Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Have you ever looked into sport betting, Hils, as in 'a la Peter Webb' type stuff?

If so, got a comment on it?

I know you like cricket and so there's kinda a bit of a fit, IYSWIM?

As spread bet punters loose 90% of they money inside 9 months , then Hilary could well be right

I fear this election is turning me into an English nationalist


Nicola Sturgeon. 'You would never guess that she’s not even standing for election herself.' Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA



We were told that devolution would strengthen the union. It’s now clear it achieved the opposite


Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Monday 27 April 2015 17.23 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/election-english-nationalist-devolution-union


In 1951, the general election was held on St Crispin’s Day, with echoes of Agincourt – “Cry God for Harry, England and St George” – though that probably didn’t account for the rather flukey Tory victory. Last Thursday’s St George’s Day passed almost unnoticed; his red and white cross only appears in profusion during the World Cup (and much good did he do us last summer).

And yet the great unspoken theme of this election is “the English question”.

With the SNP taking centre stage and Nicola Sturgeon the star of the show, you would never guess that she’s not even standing for election herself. And nor would you guess that the inhabitants of England are 84% of the British population, 10 times more numerous than the Scots. But the English question will not go away.


On the morning after the Scottish referendum last autumn David Cameron brought up “Evel”, the unfortunate acronym for English votes for English laws. He has been berated for that, and now for the vulgar demonisation of the SNP.

But is Labour any better? At one time it was as strongly unionist as the Tories, and when it took up devolution in the 1970s it was as an insincere and opportunistic convert. Labour was trying to square a political circle, keeping at bay the SNP while holding on to as many as possible of Labour’s Scottish rotten boroughs. After the 1997 election and the creation of the devolved Edinburgh parliament, it briefly appeared to have worked, especially since the electoral system for Holyrood was designed with the utmost ingenuity to ensure that no party in general, and the SNP in particular, could gain a parliamentary majority there.




And yet. At a party in 1999, I was talking to Peter Mandelson, and I said that this devolution caper could one day go badly wrong for Labour. He replied with what I must say was an uncharacteristically robotic, on-message voice: “Devolution will strengthen the union.”

Has it just! When the 2007 Scottish parliament election made the SNP the largest party it formed a minority government, at the 2011 Scottish election it won an absolute majority, and next week it looks like obliterating Labour north of the Tweed. If you want to know what a great Scots writer meant when he said that “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, / Gang aft agley,” look no further.

And now, apart from possibly precipitating a constitutional crisis, the election can only highlight the unfairness that England still endures. Cameron offered Evel as a sop, evidently without giving the matter any serious thought. In truth, it’s no answer since it is fraught with difficulty. As Gladstone realised at the time of the 1893 second home rule bill for Ireland, when it was proposed that the remaining Irish MPs at Westminster would only be able to vote on questions of Irish concern, to have two classes of MPs could mean that an administration had a Commons majority for some purposes, but not for others, destroying the basis of parliamentary government.



From when devolution first appeared as a serious prospect I was instinctively opposed to it, and couldn’t understand why

Before the referendum Cameron had made another reckless promise, this one as a sop to the Scots: the bloc grant or Barnett formula would continue. This gives Scotland about £1.20 per head of public spending for every £1 in England, and the last word should go to Joel Barnett, one of the better Labour politicians of his age, who was chief secretary to the Treasury in the 1974-79 government. Not long before his recent death, he said that the eponymous formula for apportioning expenditure was intended as a temporary expedient, and that he had never imagined for a moment that it would still be around almost 40 years later.

Finally there is parliament itself. Writing from her native Isle of Wight, Polly Toynbee mentions that it now has the largest electorate of any constituency in the country. She might have added that these 110,000 voters are more than the combined electorates of three separate Scottish constituencies, Caithness, Sutherland and Ross; Orkney and Shetland; and Na h-Eileanan an Iar (that’s the Western Isles for the majority of English – and Scots – who don’t speak Gaelic). Such disproportion is a grotesque affront to one of the great radical demands in the age of parliamentary reform, “one vote one value”.



Not everybody noticed that at the last election the Tories won a parliamentary majority – in England – and they may do so again. But Sturgeon says she will lock them out of office. In the 1980s it was claimed with some plausibility that it was unjust for Scotland to be ruled by a government for which most of its people hadn’t voted. How much worse will it be if that happens to England?

