ml1dch

[a pedant writes] *Plenary session of the European Parliament. You're right that it's that actual deadline, but it's also important to remember what has to happen to get to that stage. The reason that the Council meeting just gone was important is that it was the last opportunity for Barnier's mandate to be changed. And it didn't, so there is no room for the EU side to move very far now. But for the Parliament to ratify any potential agreement, a draft treaty needs to emerge, go through translation, go through committee stage etc. And none of that is an overnight thing. So for a deal to happen, it needs to UK to (broadly) agree to the thing on the table at the moment. I'm still 51-49 on the side that this is UK theatre before capitulating like Johnson did last Autumn, but there is a long of embarrassing rowing-back that will have to happen from the UK side to get there. And it'll need to happen pretty quickly to get through the necessary parliamentary stages.

They don't mess around with their pizza names in The Netherlands

This one, or is there another one that we need to be aware of?

Nah, there were millions of them.

That's one biiiig lorry park. Feel a bit sorry for the 41% of Ashford that didn't ask for it though.

Fair point. But in which case they deserve criticism for that instead!

Given it seems to have done nothing in Manchester, why are they expecting the results in London to be any different?

Given your long-standing criticisms, he getting any closer to winning you round?

A quick Google search for Hunter Biden + crack pipe brings up a load of 2019 articles. Including a couple where he talks about it, and how it was funny when he first bought it thinking it was cocaine and couldn't work out how to take it. I'm not sure that this is the breakthrough story that you appear to think it is.

How to run things if you are a Tory politician...

In handy table form:

I think the hope is that Florida is called for Biden - they count all their early ballots quickly and if the on the day voting margin is wide enough to call it for him (and unless it's 2000-style close then it should be known within a day of the election) - then I think that problem goes away as there isn't really a viable route for Trump, regardless of how long other states take. If it's called for Trump or goes to recounts, then that will be a trigger for a shit-show across numerous other states and probably the Supreme Court getting involved.

I still wouldn't completely rule out (3) some sort of mass voter intimidation / suppression / ballot destruction/ martial law declaration. He's that nuts after all and when he accepts that he's likely going to get a hammering there are probably unimaginable levels of crazy he could resort to. Fortunately the margin is looking like it might be wide enough that even that wouldn't work though.

Depends if you've managed to scam millions of pounds in Government contracts or not. Hasn't all been for nothing for some people.

They are the ones with the slimmest margins, with a Biden lead. So anything larger than an 11 point Biden lead isn't shown. But obviously the argument could be made that Trump's four point lead in Alaska is a bigger risk to be wrong and flip than Biden's 4.4 points in Florida. It's probably pretty safe to assume though that everything not on that quoted list will be the colour that it always goes this time as well.

State polls (the things that were less accurate than normal in 2016) looking pretty strong. So that's a pretty big buffer, and a lot that has to be very wrong before Biden loses.

Yeah business. It's all *your* fault that the economy has to be sacrificed on the pyre of our voters' racism.

And made even more impressive when during the A-level result clusterfudge it turned out that it's not the account of some bored politics professor at a former polytechnic, but a teenage student.

Wasn't this all news about two weeks ago? Edit: in the time since this news broke his poll lead has increased from seven points to ten.

Government: "keeping fit and healthy is the way to beat this virus. Overweight people are at significantly higher risk" Also Government: "I can only let you have that pint if you also have a burger with it"

I can confirm that at this stage of the game when everyone has cloggers in defence he is definitely an asset.

I wasn't going to bother much this year. Which clearly they knew somehow, as I've received an untradeable Aubameyang in my starter packs. I've subbed him on at half-time three times now and he's currently on eight goals from those three halves.

Not really that odd, it's the way the market is going and has been for a few years. Why employ hundreds of trained, qualified people on high(ish) salaries who are permanently on your payroll when you can outsource the difficult(ish), customer facing stuff to someone else and just collect the money each month.