I think this bet on this Florida Man is worth a punt – politicalbetting.com
I think this bet on this Florida Man is worth a punt – politicalbetting.com
One of the reasons I have backed Ron DeSantis is that if the Trump presidency turns into a bit of a disaster (well more of a disaster than it currently is) then that damages the likes of J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio.
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Paramount to show most Champions League games in UK from 2027-31
US network made largest bid at this week’s auction
Amazon Prime will have first pick of Tuesday matches
The US media and entertainment giant Paramount Skydance has won the auction for the rights to broadcast most Champions League matches in the UK from 2027 to 2031 in a major shake-up of the domestic rights market.
The Guardian has learned that Paramount, whose subsidiary company Paramount+ owns the rights for Champions League games in the US, made the largest bid in this week’s auction and an announcement is due. Amazon Prime is poised to land the first pick of Tuesday matches in major European markets in the new streaming deal sold by Uefa.
Sources with knowledge of the tender process say Paramount’s bid was considerably higher than the £1bn currently paid by TNT in what will be regarded as a successful auction for the Uefa-owned joint venture UC3, which runs the Champions League, and its new commercial rights distributor, Relevent Football Partners.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/nov/20/paramount-champions-league-games-uk-amazon-prime-tuesday
Take it you’re backing DeSantis as a candidate, not as President. The way things are going, no Republican is going to win.
Back here in the UK I think your long odds pointer-outers have been interesting too. (I do think I pre-tipped you re Lammy).
These are odd times - ok everyone always says that, but the time will get much much odder as we approach US2028 and UK2029.
Whilst I think much more highly of Reeves than the rest of you (albeit she's wildly misguided as she's in the Labour party) if she buggers up the 2029 election betting I'm not sure I'll ever forgive her.
It's rare you don't have either the incumbent President or Vice President on one of the tickets - it happened in 2008 and 2016 but it's a rarity so you'd expect Vance to be the GOP candidate.
We have seen Vice Presidents face strong primary challenges - would Humphrey have beaten RFK in 1968 if the latter hadn't been murdered while Reagan ran Ford close in 1976 (though of course Ford hadn't been on the 1972 ticket and only became VP after the resignation of Agnew).
History tells me therefore Vance will likely win the GOP nomination if he runs but De Santis might be the candidate if he doesn't.
It doesn’t sit well alongside remembering not just the Downing Street partying, but the chequers partying, dirt biking, using chequers for the wedding, £400K a roll wallpaper etc.
I have zero (possibly less) interest in football and I really won't pay for it.
By Paramount!
It's good but it's no Life on Mars.
I switched to VOXI.
Doesn't matter I guess, but given the BBC is likely to cease to exist very soon I'm going to be very annoyed indeed to have to sign up to coverage of the ghastly sport of football in order to see the gentle sport of cricket.
Boris was a disaster for the Conservative brand.
Elections might be many moons away yet, but Reform, at least, is wasting no time cherry-picking their future candidates.
Among the rogues gallery of potential Reform MPs? Who else but GB News presenter - Matt Goodwin!
Given that he just became, at the sprightly age of 43, head of the party’s new student organisation, Goodwin is a fairly obvious choice.
But perhaps Nigel & co should be a bit more cautious. The honorary prez of Students4Reform was overheard at a pub moaning that Reform were likely to completely fuck it during their first run at governing, but that whatever movement comes after will be much more interesting.
Which is either very pessimistic, or very optimistic, depending on how you look at it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/20/labour-government-credibility-budget
But the one I find particularly hard to convince myself of is that the UK could have avoided lockdown entirely.
If you recall the political, media and public mood at the time, it’s simply for the birds.
"Romanian grooming gang boss offered £1,500 to leave UK while awaiting trial for 10 rapes"
https://news.sky.com/story/romanian-grooming-gang-boss-offered-1-500-to-leave-uk-while-awaiting-trial-for-10-rapes-13471714
Josh Hawley
Tom Cotton
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
Ron DeSantis
and
JD Vance
also and...
