I am sure Andy Burnham might be a nice bloke to have a beer at the pub with, but what a lightweight. He reminds me of the PlusNet bloke. "The Labour Party, we'll do you proud"
I may be being parochial, but for me he is streets ahead of any of the alternatives in the way he comes across. But as Mike and others have pointed out he's not an MP. That's a major obstacle.
I posted this near the end of the last thread; since I got no response, I thought I'd try again:
Okay, so Brexit is done. I'm putting my 'bloke on the Clapham omnibus who voted for Brexit' hat on and asking - what difference has it made to my life? I'm struggling. I'm aware of some downsides, though they don't affect me much. But what are the upsides? Okay, I hear that wages have risen in some, but not that many, low-skilled sectors, but that may be as much due to Covid as Brexit, and anyway I don't work in a low-skilled sector.
So a serious, genuine question. How has Brexit benefitted me, who voted for it? How has my government used these new freedoms/sovereignty to improve my life? If it was such a good idea, people ought to be able to answer this by now, with specific, tangible examples that affect me - but I'm struggling. Help.
Did you get your vaccine? Brexit benefitted you from not being locked into some half-arsed Euro arrangement. It quite possibly saved the life of a friend or family member.
Our being outside was also a spur to the EU to get their shit together. Having Brexit Britain jabbed up whilst the EU's citizens died created a political imperative to shift their arses.
If the Referendum had locked us into ever closer union, I strongly suspect the UK would have been closed down from helping Ukraine to the level we have. We would have been trapped into some EU-wide foot-dragging whilst Kyiv fell.
Plus - Nigel Farage is out of a job. His soap box taken away. Surely that counts for something?
1. I'd have got my vaccine if we'd still been in the EU.
2. Well done! Getting rid of Nigel Farage is a definite plus plus plus. Whether Brexit is worth it...
I think you need to go back and re-remember how the EU tried to fuck us over on vaccines.... Because we were making them look bad.
Macron commenting on the quality of our vaccine ring any bells?
Sure Macron's a bellend (something we all know).
I actually think that Brexit benefitted both the EU and the UK wrt vaccines. Our early outperformance led them to throw caution to the wind and make a massive Pfizer order. The consequence of which is that - after a rocky couple of initial months - the EU ended up performing quite well with vaccines.
In 'Guns, Germs and Steel', Jared Diamond argues (slightly speculatively, it feels, in contrast to the other far more convincing arguments about other geographies) that the reason why Europe has outperformed China over the last 500 years is due to Europe splintering into competing states and statelets. Unity is therefore not strength, but weakness, for unity leads to complacency and stagnation, while separation leads to competition. This would be an example of that.
And yet you’re a Unionist.
Well yes and no. I like Scotland. Emotionally, I like the idea of the Cairngorms, the Trossachs, Glasgow, Edinburgh, being part of the country that I live in. My early childhood holidays were on the Isle of Arran. And I have Anglo-Scottish ancestry. My great grandfather owned the first electric hoover in Edinburgh. Scotland is part of my hinterland in a way that, say, East Anglia or Oxfordshire - or, indeed, Wales - isn't. But rationally I'm a transactionalist, and the costs and benefits of the union are not entirely one way for either party. The biggest argument in favour I see is defence - Scotland's territory and England's money is a powerful combination and both would be substantially weaker against foreign (Russian) threats apart. But take that large but single element out and I think on balance England and Scotland could well both be better off apart, for the reasons we are discussing. I sometimes wish some parts of history had gone differently (The Act of Union? The reformation? The 13th century? The reign of Athelstan?) and the whole of Britain had genuinely evolved into one nation. But it didn't. Devolution is an untidy and unsatisfactory constitutional arrangement, but so was its immediate predecessor. I don't know how Wales fits into this. I find it hard to make an argument that Wales would be better off independent. And it would be untidy - despite the politics, North Wales is much better tied to the North West of England than to South Wales. But if the Welsh were minded to go it alone then I'd happily wish them good luck - the current arrangements certainly don't seem to to be working out too well. NI wouldn't be massively missed this side of the Irish Sea. So if I am a unionist I'm a fairly half-hearted and conditional one. The SNP isn't much to my taste. But its position on independence is pretty tangential to that.
There is not likelihood of Wales going independent
No, I don't think so either - but it always seems that Wales gets overlooked in discussions of the union; I wanted to be fair.
It is not likely anytime soon but then I do not see Scotland winning indyref 2 if it is held either
Scotland will vote no if a referendum is held during the current Scottish parliamentary term. Which will be 15 years-ish since the last one. And we can formalise the timings of another one if the people of Scotland follow their no vote with another majority of parties pledged to hold a 3rd vote.
But that only works if we respect the democratic mandate and hold a 2rd referendum. If we say no, then I can only see the support for independence growing. "You can vote for whatever you want but we won't let you have it" isn't a persuasive argument to maintain the Union.
What democratic mandate? Pro-referendum parties got ~7.3%(*) of the seats in the last election to the legislative body that can call a referendum.
(*) SNP - 7.3%. Not sure if the GPEW follows their Scottish sister party in calling for a referendum, or if PC or any of the NI parties have a position.
What democratic mandate? The biggest ever turnout The most votes ever cast for the SNP The most number of pro-independence MSPs elected (72)
I campaigned against the SNP. But I can't deny the size of their victory which has delivered in conjunction with the Scottish Greens a clear majority of MSPs elected on a mandate for a new referendum. I believe the correct phrase is "will of the people".
Sigh.
The reason for SNP preponderance is the split unionist vote. Even in the council elections just gone, more people voted for "unionist" parties. There is majority opposition to another Indy vote anytime soon, and all recent polls have put No ahead anyway.
No serious country can put itself at continual risk of dismemberment which was the reason for the Edinburgh Agreement signed by both Salmond and Sturgeon in 2014.
Sturgeon is just going through the motions demanding a ref in 2023. It will be years before there is another ref, if there ever is one. The rest is noise.
It will be Wes Streeting next, I would almost put my life on it.
You not convinced by the 'must be a woman' argument? I like Streeting and think he could do a job, but he runs the risk of William Hague Syndrome - reach the top too soon.
A rubbish article of which every word is wrong; who ever thought cocaine was an hallucinogen or that it was not known in the 1880s that opium and cocaine had deleterious side effects? And there's cocaine in coca leaves (it isn't sometthing which is synthesized using the leaves as a starting point, though the powdered form cocaine hypochloride is) so there's cocaine in coca cola made of coca leaves.
Sigmund Freud did a lot of cocaine in the 1880s. Given to him by Pfizer (!!) via an eye-surgeon friend
After initial approval he later speculated in his letters that it probably had nasty side effects and addictive potential
The cigars he smoked were worse. Gave him terrible cancers of the jaw
He also wrote the following which suggests that whether it is was harmful or not was certainly a matter of debate at the time.
"Exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person. You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work. In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug. Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue. This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcoholic beverages. No craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug."
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The Americans have a version (judging by all the hotels I recently visited in the Deep South) but the coffee it produces is grim. Almost as bad as instant
I posted this near the end of the last thread; since I got no response, I thought I'd try again:
Okay, so Brexit is done. I'm putting my 'bloke on the Clapham omnibus who voted for Brexit' hat on and asking - what difference has it made to my life? I'm struggling. I'm aware of some downsides, though they don't affect me much. But what are the upsides? Okay, I hear that wages have risen in some, but not that many, low-skilled sectors, but that may be as much due to Covid as Brexit, and anyway I don't work in a low-skilled sector.
So a serious, genuine question. How has Brexit benefitted me, who voted for it? How has my government used these new freedoms/sovereignty to improve my life? If it was such a good idea, people ought to be able to answer this by now, with specific, tangible examples that affect me - but I'm struggling. Help.
Did you get your vaccine? Brexit benefitted you from not being locked into some half-arsed Euro arrangement. It quite possibly saved the life of a friend or family member.
Our being outside was also a spur to the EU to get their shit together. Having Brexit Britain jabbed up whilst the EU's citizens died created a political imperative to shift their arses.
If the Referendum had locked us into ever closer union, I strongly suspect the UK would have been closed down from helping Ukraine to the level we have. We would have been trapped into some EU-wide foot-dragging whilst Kyiv fell.
Plus - Nigel Farage is out of a job. His soap box taken away. Surely that counts for something?
1. I'd have got my vaccine if we'd still been in the EU.
2. Well done! Getting rid of Nigel Farage is a definite plus plus plus. Whether Brexit is worth it...
I think you need to go back and re-remember how the EU tried to fuck us over on vaccines.... Because we were making them look bad.
Macron commenting on the quality of our vaccine ring any bells?
Sure Macron's a bellend (something we all know).
I actually think that Brexit benefitted both the EU and the UK wrt vaccines. Our early outperformance led them to throw caution to the wind and make a massive Pfizer order. The consequence of which is that - after a rocky couple of initial months - the EU ended up performing quite well with vaccines.
In 'Guns, Germs and Steel', Jared Diamond argues (slightly speculatively, it feels, in contrast to the other far more convincing arguments about other geographies) that the reason why Europe has outperformed China over the last 500 years is due to Europe splintering into competing states and statelets. Unity is therefore not strength, but weakness, for unity leads to complacency and stagnation, while separation leads to competition. This would be an example of that.
And yet you’re a Unionist.
Well yes and no. I like Scotland. Emotionally, I like the idea of the Cairngorms, the Trossachs, Glasgow, Edinburgh, being part of the country that I live in. My early childhood holidays were on the Isle of Arran. And I have Anglo-Scottish ancestry. My great grandfather owned the first electric hoover in Edinburgh. Scotland is part of my hinterland in a way that, say, East Anglia or Oxfordshire - or, indeed, Wales - isn't. But rationally I'm a transactionalist, and the costs and benefits of the union are not entirely one way for either party. The biggest argument in favour I see is defence - Scotland's territory and England's money is a powerful combination and both would be substantially weaker against foreign (Russian) threats apart. But take that large but single element out and I think on balance England and Scotland could well both be better off apart, for the reasons we are discussing. I sometimes wish some parts of history had gone differently (The Act of Union? The reformation? The 13th century? The reign of Athelstan?) and the whole of Britain had genuinely evolved into one nation. But it didn't. Devolution is an untidy and unsatisfactory constitutional arrangement, but so was its immediate predecessor. I don't know how Wales fits into this. I find it hard to make an argument that Wales would be better off independent. And it would be untidy - despite the politics, North Wales is much better tied to the North West of England than to South Wales. But if the Welsh were minded to go it alone then I'd happily wish them good luck - the current arrangements certainly don't seem to to be working out too well. NI wouldn't be massively missed this side of the Irish Sea. So if I am a unionist I'm a fairly half-hearted and conditional one. The SNP isn't much to my taste. But its position on independence is pretty tangential to that.
There is not likelihood of Wales going independent
No, I don't think so either - but it always seems that Wales gets overlooked in discussions of the union; I wanted to be fair.
