With all the demands for yet another inquiry, let’s look at the history of previous ones. Five days after the Aberfan tragedy, a Tribunal was set up. It sat for 76 days – the longest inquiry for its type until then and, as its report tartly observed: “much of the time …. could have been saved if …. the National Coal Board had not stubbornly resisted every attempt to lay the blame where it so clearly must rest – at…
Picture – Matthaeus Loder – The Card Layer – Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg Last year’s PB Predictions Competition proved to be somewhat like Winston Churchill: popular but very difficult. In true Churchillian ‘never-say-die’ spirit we thought you might like to come back for more punishment. To enter you simply need to post your answers to the following 14 questions before the end of January 2025. If you can put the word ‘competition’ in your post it will help me to collate…
Given the dark history of the Royal Family when it comes to coups (King Edward VIII would have been installed as King if the Nazis had invaded and Lord Mountbatten (the current King’s mentor) was touted to become PM if a coup against Harold Wilson succeeded, or Queen Elizabeth II’s disgraceful role in the sacking of Gough Whitlam I can understand why Elon Musk has tweeted this. I do not expect King Charles III to heed Elon Musk’s advice as…
In my previous header, I referred to teacher shortages, and noted they are about to get much worse. This is an explanation of that remark and why I think it’s Phillipson’s fault. At this moment, the National Curriculum is an optional thing for academy schools and trusts. This is actually good news. The reason I say that is because the last review of the curriculum was so content-heavy that it was literally impossible to deliver it properly, as I noted…
This poll hasn’t altered my view that laying Kamala Harris for both the Dem nomination and the presidency in 2028 is the way to profit. I think the ratings for the likes of Newsom, Shapiro, and Whitmer will improve the further we get into the primary contests, they make for great trading bets at the moment. TSE
So we move into the New Year with a blazing row about some fool of a Cabinet Minister shooting her mouth off over an educational policy they don’t understand and are dogmatically devoted to. I can’t help but feel I could have written that at any time over the last 80 years and I wouldn’t have been wrong except for sometimes having to change the pronoun. This year it is the turn of Bridget Phillipson and Rachel Reeves, who have…
From a political betting perspective 2024 was an epic year, a UK general election, a US presidential election with the incumbent quitting the race in July, a Tory leadership contest, a French legislative election, and the betting on the date of the UK general election which has gotten some people in real trouble. Regretfully 2025 is going to be a fallow year for election betting as the only major bettable* elections are in Germany, Canada, Ireland, and Australia, the latter…
Best Prime Minister polling is something that has a strong incumbency bias and it is only worth noting when the leader of the opposition starts winning this metric consistently as it usually heralds a change of government What is truly intriguing about this polling is that Nigel Farage leads Kemi Badenoch on this metric which will help Farage as he is trying to set up the next general election as a straight fight between Labour and Reform which would see…