taxi, his personal belongings in a box.

But any impression that he was having second thoughts is incorrect: he’d woken up in the morning knowing that his decision the night before was right.

“I remember that being reported and I don’t recall the exact words I used. I definitely remember seeing Mei Heron and she button-holed me and stopped to talk to me. I don’t recall the precise words, I think I was probably thinking a couple of hours ahead about what I really needed to say at the crucial time.”

Asked about that during our interview, Little seems uncomfortable, indicating that he was trying to walk a tightrope at that time.

At the airport, he was met by RNZ journalist Mei Heron who reported that Little had said he wasn’t resigning.

The one thing that made his decision easy, says Little, was his confidence in Ardern.

“In all of this, and in the end the factor that got me over the line was my confidence in Jacinda Ardern to step up and do the job.” He’d seen her develop and was confident that she could campaign successfully and lead the country.

“She has amazing analytical skills in arguing about issues, to cut through and get to the core of an issue and focus on what’s important. It is decision-making, it’s judgment, it’s dealing with people including difficult people, it’s presenting and advocating to an audience or to a group.”

She also has the ability to communicate in the media, what Little calls the “magic” that he admits he doesn’t have.

So, he says, he was pleased when “Jacinda-Mania” took hold and Labour immediately rose in the polls.

“It was incredibly gratifying and satisfying to see that because I knew that that was not just a possibility but a real possibility. Of course that’s leavened by the, ‘Gee, that could have been me’. Of course that’s there, but yeah I guess there’s that thing about ego, you know.”

His wife, Leigh, has seen the emotional toll it took on him.

“It was really stressful, I felt really upset for him.

“It was a big role that he had, and obviously he had that ambition to be Prime Minister, not for himself but for the country and lead with the ideals that he had. And to step away from that and allow somebody else to do that, Jacinda - who is doing a great job, I might add - but to do that, on a personal level was really hard for him.”

She remembers on the day he resigned going in to help him pack up his office. “And gone before lunchtime is actually true, we were out that door by 2 with all the possessions gone and that’s pretty tough. He wasn’t crying but he was very withdrawn.”

But she acknowledges that, in hindsight, he made the right decision.

“They wouldn’t be in Government if he hadn’t have done that.”

Little is upfront about that too: without making the decision he did, he wouldn’t be in the position he is now, a Cabinet Minister with the heavyweight portfolios of Justice, Treaty Negotiations, Pike River, and GCSB and SIS.

It’s reward for his decision to stay in politics, and why he says he never considered “throwing his toys out”.

“I quickly got to the point where I thought, there is a contribution I can make. I kind of have to weather the ‘Gee he didn’t make it kind of commentary stuff’...but then I think you go back to the reason you’re there for.

“You know, [I] might not have made it as leader of the Labour Party but I still believe in myself enough to make a good and valuable contribution to the next Labour-led Government.”