Audrey Young writes: Sometimes it helps to see your politicians in action in order to judge whether they can be trusted.

Anything could happen between now and the election in eight weeks. That's what makes election campaigns so exciting.

The PM has a touch of the Dale Carnegie about him when it comes to international affairs. He knows how to win friends and influence people, writes Audrey Young.

Does NZ have an independent foreign policy? This week has felt a little bit Yes and No, writes Audrey Young.

The UN Security Council has not always adequately addressed some issues, says Foreign Minister Murray McCully, but it should be given time to show leadership over the Iraq crisis.

Rescuing the deal from a pitiful result is john Key's top priority for the trip, writes Audrey Young. Expecting a gold-standard deal is probably out of the question. But it could be much worse.

Getting a seat on the Security Council is not seen by many as a big deal. But it is, writes Audrey Young. And with the deteriorating state of relations among the five permanent members at present, it is an even bigger deal.

All weekend, Act supporters and friends of the Act Epsom MP were saying John Banks would "do the right thing", writes Audrey Young.

To understand the demise of Judith Collins, it helps to understand what a powerful role she has carved out for herself in the National Party.

Tiny parties are rarely in the spotlight and rarely get the chance to set the news agenda. Whyte squandered his opportunity, writes Audrey Young.

A bunch of colleagues from the Press Gallery yesterday were showered with a suite of insults by NZ First leader Winston Peters on his way into Parliament, writes Audrey Young.

John Boscawen took a risk in holding the meeting, writes Audrey Young. It might have been a miserable turnout but it was a respectable 100. It could have been disrupted by enemies outside the party, or even inside but it wasn't.

John Key this morning scoffed at speculation that National might consider any power-sharing arrangement with Winston Peters as though it were complete fantasy, writes Audrey Young.

National's decision to potentially work with Winston Peters and New Zealand First after the next election is not without risk, writes Audrey Young.

To understand Paula Bennett's value to the National Party, you just have to see how much Labour cant stand her.

Misery united Parliament yesterday - until politics intervened, writes Audrey Young on Greens co-leader Russel Norman's climate change speech.

Cunliffe implied that National's opposition to the policy is because it received big donations from the insurance industry in 2005, writes Audrey Young.

Apec's focus is trade liberalisation, writes Audrey Young. The East Asia Summit focus is wider; leaders will talk about regional questions of the moment, including security issues such as North Korea.

New Labour leader David Cunliffe received less than a third of the support of caucus when the votes were counted yesterday.

It has been a leadership not so much in decline, as never taking off, writes Audrey Young. Shearer was a risk his supporters thought worth taking in 2011.

Conference 2013 was meant to be the conference of good ideas. Political editor Audrey Young looks at whether it delivered.

The Herald's political editor Audrey Young says the Press Gallery hunts as a pack and panics as a pack during a quake.

There are three things John Key could do in the coming week to make the GCSB bill more acceptable than it is now, to the public and others, writes Audrey Young.

At the start of the week, I would have put Shearer's chances of surviving at 80/20. Now they would be closer to 50/50.

I'm not sure about the timing, but the day after Labour leadership coup rumours swept through Parliament, deputy leader Grant Robertson delivered a brilliant speech.

Most Western intelligence agencies had analytic teams that had developed whole disciplines around making sense of data, writes Audrey Young.

One can only hope that John Key doesn't run his Cabinet meetings the way he is running the Intelligence and Security Committee meeting, writes Audrey Young.

The Air Force kapa haka group and band spent several hours yesterday with a couple of schoolboy rugby teams in Washington DC.

It's usually the Terminator who says "I'll be back".