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Unquiet flows the Don

Unquiet flows the Don

A balance sheet of Donald Trump’s first three months in power: Achievements: 1)      Succeeded in making himself and many friends very rich through shorting shares and government contracts; 2)      Succeeded in getting all his criminal cases deferred indefinitely; 3)      Succeeded in getting criminal cases against his allies deferred or dismissed; 4)      Succeeded in appointing his cronies and sycophants to cabinet posts (even though you would not want a cabinet with this many screws loose); 5)      Succeeded in royally pissing off all his allies with his…

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The Need For Allies 

The Need For Allies 

A feature of the classical Greek world was that long-term alliances, as we would understand the term, rarely existed.  A major power, be it Athens, Sparta, Thebes, or Macedon, would attempt to assert supremacy over its neighbours, and if successful, it would be accepted by them as Hegemon.  Typically, a Hegemon would expect its allies to follow it in war, accept garrisons of its soldiers, and colonies of its citizens, and frequently, pay them tribute.  The Hegemon’s allies were therefore,…

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Why Amanda Spielman should not be elevated to the peerage

Why Amanda Spielman should not be elevated to the peerage

What is leadership? A good case could be made that the key to leadership is understanding what is wrong and taking action to put it right. This, however, requires the leader in question to admit they have done something wrong and therefore that there is a problem that needs fixing. On this basis, possibly the most inept leader in Britain in the last 100 years would be Amanda Spielman. Let us consider what she has done wrong in an extremely…

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The matter of Britain

The matter of Britain

1. Introduction The “Matter of Britain” is the name given to a corpus of literature and legends associated with the first-millennium island of Great Britain and associated places. A mishmash of historical fact, out-and-out fiction and points in between, it gave national myths to a land which arguably did not exist, and created a patria around which patriotism could coalesce. Which brings to me to this article: who do we speak of when we speak of the British? What is…

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A new public funding model

A new public funding model

With UK government borrowing at an estimated £120 billion a year it is clear that tax-and-spend will no longer work in terms of investing in order to generate growth. The Covid pandemic saw governments across the globe borrow through Quantitative Easing (QE) in order to finance the extraordinary situation. The UK government borrowed some £400 billion in order to get through the crisis mostly via QE. Very little of that money was invested for the long-term. Most went on furlough…

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Every Cheltenham Festival Race Winner 2025. And the Long Shots You Must Consider

Every Cheltenham Festival Race Winner 2025. And the Long Shots You Must Consider

Tuesday 11th13:20 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle WINNER Kopek Des Bordes14:00 Arkle Novices’ Chase WINNER Touch Me Not ?14:40 The Ultima Handicap Chase WINNER Whistle Stop Tour ?15:20 The Close Brothers Mares’ Hurdle Race WINNER Lossiemouth NAP16:00 The Unibet Champion Hurdle WINNER Brighterdaysahead16:40 The Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle Race WINNER Stencil17:20 The National Hunt Novices’ Chase WINNER Gericault Roque ? Wednesday 12th13:20 The Turners Novices’ Hurdle Race WINNER Final Demand14:00 The Brown Advisory Novices’ Steeple Chase WINNER Ballyburn NAP14:40 The Coral…

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Trump Overreach?

Trump Overreach?

We are only seven weeks into Donald Trump’s second term of office. It is difficult to grasp that small handful of a figure given the torrent of executive orders, firings, reorganizations, torn international treaties and social media mayhem. For those with the stomach to try and follow the day-to-day progress of Trump 2.0, it is head spinning and nauseating work. Most people’s outrage processing neural engines are screeching with overload. Where do you start? Bonkers on/off tariffs that seem likely…

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PB Predictions Competition 2025 – The (first) results are in!

PB Predictions Competition 2025 – The (first) results are in!

The international chaos of the that past week has naturally dominated both the world news and politicalbetting.com, but let us not forget that there are other important matters to discuss… For example, we have our first answer to one of the 2025 Prediction Competition questions: Question 7. Number of seats won by the AfD in the 2025 German Federal Election. The answer was 152 of course – AfD easily out-performed our PB mean prediction of 136 seats. And the winners,…

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