The big challenge is to articulate, both to the membership and the wider public, the shift in Labour thinking, mirroring much of what's going in UK Labour, writes Toby Manhire.

Wanted: allies for NZ's most popular political party. Neoliberal, neoconservative, Neolithic - anything considered, writes Toby Manhire.

Should you have missed any of the first week's cuddly contretemps, here, writes Toby Manhire, is a snack-sized digest of the candidates' pitches so far.

The alchemists in the National Party are at it again, turning a slap in the face with a snapper into a brave stand for ordinary, hard-fishing Kiwis, writes Toby Manhire.

Roughly 70 per cent of NZ exports come from primary industries, writes Toby Manhire. Fonterra alone is about 10 per cent of the economy. When the sector sneezes, the country catches cold.

How would these so-called experts feel if their attitudes paved the way for the extermination of all the world's kittens by masked terrorist gangs, asks Toby Manhire.

Those of us who had visions of a bristling, moody collision, something like that De Niro-Pacino scene in Heat, were always going to be disappointed, writes Toby Manhire.

What distinguishes this cartoon is its effort to get humour from a caricature of Maori and Pacific people as fat, greedy, selfish, alcoholic gamblers, writes Toby Manhire.

Over the next 18 months, expect to see Key, and David Shearer, too, hovering outside Peters' office, bottle of Scotch in hand, writes Toby Manhire.

The majority Australian-owned company will have a monopoly on casino operation in Auckland, writes Toby Manhire. It will be essentially impervious to regulation.

It takes a special class of sleep-deprived conspiracist to imagine John Key would have welcomed, let alone engineered, the Aaron Gilmore brouhaha, writes Toby Manhire.

Maurice Williamson was transport minister for most of the 1990s, a decade in which Auckland's reliance on road became entrenched, writes Toby Manhire.

Colin Craig is New Zealand's answer to Ali G, writes Toby Manhire. "Colin Craig" is a fictional character, a circus clown, a satirical device.

If the X Factor website were a contestant on a TV talent show, it would face a humiliating exit in the first round, writes Toby Manhire.

The emasculation of the news and current affairs department, the shrinking of current affairs output, the saturation of primetime with cheap reality dross, imported formats for local talent shows.

I'm determined to be first, and thus present: 2013 - the NewZealand political year in review, writes Toby Manhire.(Disclaimer: Here and there I've had to extrapolate.)

Watch as disgraced cyclist Armstrong loses himself in his host's deep, trusting eyes, writes Toby Manhire. Watch as the tears roll authentically down his contrite face.

For those who cheer the Prime Minister's common-man chutzpah number as many, if not more, than those who cringe, writes Toby Manhire.

Whatever you think of the man - like him, loathe him, or just bored to tears by him - Dotcom has been the news motherlode of 2012, writes Toby Manhire.

It is not the first time criticisms of New Zealand's environmental performance have been cast as treachery, writes Toby Manhire.

No one seems to think it worth reflecting on the ethics of a government cutting a deal with a foreign business to provide their customers with a visa short-cut, writes Toby Manhire.

I've counted more than 50 pieces this week on whether He Is Up To It, including those from the bloggers he assures us he doesn't read, writes Toby Manhire.

Almost a year later, another of the Prime Minister's high-level dialogues has been captured, probably by some intern or blogger, writes Toby Manhire.