How we Australians love a winner. Especially if that winner triumphs against the odds. And so we celebrated wildly when the erstwhile captain, Ricky Ponting, dived across the crease to seal his first Test century in two years – an act of dogged determination that held the added advantage of figuratively raising a big rude finger to a legion of doubters who blamed him for the demise of modern Australian cricket.

"And a stunning ton for the former captain," KRuddMP tweeted.

"Talk about determination . . ."

Hmmm. He would say that. Not least, perhaps, as a former prime minister who'd like nothing more than to raise his own redemptive rude finger to those who blamed him for the demise of modern Australian Labor just a couple of years ago.

How sweet the comeback would be. And how utterly compelling for a generation of political junkies – raised on The West Wing and Primary Colors, nourished by The Thick of It and now delighting in The Iron Lady – who could never have conceived of such a real-life plot two or three years ago.

The key word in KRuddMP's tweet was "determination", a characteristic far removed from whether or not a potential leader is liked by their party or the punters.

Rudd has always intrinsically, intuitively, understood this about politics in much the same way as the prime minister he defeated, John Howard, always got it, too.

Rudd had never been liked in the Labor Party. Rather, from the time he entered Federal Parliament he made a leadership virtue of an almost inhuman capacity for hard work, a knack for publicity and the single-minded pursuit of high office.

The folksy charm belied an egomaniacal, obsessive ambition. Kevin Rudd had – has – the killer X-factor that ensured when his party became disenchanted under Kim Beazley, he would be in the box seat.

What Rudd never understood was the need to build bridges in caucus and across the union movement with the people who determined his prime ministership. Friends don't matter that much in politics. But alliances do. And alliances in government are built upon a respect and trust that a leader earns when he acknowledges and rewards the achievements and the efforts of colleagues.

Rudd's critical errors on policy would probably have been forgiven at such an early stage in his prime ministership had he been more inclusive and more tolerant of those he considered foolish (which was pretty much everyone else in the Labor movement).

The factional and union leaders who undid Rudd delighted in the demise of a man who had – in the words of one of them – "treated us all like shit".

Gillard, demonstrably unready for the job, gave caucus an immediate sense of Hawke-like consensus. Gillard has pragmatically built alliances across the Labor movement where Rudd did not. But now she finds herself hostage to them, with an unmanageable policy dilemma on asylum seekers and an unwieldy, bloated and deeply unhappy cabinet that looks set to rupture should Rudd challenge for the leadership this year.

A funny thing happened on the way to Gillard's late-2011 front-bench reshuffle.

It wasn't too long ago that Gillard and Bill Shorten utterly despised each other and when Kim Carr, so it was said, considered it his "project" to see Gillard as prime minister.

Carr, widely considered to have been a good Industry Minister, was demoted in Gillard's reshuffle while Shorten won promotion.

Carr and Gillard apparently fell out after Gillard junked the government's Green Car Innovation Fund, established under Rudd in return for the guarantee of a continued Australian presence from the car industry.

Gillard's was an act of unilateral bastardry that angered and shocked many in cabinet (and seemed more consistent with the I-know-best style of the Rudd government).

Rudd was notably swift, upon the reshuffle, to defend the legacy of Comrade Carr. There was a maxim in the parliamentary Labor Party that you should never make enemies of two people: the Victorian Right's Senator Robert Ray and the Left's Carr. Ray's gone, his power assumed largely by Shorten. Carr's factional eminence is undiminished. The implications for Gillard seem potentially profound.

Rudd has privately vowed no retribution against those who undermined him, if he finds ultimate redemption. Hard to believe, perhaps. Nobody doubts Rudd's determination – the quality he so admired in Ricky Ponting. But many would question his capacity for forgiveness.

Keep your allies close ...