In many ways I think that a LD-LAB coalition is less likely than a CON-LD one. I think that LAB would find it much harder to swallow going in with the yellows than Dave did in 2010. If they are close to the magic 326 threshold then they’ll try going it alone.
Comments
9/2 Lib Con looks the value.
http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/en-gb/betting/g/1744492/Next-Government.html
So that's the readers & commentators of the UK's two most read papers vs PB'ers, who are among the strongest supporters of other parties in Britain.
Something tells me with Prior's injury, and a lack of middle time for some of our players, we maybe a bit undercooked for the first test.
Ed Miliband’s central task is to persuade voters not just the he is on their side, but also that he is up to the job of Prime Minister. Currently too few people think he is. And I’m not sure that he would win over the doubters by translating our poll numbers into a series of manifesto commitments to reintroduce price controls and renationalise the Royal Mail and British Gas. Were voters to regard him as a strong, decisive leader with workable solutions to Britain’s problems, then such radical measures might carry him to victory. The trouble is that this is not how most people see him; so the risk is that the very policies that most people say they want, could turn out to do him more harm than good.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/11/11/american-politics-red-ed-and-paradox-populism/
Which leads onto another question. What if there's a coalition, but it doesn't involve the Lib Dems? Labour and the SNP might well be able to find sufficient common ground if the numbers worked.
Men's tennis is lucky to have such a purple patch. Ever since Nadal was able to go toe-to-toe with Federer it's had at least 2 superstars.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/theresa-may-bbcs-online-presence-is-a-threat-to-local-democracy.1384178255
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24852971
Similiar crap value long odds bets include Tory Most Seats, Least votes &
Lib Dems to win the Euro elections
I've been looking for some easy money, and picking the exact opposite to your tennis bets is basically free cash A side bet on an abandoned match as well should see me home nicely.
I'm still ahead with tennis bets this year. Your point about abandoned matches is depressingly accurate, however. 3/5 of my last tips have been abandoned.
http://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2013/11/from-harryph-harriet-harmans-dodgy-dossier.html
There was a time when the wet Europhile wing of the Tory Party was great in number and in power. Now those voices are chased away to Labour etc - as your post below suggests. I have said that Soubry is very left wing for a Conservative. In days gone by she would have been a happy element in what was a much broader church.
It's tim's fork, isn't it?
If Cameron does take action, it's proof of the misogny/poshness issue.
If Cameron doesn't take action, it's because he's too cowardly to do anything due to the poshness/misogyny issue.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/24897809
Edited extra bit: bad news is that the article asserts Maldonado's likely to go to Lotus. I very much hope that isn't the case.
Glad you liked it, and hope you enjoyed the book as well.
Cook also looks doubtful. Carberry to open?! The side looks makeshift at best. But I am not comfortable with backing Australia!
http://www.annasoubry.org.uk/news
I don't know the constituency, but I wonder whether Nick P might have a bit of a battle on his hands because of that issue specifically.
The website bramcotetoday.org.uk has some of the details .
As I said on the previous thread, I'd expect recent events to make the PL even more attractive to American investors - with Spurs being the number one gettable prospect.
Just read that the Xbox One will need a day one patch. Without it, the console won't even play games (apparently). So, in order to allow the console to play games without an internet connection, you need to download a patch from the internet.
*raises an eyebrow*
That's a very special approach. I hope Sony isn't being that bad.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 13m
That'll teach @TristramHuntMP to go personal, naming Gove's school. Gove did not study GCSEs in Scotland, & urges Hunt to study geography.
"Several months on from being shunted sideways in the great Shadow Cabinet railway network, Maria Eagle has given her first press interview (to the Yorkshire Post).
The interview has news lines on water companies and other stuff in Maria's new brief at Shadow Environment.
But it's her remarks about HS2 that caught my eye most.
For new-reader-starts-here, it's worth pointing out that Ms Eagle was a strong supporter of HS2 while at Shadow Transport and was a tad surprised (to put it diplomatically) when Ed Balls came out all HS2-sceptic in his conference speech (and fringe).
Since then, perhaps goaded by David Cameron claiming Labour is abandoning the north, Team Miliband has made clear that while Balls has the final say on the funding of the project, the party is still overall in favour of the north-south link.
And now here's Maria's take on HS2 and Labour's policy, including a joke at Balls' expense:
"It’s all back on track...There’s been some leaves on the line, I think, that Ed Miliband has cleared away. Our position now is very clear.”
Ms Eagle also said she sympathised with those Labour MPs who had voiced their anger over the party flirting with the idea of scrapping HS2.
“I understand the concerns and why they feel the need to express their views, and I think our position is now very clear..“Ed Miliband has made it very clear. And it’s pretty much what I was saying when I was doing the job. We’re going to deliver this North-South railway line.”"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/04179370-4741-11e3-b4d3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2kLrKCmwK
Basically summing up a lot of the issues facing the west today.
American investors may want in but I doubt Joe Lewis wants to sell.
Of course BT is free for Virgin customers like me - so let the peons eat cake..
Massa moves to Williams, Maldonado leaves:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/index.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2498479/In-January-thing-left-goat-Romanian-father-sevens-boast-mayor-says-half-population-villages-way-Britain-higher-salaries-generous-benefits.html
I wouldn't say £110 per month is 'free'.
Something's gotta give.
Whilst I do have a connection, it's a shade ropey and I usually don't have it on. For people with none whatsoever this seems like another big PR win in the making for Sony (whose simple strategy of pointing at Microsoft and saying "We aren't doing that" has proven rather effective).
I won't be buying for a while, but I'll probably get a PS4 eventually (tip: wait 3 months after I buy it. I've got a great record of buying just before a cheaper, slimline, second version of a console comes to the market).
