When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile in front of might one day go for the top job at the United Nations was unlikely. After spending the past couple of years stitching together a portrait of New Zealand’s fortieth prime minister, I’d be more inclined to ask: what took her so long?

Writing an unauthorised biography of any major political figure is a rum business. It’s rather like breaking into someone’s house and then tidying up the living room. My attempt to chart Ardern’s public life and her ‘politics of kindness’ led me helter-skelter through a maze of false starts, frequently contradictory anecdotes, and the occasional source who spoke as if they were auditioning for a spy novel. Among that last group, the possibility of

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