It is not likely anytime soon but then I do not see Scotland winning indyref 2 if it is held either
Scotland will vote no if a referendum is held during the current Scottish parliamentary term. Which will be 15 years-ish since the last one. And we can formalise the timings of another one if the people of Scotland follow their no vote with another majority of parties pledged to hold a 3rd vote.
But that only works if we respect the democratic mandate and hold a 2rd referendum. If we say no, then I can only see the support for independence growing. "You can vote for whatever you want but we won't let you have it" isn't a persuasive argument to maintain the Union.
What democratic mandate? Pro-referendum parties got ~7.3%(*) of the seats in the last election to the legislative body that can call a referendum.
(*) SNP - 7.3%. Not sure if the GPEW follows their Scottish sister party in calling for a referendum, or if PC or any of the NI parties have a position.
What democratic mandate? The biggest ever turnout The most votes ever cast for the SNP The most number of pro-independence MSPs elected (72)
I campaigned against the SNP. But I can't deny the size of their victory which has delivered in conjunction with the Scottish Greens a clear majority of MSPs elected on a mandate for a new referendum. I believe the correct phrase is "will of the people".
Oh, you're talking about elections to the Scottish parliament? They can never produce a mandate for an independence referendum because it doesn't have the power to call one.
Had no idea you were such a vocal advocate for the Yes campaign.
Just for political reality. The Scottish parliament has no power to call a referendum, so the SNP has to persuade the UK parliament to call a referendum, and to do so it has to convince them that they will actually accept defeat next time.
If the reaction to losing again is to wait five minutes before demanding a third referendum, they won't get a second one.
And it's clear from their actions of the last eight years that is exactly what their reaction would be.
Whilst all of that is true, you are ignoring basic democratic principles. Lets assume in the next election that the Scottish people elect 85 MSPs on a very clear mandate for a new referendum. Having elected SNP MPs to every constituency in Scotland. Despite a very clear and massive mandate you are saying it can be ignored because only Westminster counts and England outvotes Scotland.
That isn't democracy. And it is that rather basic problem which drives the Yes campaign. The failure of the 2014 referendum was that it did not stipulate in law the conditions for future polls. The next one will need to do so or we will keep going round in circles.
Independence is the boulder that weighs down Scottish politics, just as the unification boulder does the same in Norniron. We need to shift the boulder to get things done and you can't do that by telling people they can't have what they voted for. Yet I read almost hysterical posts on here from Leon and others that it was undemocratic to elect a new parliament in 2017 which considered itself sovereign with regards to Brexit. We either respect the will of the people or we do not. Some of you seem to only want to respect it when its the English.
I am sure Andy Burnham might be a nice bloke to have a beer at the pub with, but what a lightweight. He reminds me of the PlusNet bloke. "The Labour Party, we'll do you proud"
I wouldn't look beyond Rouge Rachel or Lipstick Bridget (I like her lipstick by the way, unlike @Cookie!)
Which part of "control our borders" included "zero border checks" ?
Brexit is a shitshow, and will remain so long after those who voted for it are dead.
“Control our borders” including having “zero border checks” is by definition controlling our borders.
We control whether we check or don’t. Not a complicated concept.
You control your front door - you can choose to lock it or leave the door swinging open - whatever option you choose based on what’s best for your family - you are controlling it - your neighbour isn’t.
This is true enough. However, I am pretty sure that "wide open with no checks" was neither what the Vote Leave campaign were proposing nor what leave voters believed they would get.
If we choose to maintain the same control of our borders (none) but suffer greatly from the other side controlling their border (goods and people) then what have we gained? Brexit was supposed to make people's lived experience better, not worse.
Vote Leave and Boris Johnson specifically proposed shedding the EU's protectionism.
We're doing exactly that in dropping the EU's checks with non-EU produce, where its not necessary. Something we couldn't do as EU members. This is exactly what I voted for and what swung me from Remain to Leave.
Vote Leave to create 300,000 British jobs May 12, 2016 In the last few years, the EU has sought to complete five key trade deals, with the USA, Japan, ASEAN, India and Mercosur. Because of protectionism in other European countries, the EU has failed to get a trade deal with any of these countries. When we Vote Leave we will be able to do trade deals with all of these countries much more quickly. According to the EU’s own figures this will create 284,000 new jobs in the UK. Commenting, Boris Johnson said:
'If we Vote Leave we will be able to forge bold new trade deals with growing economies around the world. These are deals that the EU has tried and failed to achieve due to protectionist forces in Europe.
‘After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK.
‘Predictably the gloomsters want to do down Britain - they claim we are not strong enough to stand on our own two feet. What total tosh. There is a huge world of opportunity and prosperity out there if we take this opportunity to take back control.’
Oh do stop it. Brexit was pointless. There are no upsides unless you are Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson's band of hopeless-cases-who-wouldn't-be-appointed-by-anyone-else, and a few hedge funds. I know you don't want to accept you were gulled, but you were.
We all now have to live with it, but trying to invent "benefits of Brexit" is about as absurd as Putin trying to invent benefits from his invasion.
Oh give over.
We already have a trade deal agreed with the country I grew up in. That didn't exist pre-Brexit and wasn't possible as an EU member. That is a real benefit, right there.
Its certainly a benefit to New Zealand! Or will be in a decade when it comes into effect. Less of a benefit for British farmers though, which is who the government claimed to be helping by quitting the (massively flawed) CAP.
Bart doesn't like farmers or anyone else that isn't like him (a very small clique), so he doesn't care.
You're kind of right actually.
Why should I like farmers? Or anyone else I don't know, whether they're like me or not?
I neither like nor dislike farmers, I am entirely agnostic to them and everyone else I don't know. If farmers do well then great, good for them. If they don't, then that's OK too, let them get out of business and let a more productive farmer use the land or find an alternative use for the land instead.
I don't care about farmers any more than I would have cared about miners had I not been a baby when that was happening. We needed coal for electricity for three decades after the miners lost their jobs - did you care about them enough to think we should have prevented the closure of the mines?
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
You have 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
Thank you.
I annoyed BR because I named him from his previous iteration on here and called him out for his comments on Northern Ireland, which I thought were vile. He has never got over it.
I'm on the verge of giving up on pb. It's a bear pit. A very tough place to be a woman and one left-of-centre at that. I find the only way to keep my head above water on here is to try to fight (Leon) but it's grinding me down.
Why fight anyone? BR talks some utter drivel and insists he is the expert on everything. As does HY. Doesn't mean I have to beat them, and I find their perspectives *interesting*. And I'm sure they think the same about some of my posts and say so regularly. Such is life. We all agree to disagree on some things.
This is very speculative but it may be that Rishi's decision not to offer substantial help in his March budget was the result of his calculation that with Spring and Summer coming energy costs would reduce, especially heating, and that he decided to build up a war chest, take the expected flack and unpopularity, and then in the Autumn when the economic numbers will be clearer provide a generous support package going into Winter
There have been comments that some think his FPN was unfair, especially after the allegations about Starmer, and he could just see a renaissance later this year and while I know little about betting I assume anyone on 250/1 should have a smile longer that Leith Walk
A little addition to an earlier betting post what I did, Norwich North. It should be a Labour gain next time and I've just had a little look at the boundary proposal. Retains all current wards and adds a small part of Crome ward and the whole Thorpe Hamlet ward of Norwich South. Crome is the most Tory 'friendly' ward in Norwich but it's over a decade since they won it (on previous boundaries) and labour now hold a 3 to 2 vote lead in the ward roughly. Thorpe Hamlet is green territory with labour second and often challenging as in 2021, labour regardless are twice the size of the Tories here. The proposal is about 8500 electors from these wards, I'd expect in 70% turnout it would add at least a net 1000 labour - on their own enough to have swung it in 2017. DYOR but Chloes 10% lead isn't secure. At all.
A rubbish article of which every word is wrong; who ever thought cocaine was an hallucinogen or that it was not known in the 1880s that opium and cocaine had deleterious side effects? And there's cocaine in coca leaves (it isn't sometthing which is synthesized using the leaves as a starting point, though the powdered form cocaine hypochloride is) so there's cocaine in coca cola made of coca leaves.
Sigmund Freud did a lot of cocaine in the 1880s. Given to him by Pfizer (!!) via an eye-surgeon friend
After initial approval he later speculated in his letters that it probably had nasty side effects and addictive potential
The cigars he smoked were worse. Gave him terrible cancers of the jaw
He also wrote the following which suggests that whether it is was harmful or not was certainly a matter of debate at the time.
"Exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person. You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work. In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug. Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue. This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcoholic beverages. No craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug."
It will be Wes Streeting next, I would almost put my life on it.
There's still plenty of trading to be done, but at the moment I'm green on both Streeting and Reeves for next PM. I should probably green up on Starmer too at some point - the biggest risk to one of those three being next PM is, I think, that Boris gets bored, which can never entirely be ruled out.
Or. Does something so egregiously stupid that even Tory MP's are forced to act. Given the form he is highly likely to do the former. Even if the latter looks less likely.
I can't see what that would be, tbh - they still see him as an election winner in enough places.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
For me: - Starmer - I don't see him getting FPN or resigning from what we know. If he faces Johnson at GE then he's a fair chance of being PM. 9/2 doesn't look far off, to me (I've got him at prices from 7 to 12, average high 9s; I've traded some out to cover the stake, but otherwise sticking with it). - Johnson, staying most likely, I agree (and have bets on him being PM beyond end of this year) - Value on other Labour candidates - at ~100 as you flagged up a few days ago, I agree and I backed a few - thanks. But they're value bets that I expect to lose or possibly trade out for a bit of profit. Not sure where I'd draw the value point, would depend on candidate, of course. - Burnham - agree
So, our difference is that I rate Starmer's chances of being next PM much higher than you do. I don't see him going pre-election unless currygate gets him.
A rubbish article of which every word is wrong; who ever thought cocaine was an hallucinogen or that it was not known in the 1880s that opium and cocaine had deleterious side effects? And there's cocaine in coca leaves (it isn't sometthing which is synthesized using the leaves as a starting point, though the powdered form cocaine hypochloride is) so there's cocaine in coca cola made of coca leaves.
Sigmund Freud did a lot of cocaine in the 1880s. Given to him by Pfizer (!!) via an eye-surgeon friend
After initial approval he later speculated in his letters that it probably had nasty side effects and addictive potential
The cigars he smoked were worse. Gave him terrible cancers of the jaw
Yes, he promoted it as an anti depressant and a cure for drug addiction (!) and got a lot of subsequent backlash when it turned out to have downsides
Horrible drug
Great historical oddity: Scott of the Antarctic took pounds of the stuff to the South Pole as a local anaesthetic for the eyes. Also had a ton of morphine. But chose to lie dying for days until an unassisted and (according to Apsley Cherry Garrard who saw the body) very hard death.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
Thank you.
I annoyed BR because I named him from his previous iteration on here and called him out for his comments on Northern Ireland, which I thought were vile. He has never got over it.