Here in the west of England, and despite what some have said, there has been very little Jock-bashing, certainly nothing to compare with the vicious Anglophobia that distresses some Scots in their own country. Instead there’s a mood not so much of resentment as of frustration. As long as the English taxpayer heavily subsidies Scotland, where the money is spent in a way over which Westminster has no control, while too-numerous Scottish MPs continue to legislate for England, it will be a matter not of national sentiment, but simply of representative government, and the fundamental democratic principle of the greatest good of the greatest number.

Perhaps I could put it personally. From when devolution first appeared as a serious prospect I was instinctively opposed to it, and couldn’t quite understand why. Gradually I realised the answer: I am not an English nationalist and don’t want to become one, but faced with injustice on this scale I have had little choice. After the election, I may have none at all.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2015/apr/27/election-2015-labour-stamp-duty-first-time-buyers-5000-small-businesses-cameron

Election 2015: Ashcroft poll gives Tories six-point lead

Monday 27 April 2015 20.43 BST

Latest updates as the parties head into the last 10 days of the campaign, as Labour unveils plans to scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers and 5,000 small business owners come out for Cameron

Ashcroft poll gives Tories 6-point lead

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/27/conservatives-three-point-lead-over-labour-guardian-icm-poll

Conservatives take three-point lead over Labour in Guardian/ICM poll

Tory support edges up to 35% with Labour standing still on 32%, in survey that also finds NHS still top priority for voters

Conservative support has edged up in the latest Guardian/ICM campaign poll, with David Cameron’s party registering a three-point lead over Labour.

The Tories have advanced by one percentage point on the previous ICM survey a week ago, to 35%. Labour stands still on 32%.

Ukip is up by two, on 13 points, which is its highest with ICM since last December, while the Liberal Democrats drop back one, to 9%. The Greens are unchanged on 5%.

The telephone fieldwork took place from Friday to Sunday, a weekend in which the Tories have continued to focus their campaign on warnings against “the coalition of chaos”, which they say would result if Labour ended up being propped up in government by the Scottish National party.

H/S gets more and more desperate for any crumbs of comfort.

One for MaxK

That's exactly what you will get if you vote for the big three Haystack, thanks for postin it up.

The prospect of a post-election deal between Labour and the Scottish National Party makes one in four voters less likely to support Ed Miliband’s party, according to a new survey.

Pollsters ORB, which questioned 2,000 people, found that a potential Labour-SNP deal made 25 per cent less likely to vote Labour and 16 per cent more likely – a difference of nine points, which could be crucial in a tight election. Many of those saying such an agreement makes them more likely to vote Labour already intend to back Labour. Six in 10 people said such an arrangement would make no difference to how they vote.

TalkTalk raises broadband prices up to 43pc as it focuses on mobile growth

Last week i changed from AOL to TalkTalk

the next gov should call a Scottish vote once and for all to stay or leave
and no campaign let them sort it out , my view is if they vote to leave good put up a pass port control and a pay to enter England of £100 .

they are not worth keeping .
sturgeon the liar says she wants rid of conservatives well you stupid evil woman
if you tell your supporters to vote labour that will happen you fcuking dimwit evil person you are not a real woman

fred in one of his rare but more lucid moments correctly pointed out that if an mp is elected to the westminster parliament, then he has an absolute right to cast his vote as he thinks fit

Stop it c, you know full well that the average mp will do as he/she is told.

The chicken has been pumped up for the pot.

the blacks in Baltimore are turning the states into the new Africa killing and looting for their own ends time for the republicans to send in the troops and shoot on site
are their will be no usa it will be Africa 2

only brainless humans shit in their own beds that is now the case in most black countries

though the rioting, looting and general rampaging cannot be remotely condoned, the police force in baltimore, and especially in areas of the southern states have a great deal to answer for

Hold your breath......drop everything......Amanda Holden's sister is trapped on Everest...what ? at the top clinging at 90 degrees to a pole with both hands ?.....heavens.....strewth.....no don't worry she's safe, thank god....found in a restaurant...........dear....for one moment : I thought we were going to get a show special......phew !....the relief is tangible.....

Not sure if our electoral system is the best.....perhaps a second round of voting might be a better idea so a clear majority can be determined.....

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 27th April -

Con 35%, Lab 34%, LD 9%, UKIP 12%, GRN 5%;