Like many PBers I’m sitting on bets at 33/1 placed in March 2013 on Sadiq Khan to be next Mayor of London. This was on the basis of a tip from Henry G Manson who argued that EdM’s then appointment of the Tooting MP as Shadow Minister for London would play a big part in him securing the nomination. And so it turned out.
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Gingers have always brought great joy in my life, and also got me into trouble as well.
Have to admire the broad coalition Zac is trying to build to win in May
https://twitter.com/mikejoslin/status/710227415012921344
On the more important matter of F1, a qualifying tip is unlikely (especially if the Q3 market isn't up) but I'll peruse practice tomorrow. Because it's in Australia and P3 will start around 4am, the pre-qualifying piece will be up tomorrow.
Whats this I hear, about ginger beer?
http://i1.getsurrey.co.uk/incoming/article8544750.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Splash-of-Ginge.jpg
Not exactly ginger & male. -> Sex: Bay Gelding <-
http://images.racingpost.com/2012/Nov/50968.jpg <- Chestnut mare
Looks like George has pulled another stunner with PIP payment changes. Tory MPs already getting restive on this one. Budget only just 24 hours old.
A typical ginge, teased me at the start, but no happy finish
"George Osborne warned he only has a '50/50 shot' at hitting Budget surplus target"
Wow! I read "warned" as active rather than passive, and thought "What a shambles! Is he the Kaiser with the crowd outside, who knows he's got nowhere to run? No government minister in their right mind sets a big economic 'target' and then says he's only got a half-chance of meeting it."
"Don't they teach leadership at St Paul's?" I thought.
But no, "warned" was meant to be passive, and the guy doing the action is some "expert" character from the Institute of Fiscal Studies. State school, but senior ex-Whitehall. He ain't going to be acting off his own bat - that's obvious.
So Osborne is being kicked around the floor. By the Torygraph.
Could the government be in trouble? You kind of realise now why they wanted the leading Tory Brexiteers to stay in the cabinet.
Remain have a bad hand. What are they going to do? Digging the dirt on leading Leavers sounds good. Or ask for some terrorist or other military event to be organised so that it supports EU membership, but that seems very difficult.
Leave? Weaken the government. Take steam out of all of its cylinders. Make it back down on the tampon tax. Cause trouble for Cameron, Osborne, May and all the other jokers. Go, go, go!
I'm seriously considering trebling my investment in Leave. The price is still lower than when I piled in. It won't be for long.
Hills have refunded all bets (as a free bet)
I have no vote in this so my views don't matter a damn but Zac has underwhelmed from the start. Is it really going to get better for him? I have my doubts.
If I could continually back 50-1 shots at 100-1 I'd be rich.
A) having to be right in your true odds estimation
the stream of losers
C) having to keep doing it in the face of that stream of losers.
3-1 on Goldsmith doesn't tempt me at all.
Now, tell me what odds I can get on Winston?
https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/british/next-mayor/2016-london-mayoral-election/220800275/
Lovely photo of Cameron
I think this is the bit where he thinks "shit, should have backed leave"
http://www.faz.net/
My strong suspicion is that the "are you thinking what we're thinking" campaign is making Muslims (who usually give mid-term elections a miss) more determined to vote, and swinging young "right-on" voters who might initially have been attracted to Zac more firmly over to Sadiq.
Yes, AV is the answer...
if it was that easy why didn't he do it in 2010. ? Stupid.
Period.
I remember my boss at the place I worked at between 1989-95 complaining about VAT on sanitary products.
Tim Montgomerie ن Verified account @montie
It does appear that with his disability cuts + middle class tax relief, Osborne has learnt absolutely nothing from the tax credits fiasco.
1. The DWP (not Osborne) prepares the ground by tabling a few options and the implications, but runs effective win/lose so that the number of existing clients that are losers is a small number e.g. under 200,000 and the number of winners is also clear (expect that to be many times bigger). Make the biggest hits fall on new clients.
2. The DWP invite comments.
3. The DWP finese it and then implement.
Problem is that Osborne seems to have preferred to be the "Big I Am" deciding it at a time of his choosing, so the preparation of the ground in a communication plan was pretty useless.
He deserves for this to unravel and may be he might learn to stop controlling all announcements? But judging by his past behaviour, I doubt it.
If it it just a tampon fad, I'm not.
We should be able to zero rate whatever we want, as a sovereign nation.
“Mr Osborne had three fiscal rules – the welfare cap; the rule which said debt should fall as a fraction of national income every year; and the rule to get to budget surplus by 2019-20. He broke his welfare cap in November, and it is now broken by a bigger margin. He told us yesterday he is on course to break his debt rule by the end of this month. The surplus rule is the last rule standing.”
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/17/harry-potters-female-readers-now-driving-the-boom-in-grip-lit
Not heard the 'grip lit' epithet before. I like it!
The US will be fine.
Are there any other exempt goods?
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1
This man @RyanCoetzee is director of strategy for the Britain Stronger In campaign. Facts aren't their thing. https://twitter.com/ryancoetzee/status/709295647455891456 …
Your instinct is right, it's mostly services but the key exceptions (Group 6&7) are various goods relating to the provision of education, health and welfare.
Exluding Trump at a hung convention would be an outrage to a lot of voters. Might he run anyway? It would look odd to appoint the runner-up as candidate, but maybe excluding both Trump and Cruz would be even more of an outrage to the voters - though highly desirable to the party elites if they could get away with it
Ironically Kasich might be more likely to win the nomination if he dropped out now, giving Cruz a chance in several winner-take-all remaining states, and sought to win the goodwill of delegates for stopping both Cruz and Trump, rather than continuing to the convention on his own steam!
It's also rubbish. Most Commonwealth nations have English as their first or second language, and none would be offended by it - from the Charter of the Commonwealth:
"Affirming that the special strength of the Commonwealth lies in the
combination of our diversity and our shared inheritance in language, culture
and the rule of law; and bound together by shared history and tradition;
by respect for all states and peoples; by shared values and principles and
by concern for the vulnerable"
http://thecommonwealth.org/sites/default/files/page/documents/CharteroftheCommonwealth.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_in_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations
It's nice for Trump to see such publications as the Economist go such strongly against him, with enemies like these Trump doesn't need friends.
Attacks by discredited enemies is what fuels Trump's campaign from it's start.
I accept that more goods are 0 rated than exempt, but I think the EU would look more favourably on an exemption from the system; plus I doubt the government wants to hand a tax windfall to big pharma, particularly.
His job in S.Africa was to mainly help the white minority party D.A. to navigate the treacherous waters of african identity politics, not exactly a prescription for your average western country.
The puzzle is why anyone would hire him for anything above a shelf stacking role?