I'm on the verge of giving up on pb. It's a bear pit. A very tough place to be a woman and one left-of-centre at that. I find the only way to keep my head above water on here is to try to fight (Leon) but it's grinding me down.
Just ignore posts that upset you - it is a hard lesson we all have to learn
I am sure Andy Burnham might be a nice bloke to have a beer at the pub with, but what a lightweight. He reminds me of the PlusNet bloke. "The Labour Party, we'll do you proud"
I may be being parochial, but for me he is streets ahead of any of the alternatives in the way he comes across. But as Mike and others have pointed out he's not an MP. That's a major obstacle.
I think there's an impression that Burnham is the callow Minister prematurely overpromoted in the dying days of New Labour. Rather than the Mayor with a knack for getting his points over at great length on Granada Reports almost every day of the week.
It will be Wes Streeting next, I would almost put my life on it.
You not convinced by the 'must be a woman' argument? I like Streeting and think he could do a job, but he runs the risk of William Hague Syndrome - reach the top too soon.
The "must be a woman" argument would be more convinicing if any woman had ever beaten any man in any Labour leadership election.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
You have 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Heathener irritates at times but makes some good points, is a bit of a character and adds value to the site. She is criticised too often and rather too rudely at times I think. Her doxxing is tiresome and should cease, I agree.
Shares in Tesla or Amazon or Tesco are productive assets. Property is a productive asset.
Basically, you get paid to own them (most of the time).
Bitcoin is not a productive asset.
Bitcoin is a currency, plain and simple. It's something you can, in theory, exchange for goods and services (though not many people do, a bit like gold).
Its value derives from its hardness, a bit like gold. You can't just print more of it, therefore the supply is controlled and predictable.
A bet on bitcoin is effectively a bet against fiat currencies, against inflation, against central banks trying to maintain control.
Placing bitcoin in the same category as a tesla share is fundamentally mis-labelling it. What gives the dollar value? People believe it has value. What gives bitcoin value? People believe it has value.
The value of a $10 note is about .02 in paper and ink, backed by people's belief in it. The value of a bitcoin is the power used to generate it, backed by people's belief in it.
As Morpheus says, "you think that's air you're breathing?"
Bitcoin is gold stripped of all use value & made electronically transferrable at significant per transaction expense. Financially it’s a perpetual bearer bond that generates no interest.
The only value it has is the speculative value that lies in your belief that someone else will pay you more for it that you yourself paid. Hence the wild swings in valuation that make it useless as a currency for individuals.
A commodity is terrible as a national currency for a variety of reasons, most of which were discovered by experience during the C19th, when we forced several recessions on ourselves purely because of a shortage of gold & not for any actual economic reason. Tying growth in our economy to the supply of gold was a terrible, no good, very bad idea & we abandoned it eventually, to much howling from gold devotees.
A $ on the other hand has use value: you can pay your taxes with it & because US citizens need $ to pay taxes, if we have $ we can exchange them for services from US citizens & that ground value means they can be exchanged pretty much anywhere, because the recipient has a well founded belief that they will be able to exchange that $ in the future. If that belief fails, then the $ will fail, but that has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of a $ bill & everything to do with the strenght of the US economy.
What drives the valuation of BTC? Well, you used to be able to use it to buy drugs, but now that chain analysis is well established & the authorities treat BTC that has uncertain provenance as being radioactive that use case is falling away. Apart from that it’s pretty good for sanctions avoidance so long as there’s sufficient speculative liquidity. Otherwise, use cases seem to be few and far between & suggest an exchange valuation far below the current market price, which is driven by speculation & little else.
The market for BTC is also one of the most incredibly rigged markets out there. The largest exchanges are effectively offshore gambling companies with completely opaque books who actively trade against their own customers. Market making is carried out using tradeable tokens that claim to be dollars but whose backing is opaque & probably consists of ponzi-like investments in crypto-currency & sub-par Chinese credit. These tokens, which the originators can freely print almost without limit, have been used to bid up the prices of crypto currencies to huge levels, driving speculative FOMO investment. For crypto buyers & dollar-tracking token holders a central risk is that this ponzi-like mechansim unwinds completely at some point.
I can think of absolutely no value for a decentralised, permissionless currency that can be transported easily across borders, cannot be censored, costs mere cents to send millions (or billions) in value to another person, and works when the banks are shut.
But I have argued with boomers on this enough - it's really fascinating to see just how invested you are in the status quo. Morpheus was right - some people can't be unplugged...
I only realised a week ago that Laurence Fishburne is the machine gunner on the boat in Apocalypse Now
I did not realise this! Nice find.
Only 18 at the time, which is very much Vietnam appropriate.
The other big names - Sheen, Brando, Duvall, Ford etc - were all in their thirties or older, so not so easy to miss.
I posted this near the end of the last thread; since I got no response, I thought I'd try again:
Okay, so Brexit is done. I'm putting my 'bloke on the Clapham omnibus who voted for Brexit' hat on and asking - what difference has it made to my life? I'm struggling. I'm aware of some downsides, though they don't affect me much. But what are the upsides? Okay, I hear that wages have risen in some, but not that many, low-skilled sectors, but that may be as much due to Covid as Brexit, and anyway I don't work in a low-skilled sector.
So a serious, genuine question. How has Brexit benefitted me, who voted for it? How has my government used these new freedoms/sovereignty to improve my life? If it was such a good idea, people ought to be able to answer this by now, with specific, tangible examples that affect me - but I'm struggling. Help.
Did you get your vaccine? Brexit benefitted you from not being locked into some half-arsed Euro arrangement. It quite possibly saved the life of a friend or family member.
Our being outside was also a spur to the EU to get their shit together. Having Brexit Britain jabbed up whilst the EU's citizens died created a political imperative to shift their arses.
If the Referendum had locked us into ever closer union, I strongly suspect the UK would have been closed down from helping Ukraine to the level we have. We would have been trapped into some EU-wide foot-dragging whilst Kyiv fell.
Plus - Nigel Farage is out of a job. His soap box taken away. Surely that counts for something?
1. I'd have got my vaccine if we'd still been in the EU.
2. Well done! Getting rid of Nigel Farage is a definite plus plus plus. Whether Brexit is worth it...
I think you need to go back and re-remember how the EU tried to fuck us over on vaccines.... Because we were making them look bad.
Macron commenting on the quality of our vaccine ring any bells?
Sure Macron's a bellend (something we all know).
I actually think that Brexit benefitted both the EU and the UK wrt vaccines. Our early outperformance led them to throw caution to the wind and make a massive Pfizer order. The consequence of which is that - after a rocky couple of initial months - the EU ended up performing quite well with vaccines.
In 'Guns, Germs and Steel', Jared Diamond argues (slightly speculatively, it feels, in contrast to the other far more convincing arguments about other geographies) that the reason why Europe has outperformed China over the last 500 years is due to Europe splintering into competing states and statelets. Unity is therefore not strength, but weakness, for unity leads to complacency and stagnation, while separation leads to competition. This would be an example of that.
And yet you’re a Unionist.
Well yes and no. I like Scotland. Emotionally, I like the idea of the Cairngorms, the Trossachs, Glasgow, Edinburgh, being part of the country that I live in. My early childhood holidays were on the Isle of Arran. And I have Anglo-Scottish ancestry. My great grandfather owned the first electric hoover in Edinburgh. Scotland is part of my hinterland in a way that, say, East Anglia or Oxfordshire - or, indeed, Wales - isn't. But rationally I'm a transactionalist, and the costs and benefits of the union are not entirely one way for either party. The biggest argument in favour I see is defence - Scotland's territory and England's money is a powerful combination and both would be substantially weaker against foreign (Russian) threats apart. But take that large but single element out and I think on balance England and Scotland could well both be better off apart, for the reasons we are discussing. I sometimes wish some parts of history had gone differently (The Act of Union? The reformation? The 13th century? The reign of Athelstan?) and the whole of Britain had genuinely evolved into one nation. But it didn't. Devolution is an untidy and unsatisfactory constitutional arrangement, but so was its immediate predecessor. I don't know how Wales fits into this. I find it hard to make an argument that Wales would be better off independent. And it would be untidy - despite the politics, North Wales is much better tied to the North West of England than to South Wales. But if the Welsh were minded to go it alone then I'd happily wish them good luck - the current arrangements certainly don't seem to to be working out too well. NI wouldn't be massively missed this side of the Irish Sea. So if I am a unionist I'm a fairly half-hearted and conditional one. The SNP isn't much to my taste. But its position on independence is pretty tangential to that.
There is not likelihood of Wales going independent
No, I don't think so either - but it always seems that Wales gets overlooked in discussions of the union; I wanted to be fair.
It is not likely anytime soon but then I do not see Scotland winning indyref 2 if it is held either
Scotland will vote no if a referendum is held during the current Scottish parliamentary term. Which will be 15 years-ish since the last one. And we can formalise the timings of another one if the people of Scotland follow their no vote with another majority of parties pledged to hold a 3rd vote.
But that only works if we respect the democratic mandate and hold a 2rd referendum. If we say no, then I can only see the support for independence growing. "You can vote for whatever you want but we won't let you have it" isn't a persuasive argument to maintain the Union.
What democratic mandate? Pro-referendum parties got ~7.3%(*) of the seats in the last election to the legislative body that can call a referendum.
(*) SNP - 7.3%. Not sure if the GPEW follows their Scottish sister party in calling for a referendum, or if PC or any of the NI parties have a position.
What democratic mandate? The biggest ever turnout The most votes ever cast for the SNP The most number of pro-independence MSPs elected (72)
I campaigned against the SNP. But I can't deny the size of their victory which has delivered in conjunction with the Scottish Greens a clear majority of MSPs elected on a mandate for a new referendum. I believe the correct phrase is "will of the people".
Sigh.
The reason for SNP preponderance is the split unionist vote. Even in the council elections just gone, more people voted for "unionist" parties. There is majority opposition to another Indy vote anytime soon, and all recent polls have put No ahead anyway.
No serious country can put itself at continual risk of dismemberment which was the reason for the Edinburgh Agreement signed by both Salmond and Sturgeon in 2014.
Sturgeon is just going through the motions demanding a ref in 2023. It will be years before there is another ref, if there ever is one. The rest is noise.
I don't buy this, and I am posting as an anti-independence Scottish political activist for one of the unionist parties. The reason for SNP preponderance is that people vote for them. Again, in last year's election they received their highest ever vote 3 terms in. Name me another party in another parliament who can demonstrate that level of support. And that is with a proportional electoral system which awards seats *against* them on the list vote.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
There you go. That’s one of your annoying comments
You manage to slight me as a heedless despoiler of the environment, colour yourself as a superior eco-sensitive person, praise yourself for your own good taste, slyly confess that you are wealthy, and add a dash of pompous affectation with the reference to “De Longhi Eletta Bean to Cup”, all in about 3 lines
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I'm not hounding you, I didn't say anything critical about you, I made a point about gambling and value. Winning every bet is not the purpose of the site, finding value is. If you can find 10x 100/1 long shots and only three comes in you've lost 70% of your bets but you're massively winning - that is what Mike does on this site.