Also, I don't know many people who watch football at home, there isn't the atmosphere. I generally go to the pub, David Lloyd or somewhere similar, even though I could watch the games at home.
The only reason we have sports is for the tennis. There's so much of it that it isn't sensible to go out to watch a game.
LOL - I am a Sky Sports subscriber on Virgin and wasn't aware I also got BT?!?
IMHO from that skim-read, she has to resign. Not for breaching the rules themselves, but for not cooperating.
By-election, anyone?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmstnprv/806/806.pdf
Also, I believe it's the first parallelepiped console in history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallelepiped
[NB those who said it was rhombus-shaped are wrong twice. A rhombus is a polygon, not a three-dimensional object, and the two-dimensional equivalent is a parallelogram].
Decided against backing Nadal. I do think he's the likelier winner, but they're very evenly matched. His recent strong form against Djokovic is deceptive because he's won most of those games on clay (their match will be on a hard court).
I haven't measured it, but going by eye it's about the same size as the first PS3 slim but it is not as thick.
And (2), if UKIP has got the 10-15% needed to get several seats (and I'd put some money on North Devon if I were you), then it's hard to see the Conservatives polling more than 35%. Unless there's a LibDem recovery, then that's a Labour majority / Labour largest party scenario.
I think Sir Edric's Temple is the first book in history to feature a flange of flying baboons.
Re: football. How does BT Sport's outlay fit into the fact it is now legal to show Saturday 3pm streams, thanks to that landmark case in Newcastle with the landlady showing Czech TV? Loads of boozers near me show football on Saturday afternoons - when I'd rather watch a game anyway. 4pm on a Sunday is the fag end of the weekend and not a good time to have a few beers and take in the match.
I think the ECB and Sky are in too deep though.
Max, what's the thinking behind not making new generation consoles backward compatible? That's one thing my kids always complain about. Is it down to cost, software issues, or just about maximising new game profit, or a mix of things?.
I think this is a great point, especially if the Tories pump up vote share by dragging back some UKIP switchers when it really matters (one of the great political unknowns of our time).
But the British tradition is that seats, not votes, make a mandate. See 1929, 1951 (if we count the National Liberals as Conservatives) and especially the fascinating precedent of Feb 1974. Labour governed despite receiving fewer votes, though it's quite possible the Libs would have taken a coalition with Heath had enough goodies been on offer. But there weren't, and I don't think the failure of that prospect can be described as "Liberals handing the keys of No 10 to Wilson". It's not clear that Cameron has much he could afford to offer either, given his party's well-established, deep-rooted, committed (and in my opinion, counterproductive and self-destructive) resistance to electoral reform, and his likely inability to can-kick the European issue back into yet another parliamentary cycle.
The interesting situation leaves both CON and LAB within touching distance of government, and the Lib Dems as genuine kingmakers. Were vote shares and seat shares mismatched, they really would have to weigh up the popular legitimacy of their decision. But this combination of events seems less likely than a reprise of 2010, with a realistic chance of governing for only one party. If that party is short on seats, the Lib Dems would face a choice of coalition government (justifiable on stability and national interest grounds, regardless of vote shares) vs minority government (arguably handing the Lib Dems more leverage, and certainly preferable for reestablishing electoral distinctiveness). I doubt in that case vote share would be so important, particularly if any discrepancy was narrow (likely, based on polling and historical precedent) and especially if Labour had more seats (likely according to the bookies). For obvious strategic reasons I suspect the Lib Dems would be very wary of being seen as shackled to an unpopular Tory party widely perceived as having lost an election, even if it had edged ahead on votes. So while I'm impressed by OGH's vote share argument, I wonder just how likely it is to have the practical implications he foresees.
And the other great debate currently raging on is whether to go with the new Xbox1 or the PS4 to boot!
If @Morris or any other gamers around, what is the verdict on Rome II? A while back I got our youngest lad Shogun 2 on the back of recommendations here which he loved.
Talking to one of our analysts, he said removing b/c from the PS3 has saved SCE around $1.5bn since 2007. It is something that doesn't go down in cost and also something people aren't willing to part with extra cash for. It had to make way.
In a perfect world, the PS3 would never have happened, we would have gone from the PS2 to some kind of off the shelf design and not spend $5bn on "incentivising" consumers to buy the PS3 (selling at below cost). But we are where we are and on a technical level, b/c is not possible on the PS4 because the architecture is just too different and costs too much to include and would make SCE unsustainable in the medium term. Don't get it just yet. Riddled with bugs and balance issues. Wait for a few months and get it with all of the DLC included after it has been patched to remove the bugs.
You'd get on well with my wife - that's exactly what she says!
It would be interesting to see a detailed teardown of the PS4's circuit board layout - you give the impression that it's excellent (Sony are, in my experience, very good at this sort of thing, as we have found to our cost in the past).
Certainly, the images released on Wired show a circuit board that is hardly the densest-packed I've seen. Although there might be good technical reasons to keep some components separate.
But given the PS3 lasted seven years, I cannot see Sony *not* producing a mid-life upgrade, just to try to keep sales fresh. Within a few years, alternate, cheaper components might be available, making a respin cost-effective. So whilst there may not be a 'slimline' version, if the console is a success, there will be an update.
All in all, the hardware looks very well packaged. That gives me confidence.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/11/sony-shows-off-ps4s-sweet-sweet-innards-in-official-teardown/
(A note on that video: as I'm more used to working with ARM and other embedded processors, whenever I see a heatsink like size I automatically think WTF!)
By comparison, Nadine Dorries' sins are minor.