Marjorie Taylor Greene
and and...
A Trump child
Right now, almost irrespective of the popularity of the current administration with the general population, it is political suicide to step out of line with Trump.
In a winner-takes-all contest, where 30% might well be enough to pickup Iowa and New Hampshire, it's hard to see Trump not having enough sway to ensure that his candidate gets the nomination.
There are just two small problems.
The first is that JD Vance - the obvious pick as VP - is as inspiring a campaigner as Kamala Harris. The man nearly lost Ohio in the 2022 midterms.
The second is that Trump will want someoen who he has proper control over.
I therefore think one of the Trump children - wildly unsuitable as they are - may be the best bet. My money's on Eric.
What the report says on this, I don't know.
I don't need an inquiry to tell me Johnson is "toxic and chaotic", but a good three word summary of the man nevertheless.
On the actual conclusions, I now cut Johnson more slack than I did at the time. Clearly a lot of decision making could have been better, but no-one got this completely right. In the end the UK was middle ranking amongst peers. Some countries did better but some did worse.
We banked up some hay in horseshoe shapes.
At the time nobody thought the vaccine would be available so soon, so the only choice was in how fast people caught it.
The 20k or so saved by an earlier lockdown would have been caught by a later wave (which would have been bigger as a consequence).
Of course the last thing anyone is going to point at in all the noise is the massive debt pile - which will cause its own excess deaths for many years to come.
It was a no-win situation. Does anyone think the current government would have done any better?
North Riding seems to be catching it today.
(I still like Harris at very long odds)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04g4x0kkdpo
"Once upon a time, dearest Best Beloved, there were only four television channels. And every last one of them was free, once one had paid one's licence into the Post Office."
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/new-stargate-tv-series-amazon-martin-gero-1236585606/
1) having tried to source lots of disposable PPE in the middle of a world wide shortage, non-disposable has been rejected. We Don’t Do That Here
2) for disposable PPE a stockpile large enough to be useful would be huge and mean destroying vast amounts every year, unused. So we don’t do that either
3) Yes, kids. We are back to depending on PPE from Chinese factories, with about two weeks in the pipeline
4) if the next disease is really airborne, this stuff won’t protect anyone.
5) as much of the knowledge from test and trace etc has been got rid of, as possible
6) vaccine production on the Uk won’t happen
7) the dashboard team was disbanded for fear that easily accessible information would upset departmental control of policy.
{insert more here}
So all good for the future.
That might conceivably position her as someone who could reunite the party if and when it all goes to crap in the midterms ?
Long shot, but considerably more interesting than the Florida dud, IMO.
(I was pretty cold & miserable myself,)
That's $10/month. And you can cancel after the Ashes, having spent a grand total of about $30 (23 quid or so).
However, you may have to deal with American commentary.
"Well folks, the pitcher’s opened with a ground throw to that guy with the pads, no idea why he’s wearing a mattress on his legs, but apparently if he doesn’t run, that’s… good?"
I worked then in an office of 300 or so. The first to fall were all the Cheltenham attendees, and then those that sat next to them etc. I find it hard to imagine that a similar effect wasn't at work elsewhere. So I think I can reasonably conclude that it was a significant factor in the spread.
Why buy and build a streaming network when you can just sell your content to the highest bidder?
The problems in our approach were largely in a few details:
- probably being a little slow early on in April 2020, but to me that’s perfectly understandable
- Allowing some jobsworths in the constabulary to get the idea that fun spreads COVID and do frankly silly things during lockdowns, like apprehending people sitting alone on beaches or going for walks on the moors
- Getting overly complicated with tiering in autumn 2020, but again I can understand why they tried it
- Flunking and then panic-buying PPE
Closing schools was, in hindsight, probably the most damaging mistake. One that most developed countries made. But the fear at the time was so great, it’s not remotely surprising the decision was made. I’d hope if we have another pandemic that largely affects adults that we’ll not do the same thing again.