On the other hand you continuing to use my real name, even after repeated requests not to including from @PBModerator that Doxxing is against the rules is harassment pure and simple.
As for betting posts, I've made tips before (most recently tipping Streeting as next Labour leader, I'm on at 10/1) and most famously tipping Sunak at 250/1. Whether that bet comes in or not it was fantastic value, which is the proof of what I was saying about the difference between winning bets and identifying value.
Yep, you've done some good betting content at times.
Hey but you are (imo) being just a bit precious about this "doxxing" business. She only mentioned your - very common* - first name. Hardly enough to alert the watching world to who you are.
* By this I mean popular, I hasten to clarify, not low class and oiky.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
I did not change my username after getting banned, if I did I would have been rebanned by @PBModerator
I changed my username because I do not want my real name to be used. @PBModerator has requested that choice be respected.
If you refuse to respect that, and you deliberately try to upset other users then that is quite literally trolling. I just made a point about gambling and value, I never called you a troll today, despite you openly trolling me by doxxing.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
You're not a troll because you use a VPN, you're a troll because you're a troll.
If you continue to post things like Not a day goes by without the old gammons on here coming out with this vile crap. Why can't you just drop it? And be nice and kind and understanding to others? then you're going to get called out for being a racist, sexist troll because that is exactly what you are.
It will be Wes Streeting next, I would almost put my life on it.
You not convinced by the 'must be a woman' argument? I like Streeting and think he could do a job, but he runs the risk of William Hague Syndrome - reach the top too soon.
The "must be a woman" argument would be more convinicing if any woman had ever beaten any man in any Labour leadership election.
That’s exactly why they’ll insist on an all-women shortlist.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
That's odd. You don't *need* to make tiny cup espressos with it - you can stick a giant mug under it (flapping away the little tiny cup flap) and run 3 long shots in if you want.
There genuinely wasn't room for anything larger than a tiny cup in the machine we had.
I must confess, I've never had an espresso. It's not even that I don't think I'd like it - my issue is that if I'm going to spend my £2 on a cup of coffee, I worry that an espresso will be over all too quickly. I like a normal filter coffee and worry that any other experience won't be as good.
This isn't in the same league as Danny Baker's interview with Gordon Strachan in which it was revealed that Gordon Strachan had never tried a coffee of any sort, but given my earlier post about how much I enjoy coffee, it does seem odd now I reflect on it.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
You have 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Heathener irritates at times but makes some good points, is a bit of a character and adds value to the site. She is criticised too often and rather too rudely at times I think. Her doxxing is tiresome and should cease, I agree.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
There you go. That’s one of your annoying comments
It was a serious point actually, made by someone else. How can you advocate a machine that is so bad for the environment?
I won't use a rude word back to you. I'll leave that to you and your tawdry "thriller" writing style and ghastly sex guide books.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
Baristas are just 6th formers who've been trained to press a button though. Some of them can draw a heart tbf Nescafe dolce gusto for posh guests, kenco instant for rainy mornings
This is very speculative but it may be that Rishi's decision not to offer substantial help in his March budget was the result of his calculation that with Spring and Summer coming energy costs would reduce, especially heating, and that he decided to build up a war chest, take the expected flack and unpopularity, and then in the Autumn when the economic numbers will be clearer provide a generous support package going into Winter
There have been comments that some think his FPN was unfair, especially after the allegations about Starmer, and he could just see a renaissance later this year and while I know little about betting I assume anyone on 250/1 should have a smile longer that Leith Walk
I hadn't considered the last part, but you may have a point here. We could be heading into an "FPNs for all" scenario and certainly No10 have been desperate to make FPNs more like a badge of honour - a political ASBO for council estate scummers if you like.
Sunak has two issues - he got an FPN, and is rich. We knew the latter already and I suspect the fuss that has already died down over that has now gone away. So we're back to competence, and Sunak absolutely is one of the very few competents in Cabinet.
So yes, if he comes slamming in with a broad package of measures in the autumn he could be a contender again. Possibly. If he can show that he even understands the struggle people are having that would be an advancement on his boss who is congenitally incapable of thinking about plebs.
Which part of "control our borders" included "zero border checks" ?
Brexit is a shitshow, and will remain so long after those who voted for it are dead.
“Control our borders” including having “zero border checks” is by definition controlling our borders.
We control whether we check or don’t. Not a complicated concept.
You control your front door - you can choose to lock it or leave the door swinging open - whatever option you choose based on what’s best for your family - you are controlling it - your neighbour isn’t.
This is true enough. However, I am pretty sure that "wide open with no checks" was neither what the Vote Leave campaign were proposing nor what leave voters believed they would get.
If we choose to maintain the same control of our borders (none) but suffer greatly from the other side controlling their border (goods and people) then what have we gained? Brexit was supposed to make people's lived experience better, not worse.
Vote Leave and Boris Johnson specifically proposed shedding the EU's protectionism.
We're doing exactly that in dropping the EU's checks with non-EU produce, where its not necessary. Something we couldn't do as EU members. This is exactly what I voted for and what swung me from Remain to Leave.
Vote Leave to create 300,000 British jobs May 12, 2016 In the last few years, the EU has sought to complete five key trade deals, with the USA, Japan, ASEAN, India and Mercosur. Because of protectionism in other European countries, the EU has failed to get a trade deal with any of these countries. When we Vote Leave we will be able to do trade deals with all of these countries much more quickly. According to the EU’s own figures this will create 284,000 new jobs in the UK. Commenting, Boris Johnson said:
'If we Vote Leave we will be able to forge bold new trade deals with growing economies around the world. These are deals that the EU has tried and failed to achieve due to protectionist forces in Europe.
‘After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK.
‘Predictably the gloomsters want to do down Britain - they claim we are not strong enough to stand on our own two feet. What total tosh. There is a huge world of opportunity and prosperity out there if we take this opportunity to take back control.’
Oh do stop it. Brexit was pointless. There are no upsides unless you are Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson's band of hopeless-cases-who-wouldn't-be-appointed-by-anyone-else, and a few hedge funds. I know you don't want to accept you were gulled, but you were.
We all now have to live with it, but trying to invent "benefits of Brexit" is about as absurd as Putin trying to invent benefits from his invasion.
Oh give over.
We already have a trade deal agreed with the country I grew up in. That didn't exist pre-Brexit and wasn't possible as an EU member. That is a real benefit, right there.
Its certainly a benefit to New Zealand! Or will be in a decade when it comes into effect. Less of a benefit for British farmers though, which is who the government claimed to be helping by quitting the (massively flawed) CAP.
Bart doesn't like farmers or anyone else that isn't like him (a very small clique), so he doesn't care.
You're kind of right actually.
Why should I like farmers? Or anyone else I don't know, whether they're like me or not?
I neither like nor dislike farmers, I am entirely agnostic to them and everyone else I don't know. If farmers do well then great, good for them. If they don't, then that's OK too, let them get out of business and let a more productive farmer use the land or find an alternative use for the land instead.
I don't care about farmers any more than I would have cared about miners had I not been a baby when that was happening. We needed coal for electricity for three decades after the miners lost their jobs - did you care about them enough to think we should have prevented the closure of the mines?
You prove my point; you are like a stereotype of an extreme right winger; completely devoid of empathy for anyone, unless you feel that they are a bit like you. You are in favour of all sorts of privilege unless they are privileges you can't access yourself. Pretty sad outlook on life really.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
There you go. That’s one of your annoying comments
You manage to slight me as a heedless despoiler of the environment, colour yourself as a superior eco-sensitive person, praise yourself for your own good taste, slyly confess that you are wealthy, and add a dash of pompous affectation with the reference to “De Longhi Eletta Bean to Cup”, all in about 3 lines
I asked for thoughts on coffee machines for a small cafe the other week.
We ended up going for a consumer bean-to-cup on the basis that it does make a nice coffee, but is also inexpensive enough that it will do the job whilst trade is low and starts to build, and we can either take it home and buy a larger machine if required, or just get another one to go next to it.
Simple, and makes a very nice cup off coffee, but is quite customisable. A slight annoyance is that it works in "low medium high" rather than grams of coffee per shot.
But DeLonghi need some serious attention to their incomprehensible model numbers.
I missed your original post - I would have suggested the Gaggia Velasca (£499 Caffe Italia). We have one and it is excellent.
I have a jar of Kenco Smooth. A £5 jar lasts for a couple of months.
Job done.
That's like saying to someone who buys a PS5 that you have a crossword book and job done.
Not really. It's still coffee. It does the same job.
I wonder if there's a correlation between people who overpay for 'luxury' coffee and those who overpay by worshipping at the altar of Apple?
(Runs for cover...)
Its not the same coffee at all.
You need decent pressure to make coffee properly and get a decent crema on your espresso. That doesn't happen with any instant coffee I've ever seen.
Its like saying there's no difference between an old-fashioned landline and an iPhone. The branding doesn't matter, they're completely different products.
Espresso? What's that?
Instant coffee is coffee. The coffee you drink is coffee. I drink it to get a little caffeine hit and to quench my thirst. It does the job.
Why do you drink your very expensive coffee? The same reasons?
It's like someone drinking a £10 bottle of wine from Mozzies and someone else drinking a £100 bottle. Probably worse, in terms of cost...
There's no hope for you. Go get a flat white from Starbucks and compare it with your instant coffee. Different product entirely.
PB is full of people who have no discernible taste or interest in food. It really is quite a depressing place to be at times.
Anyway, off to brew a decent coffee.
Depends on the purpose
First 2 coffees of the day - decent filter coffee
Rest - mainly having a hot mug steaming next to keyboard but rarely drink more than a sip or two - instant is fine
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My sole objection to all the pod machines is the amount of pointless plastic waste they produce. Besides which if you buy a bean to cup machine your kitchen smells of coffee.
Nespresso recycles the aluminium that they use for their pods (vertuo).
The single most important development since the last election is the very strong revival of the anti-Tory party. That's why in the opinion polls the only really interesting number is the Tory one - and why the Tories should be a lot more concerned than they seem to be about the vote share they got last week.
You are posting, if I may say, some extremely insightful things of late. I expect you will say something to rile me at some point but once again I think you are absolutely spot on.
And you're onto something here big time. That anti-vote is something I can only really recall viscerally feeling in 1997 and in the winter of 1978/9, which I just remember.
We forget it now, but it was there in 2019. There were a lot of voters who were anti-Boris, anti-Jez, couldn't take the Lib Dems seriously... But when push came to shove, decided that it was better the clown than the commie. The Conservatives won handsomely but without that much enthusiasm.
One of the mistakes the Conservatives have made since has been to confuse an 80 seat majority with huge public support. John Major got more votes than Bozza did, and we know how that ended.
