Grilled Sturgeon – politicalbetting.com
Grilled Sturgeon – politicalbetting.com
What happens if there is no indyref2 before the next Holyrood election?
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Grilled Sturgeon – politicalbetting.com
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Burrrrp.
TSE on the blink.
And about to go for a run.
https://twitter.com/ed_miliband/status/1459623868730155012?s=21
For months before 120 world leaders came to Glasgow, Boris Johnson’s ministers fretted about what to do about the SNP leader during the climate summit, worried that the nationalists might try to “hijack” the event to further their campaign for Scottish independence. As they ruminate over coverage of the fortnight-long negotiations, some will reflect this weekend that they were right.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nicola-sturgeon-in-sharp-focus-for-fortnight-of-selfies-at-cop26-d6ftcpp7t
Betting PostF1: had this in mind since I saw the sprint race. Backed Hamilton to win at 3.9 (Betfair), hedged at 1.4.
Will ramble more about when I've finished the just-begun pre-race tosh.
Good morning, everyone.
Ms Sturgeon has certainly managed to keep herself 'up there', and, so far as I could see from the London media avoid any negative publicity during the fortnight. Unlike PM Johnson, who hasn't even managed to give a coherent speech. However, the guy he dropped the President job onto seems to have done a good job, and, see above, earned praise from outside his own party.
We wait to see, of course, what damage..... if any ..... Ms Arcuri's latest revelations do; it may be, of course, that they are regarded as old news. However, if our PM had 'started negotiations' with his current partner by the relevant time, there may be some fur to fly.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5JTxB/81/
And why some countries are rightly worried:
WHO criterion for "pandemic under control" is below 5% of tests returning positive.
Personally, I think that they should make the sprint things a standalone championship. They’re clearly not giving up on them, as it generates huge Friday in-person crowds and a massive bump in the TV audiences over the weekend - so do the full All-Amercian show with reverse grids, a $1m prize for the winning driver that’s paraded around in a briefcase, make it like a 20-20 cricket match on the rest day of a Test match.
Ramming it into a normal race weekend just doesn't work.
The issue about DNA collection from COVID testing which I mentioned last week made it to the front cover of todays Sunday times. The company in question is Cignpost Diagnostics who operate under the 'express test' brand, and it appears they are now under investigation by the ICO and the HTA.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/testing-firm-can-profit-from-sale-of-covid-swabs-w6vkb2f2f
Backed Mercedes at 1.95 for a double podium:
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/11/brazil-pre-race-2021.html
I don't mind donating DNA for testing if I know what's happening, and why. It's when it's sneaky, and obviously for financial gain that I and, I suspect, most if not all of us, draw a big black line.
Last seven days:
Positive: 256,207
Tested: 6,126,434
%: 4.2%
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
IndyCar (which is obviously what F1 wants to be when it grows up as Indy is a money making machine) does a reverse grid by team points on ovals which is interesting and some insanely complicated system nobody understands for road courses which is less interesting. Indy 500 has its own four lap system.
Whoch means the UKs figure is actually lower than the our world in data graph because I believe that Scotland doesn't report LFD test figures.
The one thing they need to stop doing, is using it to set the grid for Sunday’s race. There’s too much jeopardy there, no-one wants to go for half a gap and end up last on Sunday. You need to be Lewis Hamilton to make progress, which of course he does very well indeed.
On today’s race, there’s a high chance of a safety car here, worth looking at the price, I’d take 1.25. Lewis for a podium is probably so short it’s worth laying. Max and Valtteri to take each other out, is probably worth 10/1 if you can find it (both to not finish?), I think the Finn got roasted by Herr Wolff after last weekend’s miserable attempt at defending the first corner.
As Sturgeon would be nuts to actually have a Ref2 she would lose, the status quo suits everyone. Boris is there to blame, the SNP have all the jobs in Holyrood and Westminster, they still have all the English cash, and don't have to provide non-Unicorn answers to hard questions.
I think Nicola will last long time yet, but keep an eye on Kate Forbes.
Bottas's problems have one root cause: his own underperformance.
I think he has the right to be a bit miffed about that even if he hasn't been the fastest driver in the race.
