Goldwater was rather strongly pro-choice. His wife was active in Planned Parenthood and it later transpired he'd arranged an abortion (illegally at the time) on behalf of his daughter, who becam… (View Post)

Public access to Downing Street was restricted largely due to the threat from the IRA (who nevertheless managed to launch a mortar attack in 1991). It was not a result of the likes of Mr Bray. (View Post)

I don't think that's right. He literally couldn't do the Brexit referendum in the same way as the AV one as the terms of departure needed to be negotiated with the EU, and the EU simpl… (View Post)

What TSE means is that there was, in fact, legislation specifically enacting AV (the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011). The legislation required ("must" rather than &… (View Post)

On topic, I think what makes this a fairly poor bet is the timescale - before 1st August. I suspect that, to maximise impact, we're now moving into a period when a defector would time it to hit … (View Post)