The biggest surprise announcement out of Labour’s conference last weekend was the proposal to establish KiwiAssure, a new state-owned insurance company. Speaking to his party’s delegates, opposition leader David Cunliffe argued KiwiAssure would inject more competition into the insurance market. Read more

Last week, just as I was about to board my early morning flight to Auckland, I ran into the US Ambassador to New Zealand. An ex-commercial lawyer, he is a witty and clever man who usually does not mind a joke. Read more

When it became known that the US secret service successfully tapped the mobile phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel, this made international headlines last week. Rightly so – but not just because this is the latest revelation in the wake of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing on the activities of the National Security Agency. Read more

When people meet under Chatham House rules, you cannot disclose afterwards who said what. That's the drawback. Read more

Can representative democracy survive the 21st century? According to Leon de Winter, the Dutch novelist and intellectual, the chances are not too good. Read more

Can representative democracy survive in the 21st century? According to Leon de Winter, the Dutch novelist and intellectual, the chances are not too good. Read more

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On Monday Europe’s statistical agency, Eurostat, published its official annual data for the European Union’s public finances. Superficially, there is at least some good news in the figures: the eurozone deficit for 2012 was 3.7 per cent of GDP. Read more

The European crisis plays itself out on different levels: some clearly visible, others less so. What dominated the headlines of the past four years was Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. Read more

When think tanks launch their reports, reactions are typically divided. Fair enough: our goal is to present innovative analysis and recommendations and trigger debates. Read more

A chameleon might blush with envy next to British Prime Minister David Cameron. Eight years after his election as leader of the Conservative Party, and a little more than three years since becoming Prime Minister in a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, Cameron has reinvented himself yet again. Read more

It is good to see housing high on the policy agenda. That is where it should be. Read more

For those who had hoped we might slowly leave the Great Recession behind, this week brought bad news on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, the government shutdown after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach an agreement on the budget. Read more

Following Germany’s federal election last Sunday, most international commentators concluded that Chancellor Angela Merkel has reached the zenith of her power. Her party won 41.5 per cent of the vote and missed a parliamentary majority by only five seats in a Bundestag of 630 MPs. Read more