There are enough anti-Conservative votes out there to stuff the government. As in the past, the question is whether those voters wish to arrange themselves to do that.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
You're not a troll because you use a VPN, you're a troll because you're a troll.
If you continue to post things like Not a day goes by without the old gammons on here coming out with this vile crap. Why can't you just drop it? And be nice and kind and understanding to others? then you're going to get called out for being a racist, sexist troll because that is exactly what you are.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I'm not hounding you, I didn't say anything critical about you, I made a point about gambling and value. Winning every bet is not the purpose of the site, finding value is. If you can find 10x 100/1 long shots and only three comes in you've lost 70% of your bets but you're massively winning - that is what Mike does on this site.
On the other hand you continuing to use my real name, even after repeated requests not to including from @PBModerator that Doxxing is against the rules is harassment pure and simple.
As for betting posts, I've made tips before (most recently tipping Streeting as next Labour leader, I'm on at 10/1) and most famously tipping Sunak at 250/1. Whether that bet comes in or not it was fantastic value, which is the proof of what I was saying about the difference between winning bets and identifying value.
"most famously" lol. You need to get over yourself a bit mate
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
I did not change my username after getting banned, if I did I would have been rebanned by @PBModerator
I changed my username because I do not want my real name to be used. @PBModerator has requested that choice be respected.
If you refuse to respect that, and you deliberately try to upset other users then that is quite literally trolling. I just made a point about gambling and value, I never called you a troll today, despite you openly trolling me by doxxing.
Fine. Here's a deal. You stop calling me a troll and I won't call you by your name. That's if I stick around which right now I rate as less than 10%. Perhaps you could call that a value bet?
@Applicant, you need to learn the difference between calling someone out for trolling and appreciating someone having a different political stance than you. Yes I'm left-of-centre, feminist, green and don't like it when a certain demographic pile on me. Clearly you and I come from very, very, different ends of the political spectrum but it's pathetic to call me a troll. Maybe if you stopped being so abusive and got over your obsession with troll-calling you might find I am less riled.
Well, as Mrs May was gleefully saying yesterday, they were warned!
I can see why she stayed on the backbenches. She is having a great time with the schadenfreude.
If she’d got her way, we’d be stuck indefinitely in the Backstop, eating yet another of Macron’s “Screw the British” pieces of EU legislation over which we had no say.
The issue with the Protocol was always the sequencing, it was destined to be revisited in light of the later trade agreement. That the EU have no intention of doing this, and refuse to implement the trusted trader scheme or the electronic border, is a show of bad faith on their part.
A16 is the mechanism by which they can be forced to actually negotiate on the stalled points, and a lack of agreement acceptable to all comunities in NI exacerbates political tensions there.
We've just indefinitely delayed the imposition of the inbound checks mandated by the oven-ready deal. Which means for an indefinite period the EU are responsible for safety standards of goods coming into the UK.
In theory we can set our own standards. But as we're unable to enforce them...
Its gone over your head it seems that the ability to drop EU-mandated checks or rules is precisely a benefit won by not being aligned to the EU.
We don't need to enforce them, we can recognise the EU as a safe region and recognise their standards are equivalent to our own.
What purpose do those "checks" serve other than protectionist self-harm.
We should abolish such checks with any other nations, blocs or regions that have equivalent standards too. Protectionism is self-harming.
Good! So we recognise their standards as equivalent to our own. We should do as their standards are our standards. So we have maintained our alignment with EU standards - and have now made it clear we aren't changing those standards because we're functionally incapable of doing so.
You ask "what function do those checks serve" - a genuinely great question. Can I remind you though that said checks are a key component of the 3rd country status this government demanded as part of its oven-ready deal?
What we need now is the EU to also drop its checks. Our standards are their standards are our standards. As we've now abandoned the ability to set different standards that is not going to change. So even if it is informally we can agree with the EU that we can mutually dismantle the need for checks. And having done that we can take the next step and dismantle the reams of Mogg-imposed red tape needed to show that our zero VAT zero tariff zero quota products are as stated.
A bright future is ahead, and its all thanks to Rees-Mogg saying that his version of brexit was an act of self-harm. Good for him.
I know you have this bee in your bonnet but it’s just not true. We are diverging - eg gene editing will now be allowed without being regulated as GMO
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
Thank you.
I annoyed BR because I named him from his previous iteration on here and called him out for his comments on Northern Ireland, which I thought were vile. He has never got over it.
I'm on the verge of giving up on pb. It's a bear pit. A very tough place to be a woman and one left-of-centre at that. I find the only way to keep my head above water on here is to try to fight (Leon) but it's grinding me down.
I don't think people respond in the way they do because you are a woman. For one thing no-one knows thats true or not, and most don't care. People have strong opinions on here, as do you. Its perfectly possible to post without being rude. Some do it well, others try to do it but sometime fail, some don't try and some do it to wind people up.
Please keep posting your viewpoint. The forum is better with a range of views. It really is.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
There you go. That’s one of your annoying comments
It was a serious point actually, made by someone else. How can you advocate a machine that is so bad for the environment?
I won't use a rude word back to you. I'll leave that to you and your tawdry "thriller" writing style and ghastly sex guide books.
Why did you snip the rest of my careful and judicious assessment of your commentary?
“You manage to slight me as a heedless despoiler of the environment, colour yourself as a superior eco-sensitive person, praise yourself for your own good taste, slyly confess that you are wealthy, and add a dash of pompous affectation with the reference to “De Longhi Eletta Bean to Cup”, all in about 3 lines
You’re a wanker”
I demand a considered response and appeal to the @PBModerator
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
I did not change my username after getting banned, if I did I would have been rebanned by @PBModerator
I changed my username because I do not want my real name to be used. @PBModerator has requested that choice be respected.
If you refuse to respect that, and you deliberately try to upset other users then that is quite literally trolling. I just made a point about gambling and value, I never called you a troll today, despite you openly trolling me by doxxing.
Fine. Here's a deal. You stop calling me a troll and I won't call you by your name. That's if stick around which right now I rate as less than 10%. Perhaps you could call that a value bet?
Applicant, you need to learn the difference between calling someone out for trolling and appreciating someone having a different political stance than you. Yes I'm left-of-centre, feminist, green and don't like it when a certain demographic pile on me. Clearly you and I come from very, very, different ends of the political spectrum but it's pathetic to call me a troll. Maybe if you stopped being so abusive and got over your obsession with troll-calling you might find I am less riled.
Stop calling him by his name. Or depart for good. Them's the choices here.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
You're not a troll because you use a VPN, you're a troll because you're a troll.
If you continue to post things like Not a day goes by without the old gammons on here coming out with this vile crap. Why can't you just drop it? And be nice and kind and understanding to others? then you're going to get called out for being a racist, sexist troll because that is exactly what you are.
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
I did not change my username after getting banned, if I did I would have been rebanned by @PBModerator
I changed my username because I do not want my real name to be used. @PBModerator has requested that choice be respected.
If you refuse to respect that, and you deliberately try to upset other users then that is quite literally trolling. I just made a point about gambling and value, I never called you a troll today, despite you openly trolling me by doxxing.
Fine. Here's a deal. You stop calling me a troll and I won't call you by your name. That's if stick around which right now I rate as less than 10%. Perhaps you could call that a value bet?
Applicant, you need to learn the difference between calling someone out for trolling and appreciating someone having a different political stance than you. Yes I'm left-of-centre, feminist, green and don't like it when a certain demographic pile on me. Clearly you and I come from very, very, different ends of the political spectrum but it's pathetic to call me a troll. Maybe if you stopped being so abusive and got over your obsession with troll-calling you might find I am less riled.
Stop calling him by his name.
As I say, he can stop calling me a troll. Which he has more-or-less said he will.
It's supposed to be a betting site but almost no posts are about betting. Just a load of irascible posts designed to flame.
They really aren't. In the last 12 hours, we've had perfectly nice conversations about coffee, likely Labour leaders, feelings of identity, the insanity of twitter, the reality or otherwise of Bitcoin, the niceness or otherwise of being in the office, the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, how time zones match up with our body clocks - all without being abusive or in any way unpleasant at all. Not much about betting, granted - though a bit, given Horse's potentially unwise bet he mentioned earlier! - but very little irascible or designed to flame.
Which part of "control our borders" included "zero border checks" ?
Brexit is a shitshow, and will remain so long after those who voted for it are dead.
“Control our borders” including having “zero border checks” is by definition controlling our borders.
We control whether we check or don’t. Not a complicated concept.
You control your front door - you can choose to lock it or leave the door swinging open - whatever option you choose based on what’s best for your family - you are controlling it - your neighbour isn’t.
This is true enough. However, I am pretty sure that "wide open with no checks" was neither what the Vote Leave campaign were proposing nor what leave voters believed they would get.
If we choose to maintain the same control of our borders (none) but suffer greatly from the other side controlling their border (goods and people) then what have we gained? Brexit was supposed to make people's lived experience better, not worse.
Vote Leave and Boris Johnson specifically proposed shedding the EU's protectionism.
We're doing exactly that in dropping the EU's checks with non-EU produce, where its not necessary. Something we couldn't do as EU members. This is exactly what I voted for and what swung me from Remain to Leave.
Vote Leave to create 300,000 British jobs May 12, 2016 In the last few years, the EU has sought to complete five key trade deals, with the USA, Japan, ASEAN, India and Mercosur. Because of protectionism in other European countries, the EU has failed to get a trade deal with any of these countries. When we Vote Leave we will be able to do trade deals with all of these countries much more quickly. According to the EU’s own figures this will create 284,000 new jobs in the UK. Commenting, Boris Johnson said:
'If we Vote Leave we will be able to forge bold new trade deals with growing economies around the world. These are deals that the EU has tried and failed to achieve due to protectionist forces in Europe.
‘After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK.
‘Predictably the gloomsters want to do down Britain - they claim we are not strong enough to stand on our own two feet. What total tosh. There is a huge world of opportunity and prosperity out there if we take this opportunity to take back control.’
Oh do stop it. Brexit was pointless. There are no upsides unless you are Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson's band of hopeless-cases-who-wouldn't-be-appointed-by-anyone-else, and a few hedge funds. I know you don't want to accept you were gulled, but you were.
We all now have to live with it, but trying to invent "benefits of Brexit" is about as absurd as Putin trying to invent benefits from his invasion.
Oh give over.
We already have a trade deal agreed with the country I grew up in. That didn't exist pre-Brexit and wasn't possible as an EU member. That is a real benefit, right there.
Its certainly a benefit to New Zealand! Or will be in a decade when it comes into effect. Less of a benefit for British farmers though, which is who the government claimed to be helping by quitting the (massively flawed) CAP.
Bart doesn't like farmers or anyone else that isn't like him (a very small clique), so he doesn't care.
You're kind of right actually.
Why should I like farmers? Or anyone else I don't know, whether they're like me or not?
I neither like nor dislike farmers, I am entirely agnostic to them and everyone else I don't know. If farmers do well then great, good for them. If they don't, then that's OK too, let them get out of business and let a more productive farmer use the land or find an alternative use for the land instead.
