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The holiday plans of millions are going to be messed up The real political problem with this afternoon’s announcement is that it comes only a few weeks after he had announced a relaxation for five days over Christmas. At the time this was widely criticised and thought by many to be taking too much of a risk. But on the basis of the previous announcement millions of people made their plans accordingly and were looking forward to being with loved…

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Gambling doesn’t exactly have a good reputation.  Most Christian denominations are very chary of  it (my mother’s church had only recently relaxed the ban on church tombolas when we moved to the area in 1978). It is haram for Muslims. Even among agnostics and atheists few would regard it as a laudable activity. Some of these moral objections come from the greed that the lure of large prizes can provoke. Some comes out of the potential impact on losers. We all have…

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One cabinet figure who is getting a lot of attention today is Liz Truss, the International trade Secretary, following a speech she gave setting out her thoughts on elements in modern politics and where the Tories are different. This comes after a successful period for her in negotiating trade deals which will be so important for the UK after Brexit is fully implemented. Two weeks ago I reported here that Truss was once again topping the leader satisfaction ratings for…

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When you bet on football, by and large you know whether you’ve won or lost.  There are rules.  There’s a referee.  You can argue about whether a goal should have been given but you can’t argue about whether it was given.  There is little room for interpretation most of the time. Betting on politics is not always so straightforward.  The refereeing is more complicated.  Even when dealing with something as granular as vote-counting, the participants can and do sometimes argue…

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Maybe this experience was behind their caution this time? Back in January 2012 all the political betting interest was on the caucuses in Iowa the first state to decide in the race to choose the Republican nominee to take on Barack Obama. On the night the big news was that Mitt Romney had squeezed a victory by a margin of of just eight votes over Rick Santorum pictured above. This was based on information from the state party HQ where…

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