If the team are saying it was cross threaded they are probably lying (Lying! In motorsport? Never!) for sibylline reasons of their own.
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-reveals-video-bottas-wheel-removal/6516504/
Pannick on the case for Staley.
It also looks as if there are rumblings about the internal investigation which Barclays did when all this first surfaced and its thoroughness.
What I find odd is this statement -
"Barclays has made it clear that the investigation by the FCA and the Prudential Regulation Authority did not find that Staley “saw or was aware of any of Mr Epstein’s alleged crimes”.
How can they say this with a straight face. Staley, it is reported, visited Epstein in prison after he had been convicted in 2009 for procuring a child for prostitution.
"alleged crimes"? "Not aware"?
That claim might be plausible before conviction. But afterwards?
There is also some history between the FCA and Barclays re Staley. The FCA really failed to deal adequately with Staley's misbehaviour over a bank whistleblower, in part because Barclays had already done an internal investigation. It looked as if the FCA were bounced into accepting that investigation and not taking tougher action. A mistake.
Bottas has got very little reason to complain. If he'd performed better, he'd be at Mercedes in 2022. Heck, if he'd performed better he might have got a championship. He had the hardware to.
As for newspaper leak: the media had been talking about Bottas being replaced by Russell for 18 months. Bottas had the means to quench that talk by performing well, for himself and the team. He failed to do so, and so the media talked.
In tomorrow's Mail on Sunday https://twitter.com/AVMikhailova/status/1459650263795605515/photo/1
The latest Panelbase survey for The Sunday Times puts backing for the SNP at Westminster at 48 per cent (up one point since September) while support for the Conservatives has slipped two points to 21 per cent, Labour is up one at 20 per cent and the Lib Dems are unchanged on 7 per cent. It comes after weeks of allegations of Tory sleaze.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poll-tips-snp-to-gain-westminster-seats-but-no-change-for-union-within-five-years-rf96rptww
But why is she doing this? I suppose making a bit of money or liking the attention? I guess the rest of her career hasn’t gone too well
As he's got older he's had to promise more and more to burds to get them to shag him, he's had to give the current one his job!
Basically there is reason to think that the high level of UK testing will result in lower positivity rates. But countering that the inclusion of self reported LFTs may mean higher positivity for those. So basically the actual rate is pretty meaningless.
https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1459469939790725128?s=20
Man takes loan from company he owns.
Again it’s a really technical breach so I can’t see it deserves anything but a reprimand from the standards commissioner at most.
But the optics, like Cox, look horrible
Those odds for a Hamilton win look very ungenerous to me. It’s possible, but doesn’t seem that likely without the assistance of a safety car - not to mention the possibility of his race being over on the first lap.
Another story that really isn't good for the Tories. Before someone (probably Charles) comes along and says he's done nothing wrong, that isn't the point.
There is a major issue here - getting worse by the day - for the Tories where the reality of "they/Boris are just like us" thinking from Brexit is showed up. They are nothing like ordinary people. Your average voter doesn't have a holding company in the Cayman Islands which he can use to advance cheap loans to add to your £8m property empire.
A lot of voters swallowed a lie that Brexit was being done for them against the man. They voted Tory in 2019 for the same. Now they're discovering the Tories were the man all along and have done very very nicely over the last few years thanks very much whilst making you poorer.
Identity politics is huge. Smash the facade, people not only no longer identify with you but think they've been lied to, they aren't going to keep voting for you.
In the U.K., the ons is probably about right, but always a week or two behind.
It is not normally expected that convicted criminals' friends and relatives disown them: prison visiting is a thing.
1. The statement does not make the caveat you are making.
2. Throughout the position has been that this was a professional relationship only ie he was his banker advising him in relation to the funds he was managing. Not a friend. Professional bankers do not usually visit people in prison.
3. The crime was procurement of a child for prostitution. Did no-one wonder whether it was wise to associate with such a person? After all this is exactly one of the criticisms made of Andrew - that he continued his friendship with Epstein even after his conviction. Staley is meant to be brighter than Andrew.