I don't care about farmers any more than I would have cared about miners had I not been a baby when that was happening. We needed coal for electricity for three decades after the miners lost their jobs - did you care about them enough to think we should have prevented the closure of the mines?
You prove my point; you are like a stereotype of an extreme left winger; completely devoid of empathy for anyone, unless you feel that they are a bit like you. You are in favour of all sorts of privilege unless they are privileges you can't access yourself. Pretty sad outlook on life really.
I have empathy for others, I just don't cherrypick farmers (or any other self-interested group) over others.
Were we wrong to let the mines close in the 80s?
Was it wrong to let British Leyland ultimately fail?
Was it wrong to allow the Luddites not to succeed in blocking new technology that put them out of work?
I don't believe in Ludditism. I believe that chaotic evolution and the free market allows the best for all in the long run - and that support should be offered as a safety net for those who struggle as opposed to a way of life or "picking winners".
The Odds-on favourite to be next PM after Boris is Keir Starmer at around 9/2
After him it continues to be Conservative MPs who have short odds, some of them extremely short e.g. Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss at 11/2
So the markets are basically waging here on one of two options
OPTION 1
EITHER Boris Johnson survives until the GE and loses to SKS who becomes PM OR Boris Johnson falls soon and is replaced by a current tory MP
Neither of those bets look like value to me. I see little evidence that Boris Johnson is going anywhere and there's now a massive cloud hanging over SKS. Will the latter survive? Maybe he will but I'd put it no better than 50/50.
Which leaves us with two possibilitie
OPTION 2
EITHER Boris Johnson survives and wins next time OR Boris Johnson loses and another Labour leader becomes PM
The first of those is unlikely in my opinion but not impossible
The value remains in the second.
What is ABSOLUTELY NOT VALUE is betting on Andy Burnham. He was useless last two times (beaten twice), had the personality of a dead haddock, will not appeal to the south, is not even an MP and has the added disadvantage of being a man at a time when Labour need to select a female leader to lance a boil.
(Please don't just do pooh-pooh of this. It's about logic so reply in similar vein please.)
9/2 is not "odds-on". I hope you don't bet serious money.
I do and I've won every bet that I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections.
You're right of course and it was an oversight or typo but there's really no need to be a pissy dick about it. Ta.
Anyone who claims to have won every bet they have placed either is not being honest, not a regular gambler, or doesn't understand the principle of "value" in gambling.
Gambling successfully is about finding value.
A fantastically stupid post.
I have won money on every bet I've placed since, and including, the US Presidential elections. What is so difficult for you to get your head around?
Some of those bets have been fab: Chesham & Amersham thanks to Mike. Macron was a good win. LibDems to take Woking was another etc.
I made a lot of money on the US elections, spread betting on Biden when everyone went into flat panic mode based on a sub-set of latino votes in Florida. I went against the market trend and made a lot of money.
Biggest fuck up from me? It wasn't a bet. It was saying the invasion wouldn't happen.
I've no idea what your point was really and I suspect you don't either.
If you didn't understand the point, then you can't have read many of Mike's headers as he's made the point repeatedly.
If you're winning all your bets in a period of time, then that is just dumb luck it isn't smart. Smart political betting isn't about getting all your bets to win, as no gambler will win all their bets, if they did it wouldn't be gambling.
Political betting is about finding value.
I've never seen you make a betting post. Ever. All you ever seem to do is post right-wing, and sometimes quite nasty, rants and personal attacks on me.
So when you make betting posts and are seen to win I will take notice.
You are of course talking illogical rubbish. If I happen to find value and win that's great betting. There's nothing smart about losing.
I'm on Rachel Reeves, Lisa Nandy and Yvette Cooper as Next PM at odds over 100/1. If that's not a gamble I don't know what the hell is. And they will probably lose but they're value imho.
But you're very close to your aim Phillip of hounding me off this board. Were it not for Big G's nice polite comment I would have given up earlier. I am sick and tired of your bullying, nasty, attacks on me.
I keep an eye on this forum as I like seeing how UK political thought evolves.
Mr Roberts' attacks on you seem to me to be totally unnecessary and as you say nasty. I am not surprised you feel like leaving here when he is being so vicious towards you. What did you say to wind him up or is he just a very unpleasant person?
Play fair people. I see Heatherners posts and think she makes a lot of very sensible points and has come out with some very good tips. That Liberal Democrat win in Woking was impressive.
She just goes a bit over the top on the female and left winger guff but being in a minority probably makes her defensive.
I 19 posts in total, so perhaps you haven't noticed that this individual has been trolling for weeks, often in explicitly racist and sexist ways. S/he has also repeatedly doxxed at least one other poster despite requests to do so (including in the post you quoted), and s/he uses a compromised VPN - and at least one moderator has as much as admitted that s/he should have been banned already.
Come on, it's no secret that BR changed his ID on here after PT was banned. And I only ever called him out because he repeatedly called me a troll.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
I did not change my username after getting banned, if I did I would have been rebanned by @PBModerator
I changed my username because I do not want my real name to be used. @PBModerator has requested that choice be respected.
If you refuse to respect that, and you deliberately try to upset other users then that is quite literally trolling. I just made a point about gambling and value, I never called you a troll today, despite you openly trolling me by doxxing.
Fine. Here's a deal. You stop calling me a troll and I won't call you by your name. That's if I stick around which right now I rate as less than 10%. Perhaps you could call that a value bet?
@Applicant, you need to learn the difference between calling someone out for trolling and appreciating someone having a different political stance than you. Yes I'm left-of-centre, feminist, green and don't like it when a certain demographic pile on me. Clearly you and I come from very, very, different ends of the political spectrum but it's pathetic to call me a troll. Maybe if you stopped being so abusive and got over your obsession with troll-calling you might find I am less riled.
I'm not from any "end" of the political spectrum. But I can see a racist, sexist insult when I see one - and it's laughable when it appears precisely one sentence before asking people to be "kind and understanding".
Drop the doxxing. Drop the racist, sexist insults. Drop the "as a..." posts. Drop the early morning posts designed to rile people up and divert the conversation. Then I'll stop calling you a troll.
From the Beeb - Ukraine claims 26,350 Russian troops have been killed. They also claim the total equipment losses from Russia are:
1,187 tanks 2,856 armoured combat vehicles 528 artillery systems 185 multiple launch rocket systems eight air defence systems 199 aircraft 160 helicopters 290 unmanned aerial vehicles 94 cruise missiles 12 ships or boats 1,997 motor vehicles and tank trucks 41 special equipment units
Does a day ever go by without accusations of "bullying" on this site?
The word is being debased. I was accused of it the other day merely for pointing out to a poster who is persistently economic with the actualitie that he was misrepresenting me repeatedly.
I have no doubt that occasional bullying occurs on here, but to call everything and anything robust "bullying" is crying wolf.
Applicant you're just openly targeting Heathener now, @PBModerator this has been going on far too long
Yep, and I make no apologies. By what has already been said by Robert, Heathener is well over the line and I'm well within my rights to point that out.
If anyone else made a habit of doxxing and using racist, sexist insults I'd object to that too.
@Leon I like some of your posts and some of your travel messages. But I do personally find them a bit tiresome and a bit, well, show-offy. Also rather trite and superficial but I don't mean that to be rude. I just personally like travel to be immersive, which takes time.
You do tend to get angry about different opinions (which people seem to think connects to drinking, but I've never made that association). I was merely suggesting that Nespresso is not the saviour of the fine cup of coffee. Nor is it particularly environmentally friendly which imho really ought to be a significant factor in all our decision making.
And I know you went through hell a while back so I'm not going to get more personal than that.
I'm going to ask a totally OT travel advice question because everyone would rather talk about coffee machines and a very personal argument I'm not really following or basically anything except Andy Burnham.
I've got a week free in Europe in September, Berlin at one end and Amsterdam at the other and just need to hang out somewhere in between. I'll mostly be working instead of running around committing tourism but I want somewhere that's just an interesting place to be for a week or so, preferably a single flight up to 3/4 hours long from both Berlin and Amsterdam and a few hours travel max from the airport (train or rentacar or whatever). UK/France/Belgium/Holland/Germany are out because I've been to them too much before. Somewhere that's kind of a bargain because it's a little bit out-of-season is also good.
It will be Wes Streeting next, I would almost put my life on it.
Steady on, Horse!
Hey Cookie.
I am not betting with money anymore, I closed all of my gambling accounts as I found they only fuelled my depression.
Well done. Difficult to spot that the short-term dopamine hit is not the same as getting the serotonin right. I was just rather alarmed by the phrase 'I would almost put my life on it' - he's not that certain! I'm aware you're talking figuratively. (I hope!)
I'm going to ask a totally OT travel advice question because everyone would rather talk about coffee machines and a very personal argument I'm not really following or basically anything except Andy Burnham.
I've got a week free in Europe in September, Berlin at one end and Amsterdam at the other and just need to hang out somewhere in between. I'll mostly be working instead of running around committing tourism but I want somewhere that's just an interesting place to be for a week or so, preferably a single flight up to 3/4 hours long from both Berlin and Amsterdam and a few hours travel max from the airport (train or rentacar or whatever). UK/France/Belgium/Holland/Germany are out because I've been to them too much before. Somewhere that's kind of a bargain because it's a little bit out-of-season is also good.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
I use Nespresso Vertuo. Pods are around 50 to 60p. My campus coffee shop is more like 180p, and not very good coffee. I collect the used aluminium pods and send them back for recycling.
Produces a decent simulacrum of espresso. As good as you’d get from Starbucks. Can’t make a flat white tho
My wife has worked out a way that it can, but you need to buy a little milk warning attachment. Can't vouch for it, though, as I only have the espresso.
My parents bought us a nespresso machine. We've never used it - we got it set up but it turns out you need particularly tiny cups and we didn't have any.
Try it. The espresso is good
The pods are terribly expensive and simply don't represent value. As well as the appalling plastic waste. Do you not care about that?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
There you go. That’s one of your annoying comments
You manage to slight me as a heedless despoiler of the environment, colour yourself as a superior eco-sensitive person, praise yourself for your own good taste, slyly confess that you are wealthy, and add a dash of pompous affectation with the reference to “De Longhi Eletta Bean to Cup”, all in about 3 lines
You’re a wanker
Are you ever sober? Jesus.
Stone cold. Just woke up. Sitting on my balcony reading about the Armenian Genocide
Hmm, this morning's debt yields came in a lot higher than expected, I wonder if there was a mini strike from bond funds. Haven't seen any reports on the sale itself but this is what started happening last time the BoE removed the crutch of QE and put rates up.
Which part of "control our borders" included "zero border checks" ?
Brexit is a shitshow, and will remain so long after those who voted for it are dead.
“Control our borders” including having “zero border checks” is by definition controlling our borders.
We control whether we check or don’t. Not a complicated concept.
