Ed Miliband has given fresh energy to UK Labour in opposition. Should NZ Labour be looking for something similar?
For the last day and a half I've been struggling to persuade "New Power Generation" - not one of Prince's best songs - to get the hell out of my head. It's all Ed Miliband's fault. He planted the earworm with the message he trumpeted in his first big speech as leader, to gathered party conference delegates in Manchester this week.
The PM's two words that brought his campaign to a thudding halt... and what it means for the next few days on the trail
As one colleague at the newspaper office I work in said, "I haven't seen so many journalists crowded around the TV since 9/11."
The British election race will be tighter than expected. And New Zealand may yet have a footnote in the outcome
Not long ago, they looked like they would walk it.
David Cameron has had four strong years. Now Gordon Brown is playing the posh card - and no wonder, it may just give him half a chance
It doesn’t seem that long. But David Cameron has now been leader of the British Conservative party for four years. And he’s achieved plenty. He has spruced up the Tory image, stitched up internal ruptures, and seen popular support climb and climb.
British film is reaping the glittering harvest of state-funded arts – and NZ politicians should be paying attention
Splendid though it was, Slumdog Millionaire slightly lost me when Jamal shouted “Lakita”, over and over, like a wimpy audition for Streetcar Named Desire. Hard to argue, though, that the film didn’t deserve its seven gongs – from eleven nominations – at the Baftas last night.
The NZ war hero behind the Battle of Britain has turned posthumous political peacemaker
Although he has not received widespread public recognition, either in Britain or his native New Zealand, Sir Keith Rodney Park has a claim to be one of the greatest commanders in the history of aerial warfare.
UK-based NZ voters have struggled to find more than a handful of mentions in the papers. And those were hardly helpful
I cast my vote in the New Zealand general election yesterday, by fax. No pilgrimage down Haymarket to New Zealand House this time – just log on, print off PDF voting form, tick boxes, struggle with fax machine, turn fax machine on and off, press send. Easy.
Gordon Brown stole a march by recalling Peter Mandelson. But he may yet end up regretting it.
That thudding? The sound of jaws hitting the floor. Gordon Brown’s reappointment of Peter Mandelson to his cabinet on Friday caught almost all of Britain’s political observers by surprise. Actually, scratch the almost: as far as I know no one picked it.
Gordon Brown positions himself as the experienced money manager
The great British political circus heads for Birmingham—the Venice of the UK, don't you know—for the final of the major parties' conferences this weekend. And there's a late addition to the schedule for Day One of the Conservative gathering on Sunday: a major, special session on the economy.