I think the phasing of the lifting of restrictions towards the end was pretty well judged. The vaccine rollout was good. Furlough was expensive, but what’s really done in our finances is the (unexpected back in 2020) one-two of Covid spending followed by Ukraine war energy price subsidies.
And another said the UK did "too little too late", quoting in all likelihood those Grade 1 Arseholes at the BMA et al.
In the end you had a duel with them out in the PB Car Park, and shot them.
Or am I conflating two different things?
Professors Whitty and Vallance advice on delaying lockdown 'had no grounding in science'
The report also critices all the devolved administrations
My concern is the suggestion 23,000 lives could have been saved if we had lockdowned a week before is pure hindsight and unrealistical in the circumstances to have known that
Apparently this is costing 200 million pounds and no doubt Johnson will be undermined but it seems Wormaid and Vallance are in government and no doubt question will be raised about their role
Or were all these extra and longer lockdowns to have an exemption for those who wanted a holiday in a covid hotspot ?
* UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Resilience and preparedness (Module 1) Report
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-covid-19-inquiry-resilience-and-preparedness-module-1-report
20 November 2025
* UK Covid-19 Inquiry: Core decision-making and political governance (Modules 2, 2A, 2B, 2C) Report
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-covid-19-inquiry-core-decision-making-and-political-governance-modules-2-2a-2b-2c-report
James Hogg's writing on sheep in a snowstorm is memorable - but perhaps not the reading to recommend to you just now.
Given that people who attend Cheltenham are likely to be more outgoing than average that seems most unlikely.
My own response to how much football there is, is to watch a great deal less and do something else. Ditto cricket, which in a way has prostituted itself even more than football. Even the Ashes are a shadow of what they were. They are not a pinnacle, because the pinnacle is money.
Instead of locking down, everybody infected with Covid should have been made to wear a lanyard. Then we'd have known who to avoid.
Maybe the country's response will be in other modules?
And one of the paragraphs is used to quote a single study that found that rates of contact reduction were similar using the non-mandatory route than the massive society-wide lockdown approach.
I despair. How many £millions on this?
Let’s learn for the future or is that too much to ask.
Not restricting international travel - this delayed the removal of restrictions in 2021 as the delta variant arrived from India (Foxy predicted this would happen).
No health and fitness campaign - it was very quickly known that obesity was very detrimental.
The 'track and trace' was obviously going to be a waste of money and was likely gamed by people who wanted extra paid time off work.
Lord Melchett: Good Lord! Timkins?
Prince Ludwig: Yes! I was one of his sheep!
Lord Melchett: His sheep? Not...
Prince Ludwig: Yes!
Lord Melchett: Flossy?
Prince Ludwig: Yes!
Lord Melchett: But didn't we...
Prince Ludwig: Yes, Lord Melchett! Baaaaaa!
- Blackadder II, episode "Chains"
See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fgtrUM6C7g
Would it have been politically possible to lock down earlier anyway?
To do such an unprecedented thing required the population as a whole to accept that such a thing was necessary.
Two weeks earlier and I'm not sure that would have been the case.
Locking down the country, at such great economic and social cost, before there had been a significant number of deaths would have been politically impossible and likely widely flouted.
Then again as PB skews comfortably off with agreeable houses and often a few acres also, that is hardly a surprise.
Really and honestly I'm sure that my colleagues attendance at Cheltenham gave me covid. Sure.
Now what would you prefer - a committee or otherwise? Normally you'd go for the committee wouldn't you, but now... really?
The endless 'when can we go on our holibobs' questions on the daily conference drove me mad.
That's the only thing I'd argue we could have been more restrictive on.
We're on the eve of the Ashes and for the first time ever I find myself less than totally thrilled at the prospect. Why is that? It's because the cricket calendar has been so totally buggered up and the game so thoroughly dumbed down that I no longer care much.
No matter. I have plenty else to do.