You control your front door - you can choose to lock it or leave the door swinging open - whatever option you choose based on what’s best for your family - you are controlling it - your neighbour isn’t.
This is true enough. However, I am pretty sure that "wide open with no checks" was neither what the Vote Leave campaign were proposing nor what leave voters believed they would get.
If we choose to maintain the same control of our borders (none) but suffer greatly from the other side controlling their border (goods and people) then what have we gained? Brexit was supposed to make people's lived experience better, not worse.
Vote Leave and Boris Johnson specifically proposed shedding the EU's protectionism.
We're doing exactly that in dropping the EU's checks with non-EU produce, where its not necessary. Something we couldn't do as EU members. This is exactly what I voted for and what swung me from Remain to Leave.
Vote Leave to create 300,000 British jobs May 12, 2016 In the last few years, the EU has sought to complete five key trade deals, with the USA, Japan, ASEAN, India and Mercosur. Because of protectionism in other European countries, the EU has failed to get a trade deal with any of these countries. When we Vote Leave we will be able to do trade deals with all of these countries much more quickly. According to the EU’s own figures this will create 284,000 new jobs in the UK. Commenting, Boris Johnson said:
'If we Vote Leave we will be able to forge bold new trade deals with growing economies around the world. These are deals that the EU has tried and failed to achieve due to protectionist forces in Europe.
‘After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK.
‘Predictably the gloomsters want to do down Britain - they claim we are not strong enough to stand on our own two feet. What total tosh. There is a huge world of opportunity and prosperity out there if we take this opportunity to take back control.’
Oh do stop it. Brexit was pointless. There are no upsides unless you are Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson's band of hopeless-cases-who-wouldn't-be-appointed-by-anyone-else, and a few hedge funds. I know you don't want to accept you were gulled, but you were.
We all now have to live with it, but trying to invent "benefits of Brexit" is about as absurd as Putin trying to invent benefits from his invasion.
Oh give over.
We already have a trade deal agreed with the country I grew up in. That didn't exist pre-Brexit and wasn't possible as an EU member. That is a real benefit, right there.
Its certainly a benefit to New Zealand! Or will be in a decade when it comes into effect. Less of a benefit for British farmers though, which is who the government claimed to be helping by quitting the (massively flawed) CAP.
Bart doesn't like farmers or anyone else that isn't like him (a very small clique), so he doesn't care.
You're kind of right actually.
Why should I like farmers? Or anyone else I don't know, whether they're like me or not?
I neither like nor dislike farmers, I am entirely agnostic to them and everyone else I don't know. If farmers do well then great, good for them. If they don't, then that's OK too, let them get out of business and let a more productive farmer use the land or find an alternative use for the land instead.
I don't care about farmers any more than I would have cared about miners had I not been a baby when that was happening. We needed coal for electricity for three decades after the miners lost their jobs - did you care about them enough to think we should have prevented the closure of the mines?
You prove my point; you are like a stereotype of an extreme left winger; completely devoid of empathy for anyone, unless you feel that they are a bit like you. You are in favour of all sorts of privilege unless they are privileges you can't access yourself. Pretty sad outlook on life really.
I have empathy for others, I just don't cherrypick farmers (or any other self-interested group) over others.
Were we wrong to let the mines close in the 80s?
Was it wrong to let British Leyland ultimately fail?
Was it wrong to allow the Luddites not to succeed in blocking new technology that put them out of work?
I don't believe in Ludditism. I believe that chaotic evolution and the free market allows the best for all in the long run - and that support should be offered as a safety net for those who struggle as opposed to a way of life or "picking winners".
Lol. You will soon be bleating about house prices or some other thing that "is not fair", and how the state should intervene on your behalf to redress the balance. Good post though, almost made you sound pseudo-intellectual, even though it was all bollox that will change with the wind no doubt.
I'm going to ask a totally OT travel advice question because everyone would rather talk about coffee machines and a very personal argument I'm not really following or basically anything except Andy Burnham.
I've got a week free in Europe in September, Berlin at one end and Amsterdam at the other and just need to hang out somewhere in between. I'll mostly be working instead of running around committing tourism but I want somewhere that's just an interesting place to be for a week or so, preferably a single flight up to 3/4 hours long from both Berlin and Amsterdam and a few hours travel max from the airport (train or rentacar or whatever). UK/France/Belgium/Holland/Germany are out because I've been to them too much before. Somewhere that's kind of a bargain because it's a little bit out-of-season is also good.
Where to go?
You can probably do the touristy bits of the three Baltic countries in a week? Or maybe Sweden? @Cicero and/or @StuartDickson would no doubt be happy to advise.
Which part of "control our borders" included "zero border checks" ?
Brexit is a shitshow, and will remain so long after those who voted for it are dead.
“Control our borders” including having “zero border checks” is by definition controlling our borders.
We control whether we check or don’t. Not a complicated concept.
You control your front door - you can choose to lock it or leave the door swinging open - whatever option you choose based on what’s best for your family - you are controlling it - your neighbour isn’t.
This is true enough. However, I am pretty sure that "wide open with no checks" was neither what the Vote Leave campaign were proposing nor what leave voters believed they would get.
If we choose to maintain the same control of our borders (none) but suffer greatly from the other side controlling their border (goods and people) then what have we gained? Brexit was supposed to make people's lived experience better, not worse.
Vote Leave and Boris Johnson specifically proposed shedding the EU's protectionism.
We're doing exactly that in dropping the EU's checks with non-EU produce, where its not necessary. Something we couldn't do as EU members. This is exactly what I voted for and what swung me from Remain to Leave.
Vote Leave to create 300,000 British jobs May 12, 2016 In the last few years, the EU has sought to complete five key trade deals, with the USA, Japan, ASEAN, India and Mercosur. Because of protectionism in other European countries, the EU has failed to get a trade deal with any of these countries. When we Vote Leave we will be able to do trade deals with all of these countries much more quickly. According to the EU’s own figures this will create 284,000 new jobs in the UK. Commenting, Boris Johnson said:
'If we Vote Leave we will be able to forge bold new trade deals with growing economies around the world. These are deals that the EU has tried and failed to achieve due to protectionist forces in Europe.
‘After we liberate ourselves from the shackles of Brussels we will be able to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs right across the UK.
‘Predictably the gloomsters want to do down Britain - they claim we are not strong enough to stand on our own two feet. What total tosh. There is a huge world of opportunity and prosperity out there if we take this opportunity to take back control.’
Oh do stop it. Brexit was pointless. There are no upsides unless you are Boris Johnson, Boris Johnson's band of hopeless-cases-who-wouldn't-be-appointed-by-anyone-else, and a few hedge funds. I know you don't want to accept you were gulled, but you were.
We all now have to live with it, but trying to invent "benefits of Brexit" is about as absurd as Putin trying to invent benefits from his invasion.
Oh give over.
We already have a trade deal agreed with the country I grew up in. That didn't exist pre-Brexit and wasn't possible as an EU member. That is a real benefit, right there.
Its certainly a benefit to New Zealand! Or will be in a decade when it comes into effect. Less of a benefit for British farmers though, which is who the government claimed to be helping by quitting the (massively flawed) CAP.
Bart doesn't like farmers or anyone else that isn't like him (a very small clique), so he doesn't care.
You're kind of right actually.
Why should I like farmers? Or anyone else I don't know, whether they're like me or not?
I neither like nor dislike farmers, I am entirely agnostic to them and everyone else I don't know. If farmers do well then great, good for them. If they don't, then that's OK too, let them get out of business and let a more productive farmer use the land or find an alternative use for the land instead.
I don't care about farmers any more than I would have cared about miners had I not been a baby when that was happening. We needed coal for electricity for three decades after the miners lost their jobs - did you care about them enough to think we should have prevented the closure of the mines?
You prove my point; you are like a stereotype of an extreme left winger; completely devoid of empathy for anyone, unless you feel that they are a bit like you. You are in favour of all sorts of privilege unless they are privileges you can't access yourself. Pretty sad outlook on life really.
I have empathy for others, I just don't cherrypick farmers (or any other self-interested group) over others.
Were we wrong to let the mines close in the 80s?
Was it wrong to let British Leyland ultimately fail?
Was it wrong to allow the Luddites not to succeed in blocking new technology that put them out of work?
I don't believe in Ludditism. I believe that chaotic evolution and the free market allows the best for all in the long run - and that support should be offered as a safety net for those who struggle as opposed to a way of life or "picking winners".
Lol. You will soon be bleating about house prices or some other thing that "is not fair", and how the state should intervene on your behalf to redress the balance. Good post though, almost made you sound pseudo-intellectual, even though it was all bollox that will change with the wind no doubt.
My objection is to the state interfering in the market preventing people building homes.
I extend my belief in the free market to land. Anyone should be able to use their own land for whatever they choose, including constructing homes, if they prefer that, within reason.
I don't want the state interfering getting into construction or anything else. I want deregulation and the state to get out of the way.
I'm going to ask a totally OT travel advice question because everyone would rather talk about coffee machines and a very personal argument I'm not really following or basically anything except Andy Burnham.
I've got a week free in Europe in September, Berlin at one end and Amsterdam at the other and just need to hang out somewhere in between. I'll mostly be working instead of running around committing tourism but I want somewhere that's just an interesting place to be for a week or so, preferably a single flight up to 3/4 hours long from both Berlin and Amsterdam and a few hours travel max from the airport (train or rentacar or whatever). UK/France/Belgium/Holland/Germany are out because I've been to them too much before. Somewhere that's kind of a bargain because it's a little bit out-of-season is also good.
I'm going to ask a totally OT travel advice question because everyone would rather talk about coffee machines and a very personal argument I'm not really following or basically anything except Andy Burnham.
I've got a week free in Europe in September, Berlin at one end and Amsterdam at the other and just need to hang out somewhere in between. I'll mostly be working instead of running around committing tourism but I want somewhere that's just an interesting place to be for a week or so, preferably a single flight up to 3/4 hours long from both Berlin and Amsterdam and a few hours travel max from the airport (train or rentacar or whatever). UK/France/Belgium/Holland/Germany are out because I've been to them too much before. Somewhere that's kind of a bargain because it's a little bit out-of-season is also good.
Where to go?
You can probably do the touristy bits of the three Baltic countries in a week? Or maybe Sweden? @Cicero and/or @StuartDickson would no doubt be happy to advise.
Ah, should have said, I've been to the baltic countries and I don't want to be running around multiple places, I just want to settle into a hotel somewhere with my laptop and occasionally go out and eat and potter around [place with an interesting vibe].
Bit early in the day for flame wars and bans isn't it? I thought alcohol and late nights were usually involved.
On topic I'm a fan of Streeting but have a feeling that if Keir did go soon, Nandy is probably the best placed in terms of:
- Acceptable to most wings of party - Sufficiently distant from SKS - Good on cost of living - Not from London - Female
Her problem is horribly superficial but the fat tongue/slight lisp and little girl features make her too Violet Elizabeth Bott to be leader of a fading world power.
