Barry Soper: Best and worst politician of the year

So much has happened over the past year, it's difficult when you look at who performed and who didn't perform.

You'd have to say that on the performance stakes, Andrew Little is the politician of the year.

He was left with nowhere to go. The polls were against him and he knew that he couldn't take Labour to an election victory. He did the honourable thing and stepped aside.

Who was to know? I think he probably didn't even know himself that Jacinda Ardern was going to be so popular. He did the right thing.

The worst politician of the year would have to go to Metiria Turei.

Greens co-leader Metiria Turei, announcing she will stand down as leader immediately and retire from politics at the election. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Without her of course, this outcome wouldn't have happened. She threw that publicity stunt; went out and said she wanted to draw attention to poverty in July, and admitted to ripping off the welfare system as a solo mother.

Well it may have worked for the Greens in the very short term, they shot up to 15 per cent in the opinion polls, but it didn't work for them in the medium term.

Metiria Turei plummeted and was left with nowhere to go but to resign. But not before the Greens cannibalised each other. They were very lucky to make it back in to Parliament.

Now they are part of the Government, so they'll be happier than they thought they'd ever be with the fallout from Metiria Turei.

That's the politicians who were unfortunately put in the position that they should never have been in.

Everyone picks Jacinda Ardern as politician of the year. But she simply fell into the job and now she's really got to prove herself.