Who’s going to be the winner of our biggest prize? In early February the bookmakers, William Hills agreed to provide a competition prize of £1,000 of free bets to the PBer who makes the closest prediction to the AV referendum result. All you had to do was record what you thought the YES percentage would be to within two decimal points. The prize will got to the one who gets closest to the figure reported on the BBC website after…
Do the royals enable Britain to still punch above its weight? When Bruno Mars sang in ‘Billionaire’ that he wanted to “be on the cover of Forbes magazine / smiling next to Oprah and the Queenâ€, there could be little doubt that of all the world’s queens regnant or consort his definite article applied to Her Britannic Majesty. Yesterday’s wedding provided proof once again of the enduring ability that British royalty has to engage not just the country but large…
More of Marf’s work can be found at LondonSketchBook.com.
Was this a wise point for Hain to raise today? Twitter can become a very dangerous facility as Peter Hain is no doubt reflecting this lunchtime. His Tweet, featured above, clearly reflects his feelings about the wedding coverage but wouldn’t it have been better if he had just kept this to himself for today at least? The problem with Twitter is that it’s so easy to publish. Sometimes it can take only seconds. Now Hain’s Tweet is going to get…
Is there money to be made from the big day? Novelty bets are rarely worth looking at. Frequently there are huge overrounds in markets more designed for publicity than serious punting. Still, unlike more mainstream markets, there can be large disparities between the different bookies, so where’s the best value for today? The first market to be settled should be that of their title. The sons of the monarch or heir apparant usually receive a dukedom when they marry (which…
Dave, stop trying to curb your Etonianism dear, it doesn’t wash The recent kerfuffle over the PM’s “Calm down, dear†comments seems to me to have to have rather missed the point. Cameron exposed a weakness at PMQ’s, but it wasn’t a weakness for rather camp Michael Winner impressions, it was a failure to control himself when he’s not on top of his brief . A trait that is particularly obvious when he’s discussing the NHS. This is something that…
NO moves to its biggest lead of the campaign A new poll by ComRes for tonight’s London Evening Standard has the biggest lead for NO so far seen in the referendum campaign when the actual wording was put. So far I cannot find any further details and don’t even know whether this was online or by phone. Also ComRes has had an odd approach to turnout weighting using responses to their general elections voting certainty question. Whatever this split is…
Is he the “safe pair of hands” to take on troubled portfolios? In recent weeks the AV campaign has brought back to prominence John Reid – the man I thought should have taken over as Labour leader when Tony Blair was forced out in 2007. He played a blinder with his double act last week with Cameron underlining why he was seen by many as the best Labour commuicator of his era. He famously dubbed Jeremy Paxman a “West London…