Comments
But as Mike and others have pointed out he's not an MP. That's a major obstacle.
The reason for SNP preponderance is the split unionist vote. Even in the council elections just gone, more people voted for "unionist" parties. There is majority opposition to another Indy vote anytime soon, and all recent polls have put No ahead anyway.
No serious country can put itself at continual risk of dismemberment which was the reason for the Edinburgh Agreement signed by both Salmond and Sturgeon in 2014.
Sturgeon is just going through the motions demanding a ref in 2023. It will be years before there is another ref, if there ever is one. The rest is noise.
"Exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person. You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work. In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug. Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue. This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcoholic beverages. No craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug."
The Americans have a version (judging by all the hotels I recently visited in the Deep South) but the coffee it produces is grim. Almost as bad as instant
That isn't democracy. And it is that rather basic problem which drives the Yes campaign. The failure of the 2014 referendum was that it did not stipulate in law the conditions for future polls. The next one will need to do so or we will keep going round in circles.
Independence is the boulder that weighs down Scottish politics, just as the unification boulder does the same in Norniron. We need to shift the boulder to get things done and you can't do that by telling people they can't have what they voted for. Yet I read almost hysterical posts on here from Leon and others that it was undemocratic to elect a new parliament in 2017 which considered itself sovereign with regards to Brexit. We either respect the will of the people or we do not. Some of you seem to only want to respect it when its the English.
Why should I like farmers? Or anyone else I don't know, whether they're like me or not?
I neither like nor dislike farmers, I am entirely agnostic to them and everyone else I don't know. If farmers do well then great, good for them. If they don't, then that's OK too, let them get out of business and let a more productive farmer use the land or find an alternative use for the land instead.
I don't care about farmers any more than I would have cared about miners had I not been a baby when that was happening. We needed coal for electricity for three decades after the miners lost their jobs - did you care about them enough to think we should have prevented the closure of the mines?
I have a DeLonghi Eletta Bean to Cup. It's an expensive initial outlay but makes superb coffee of barista standard. Far superior to Nespresso.
There have been comments that some think his FPN was unfair, especially after the allegations about Starmer, and he could just see a renaissance later this year and while I know little about betting I assume anyone on 250/1 should have a smile longer that Leith Walk
Thorpe Hamlet is green territory with labour second and often challenging as in 2021, labour regardless are twice the size of the Tories here. The proposal is about 8500 electors from these wards, I'd expect in 70% turnout it would add at least a net 1000 labour - on their own enough to have swung it in 2017.
DYOR but Chloes 10% lead isn't secure. At all.
But he abandoned it for a reason, I believe
- Starmer - I don't see him getting FPN or resigning from what we know. If he faces Johnson at GE then he's a fair chance of being PM. 9/2 doesn't look far off, to me (I've got him at prices from 7 to 12, average high 9s; I've traded some out to cover the stake, but otherwise sticking with it).
- Johnson, staying most likely, I agree (and have bets on him being PM beyond end of this year)
- Value on other Labour candidates - at ~100 as you flagged up a few days ago, I agree and I backed a few - thanks. But they're value bets that I expect to lose or possibly trade out for a bit of profit. Not sure where I'd draw the value point, would depend on candidate, of course.
- Burnham - agree
So, our difference is that I rate Starmer's chances of being next PM much higher than you do. I don't see him going pre-election unless currygate gets him.
Horrible drug
Great historical oddity: Scott of the Antarctic took pounds of the stuff to the South Pole as a local anaesthetic for the eyes. Also had a ton of morphine. But chose to lie dying for days until an unassisted and (according to Apsley Cherry Garrard who saw the body) very hard death.
I am not betting with money anymore, I closed all of my gambling accounts as I found they only fuelled my depression.
Rather than the Mayor with a knack for getting his points over at great length on Granada Reports almost every day of the week.
I am NOT A FUCKING TROLL!!!! I use a VPN. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the difference?
Why anyone goes online without using a VPN baffles me. Your data is being mined continuosly. That's why I use Windscribe or FreeVPN. It's not complicated but it gives you room to be rude and dismissive.
So every time I'm called a troll by BR I will refer to him by his real name.
The other big names - Sheen, Brando, Duvall, Ford etc - were all in their thirties or older, so not so easy to miss.
The "noise" you speak of is people voting.
It's supposed to be a betting site but almost no posts are about betting. Just a load of irascible posts designed to flame.
You manage to slight me as a heedless despoiler of the environment, colour yourself as a superior eco-sensitive person, praise yourself for your own good taste, slyly confess that you are wealthy, and add a dash of pompous affectation with the reference to “De Longhi Eletta Bean to Cup”, all in about 3 lines
You’re a wanker
Hey but you are (imo) being just a bit precious about this "doxxing" business. She only mentioned your - very common* - first name. Hardly enough to alert the watching world to who you are.
* By this I mean popular, I hasten to clarify, not low class and oiky.
I changed my username because I do not want my real name to be used. @PBModerator has requested that choice be respected.
If you refuse to respect that, and you deliberately try to upset other users then that is quite literally trolling. I just made a point about gambling and value, I never called you a troll today, despite you openly trolling me by doxxing.
If you continue to post things like Not a day goes by without the old gammons on here coming out with this vile crap. Why can't you just drop it? And be nice and kind and understanding to others? then you're going to get called out for being a racist, sexist troll because that is exactly what you are.
Self-identified, of course.
I must confess, I've never had an espresso. It's not even that I don't think I'd like it - my issue is that if I'm going to spend my £2 on a cup of coffee, I worry that an espresso will be over all too quickly. I like a normal filter coffee and worry that any other experience won't be as good.
This isn't in the same league as Danny Baker's interview with Gordon Strachan in which it was revealed that Gordon Strachan had never tried a coffee of any sort, but given my earlier post about how much I enjoy coffee, it does seem odd now I reflect on it.
I won't use a rude word back to you. I'll leave that to you and your tawdry "thriller" writing style and ghastly sex guide books.
Nescafe dolce gusto for posh guests, kenco instant for rainy mornings
Sunak has two issues - he got an FPN, and is rich. We knew the latter already and I suspect the fuss that has already died down over that has now gone away. So we're back to competence, and Sunak absolutely is one of the very few competents in Cabinet.
So yes, if he comes slamming in with a broad package of measures in the autumn he could be a contender again. Possibly. If he can show that he even understands the struggle people are having that would be an advancement on his boss who is congenitally incapable of thinking about plebs.
First 2 coffees of the day - decent filter coffee
Rest - mainly having a hot mug steaming next to keyboard but rarely drink more than a sip or two - instant is fine
I agree re bean to cup though.
One of the mistakes the Conservatives have made since has been to confuse an 80 seat majority with huge public support. John Major got more votes than Bozza did, and we know how that ended.
There are enough anti-Conservative votes out there to stuff the government. As in the past, the question is whether those voters wish to arrange themselves to do that.
@Applicant, you need to learn the difference between calling someone out for trolling and appreciating someone having a different political stance than you. Yes I'm left-of-centre, feminist, green and don't like it when a certain demographic pile on me. Clearly you and I come from very, very, different ends of the political spectrum but it's pathetic to call me a troll. Maybe if you stopped being so abusive and got over your obsession with troll-calling you might find I am less riled.
Please keep posting your viewpoint. The forum is better with a range of views. It really is.
“You manage to slight me as a heedless despoiler of the environment, colour yourself as a superior eco-sensitive person, praise yourself for your own good taste, slyly confess that you are wealthy, and add a dash of pompous affectation with the reference to “De Longhi Eletta Bean to Cup”, all in about 3 lines
You’re a wanker”
I demand a considered response and appeal to the @PBModerator
Utterly despicable, I will be leaving this site if this continues.
Were we wrong to let the mines close in the 80s?
Was it wrong to let British Leyland ultimately fail?
Was it wrong to allow the Luddites not to succeed in blocking new technology that put them out of work?
I don't believe in Ludditism. I believe that chaotic evolution and the free market allows the best for all in the long run - and that support should be offered as a safety net for those who struggle as opposed to a way of life or "picking winners".
“He’s behind you!”
Odds too short for me. I'd be more tempted, had I a free bet, on Russell at 41 for the title.
Drop the doxxing. Drop the racist, sexist insults. Drop the "as a..." posts. Drop the early morning posts designed to rile people up and divert the conversation. Then I'll stop calling you a troll.
1,187 tanks
2,856 armoured combat vehicles
528 artillery systems
185 multiple launch rocket systems
eight air defence systems
199 aircraft
160 helicopters
290 unmanned aerial vehicles
94 cruise missiles
12 ships or boats
1,997 motor vehicles and tank trucks
41 special equipment units
Staggering numbers.
The word is being debased. I was accused of it the other day merely for pointing out to a poster who is persistently economic with the actualitie that he was misrepresenting me repeatedly.
I have no doubt that occasional bullying occurs on here, but to call everything and anything robust "bullying" is crying wolf.
Bullying is legitimised against certain users and I will not accept it in whilst in my current fragile state.
Goodbye
If anyone else made a habit of doxxing and using racist, sexist insults I'd object to that too.
You do tend to get angry about different opinions (which people seem to think connects to drinking, but I've never made that association). I was merely suggesting that Nespresso is not the saviour of the fine cup of coffee. Nor is it particularly environmentally friendly which imho really ought to be a significant factor in all our decision making.
And I know you went through hell a while back so I'm not going to get more personal than that.
I've got a week free in Europe in September, Berlin at one end and Amsterdam at the other and just need to hang out somewhere in between. I'll mostly be working instead of running around committing tourism but I want somewhere that's just an interesting place to be for a week or so, preferably a single flight up to 3/4 hours long from both Berlin and Amsterdam and a few hours travel max from the airport (train or rentacar or whatever). UK/France/Belgium/Holland/Germany are out because I've been to them too much before. Somewhere that's kind of a bargain because it's a little bit out-of-season is also good.
Where to go?
On topic I'm a fan of Streeting but have a feeling that if Keir did go soon, Nandy is probably the best placed in terms of:
- Acceptable to most wings of party
- Sufficiently distant from SKS
- Good on cost of living
- Not from London
- Female
I was just rather alarmed by the phrase 'I would almost put my life on it' - he's not that certain!
I'm aware you're talking figuratively. (I hope!)
Incredible book btw. Heartily recommend it
Happy Birthday Mike. 🥳
Changing the subject and thinking of "calm down, calm down", did anyone see Gove this morning? Blimey! What a twat!
I extend my belief in the free market to land. Anyone should be able to use their own land for whatever they choose, including constructing homes, if they prefer that, within reason.
I don't want the state interfering getting into construction or anything else. I want deregulation and the state to get out of the way.
She probably thought that anyway, tho
The weird Englishmen with his flint “things” in room 2903
Oh, and happy birthday.
"But sir, I wasn't involved, I was just there, it was ..."
"Quiet, Perkins, and bend over."
(I won't take the risk so I'm off)