The other interesting aspect of this case is that the FCA will have had to approve Staley when he became Barclays CEO. How much - and in what detail - did he and Barclays tell them? How much digging of their own did the FCA do?
It will be interesting to see whether the argument run by Staley is "I told the FCA everything" or "So what if I was friends with a child abuser. That's irrelevant to whether I was fit and proper to run a UK bank".
Or she hates our armed forces by shamefully disrespecting them like this.
Cricket’s racism scandal deepens today as a player claims he was nicknamed Bomber by team-mates the day after the 9/11 attacks.
Muslim Zoheb Sharif alleges he was also called “curry muncher” while playing for Essex.
His allegations emerge following racism revelations by ex-Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq that led to the club losing sponsors and the right to host Tests.
On Friday Essex chair John Faragher resigned after an allegation he used racist language at a board meeting in 2017, which he strongly denies.
Zoheb, 38, said he was speaking out because he could see “many parallels” between the Rafiq case at Yorkshire and what he had been through. He said: “Azim has shone a light on what’s been going on.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/ex-cricket-player-says-i-25452875
However, if there is a hung parliament in 2023/4 and the SNP do have the balance of power then inevitably they will have to push for an indyref2 and Starmer would have to give it to them to be able to get into No 10 and get any legislation through Parliament
I wonder if we will have a Bertrand Dawson de nos jours?
Many Tories are furious with their leader over the blowback from the Owen Paterson affair, but not all that anger is of the noble variety. A lot are cross because the prime minister’s shabby scheming has triggered a torrent of stories about moonlighting MPs and the voters, many of whom won’t have been previously conscious of it, don’t like what they see.
It is telling that MPs sitting for marginals are much less likely to have other jobs compared with those enthroned on large majorities. The most sleaze-intolerant Tory MPs tend to be those who came into parliament recently, often represent previously Labour constituencies and have smallish majorities that are in jeopardy if an appalled public turns on the Tories. The sleaze-tolerant Tory MPs tend to be those who have been comfortably ensconced in parliament for a long time. They sit on fat majorities and that has fed their sense of entitlement.
Legislators should not be lobbyists. A ban on MPs taking on paid roles as “consultants”, “advisers” and “strategists” was recommended by the committee on standards in public life three years ago and is now under consideration by parliament’s own standards committee. It ought to happen. Whether it does is another matter. That will depend on whether Boris Johnson fears the heat from the media and the disgust of the public more than he does the wrath of the many Conservative MPs who will hate being deprived of their outside earners because, like him, they “can’t possibly live” on an MP’s salary.
Her Majesty has made almost every other Remembrance Parade in her 95 years, I am sure the veterans will understand if she watches on TV today if she has her back problem and given her age. Her son and grandson will be there in person
Time to run for the sanatorium....
Prince Charles’s closest adviser told a Saudi donor he would be very happy to help him secure an OBE while soliciting a £10 million donation from him, according to leaked letters that place fresh pressure on Scotland Yard to investigate the “cash-for-honours” scandal.
Michael Fawcett also wrote that the prince would back Mahfouz bin Mahfouz’s application for British citizenship.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-told-to-act-as-new-letters-confirm-charles-aide-michael-fawcett-sought-obe-for-saudi-donor-p86mttwlm
According to my friends, you know you're getting old when you watch porn and your first thought is 'Oooh that looks like a comfortable bed, I wonder where they got it from?'
Indeed, with all the troubles in her family and at 95, her resolve to continue doing her duty maybe now takes second place in her priorities
It will be an event of enormous magnitude when she passes and will be like nothing we have witnessed in our lifetime
I expect lots of box sets and books will be in demand
Let the SNP try Parliamentary wrecking tactics if they want. They can only hurt Labour by helping the Evil Tories. Their secessionist and (allegedly) centre-left tendencies are in fundamental opposition: an actual wet consensus social democrat party would be no more in favour of breaking the British Union than the European one. A proper right-wing nationalist party wouldn't have these problems, of course, but a proper right-wing nationalist party won't win elections in Scotland.
Starmer isn't stupid. If he gets the opportunity then he'll invite the SNP to wreck itself trying to square the circle of its own contradictions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56141128