LunchBreakInTheBookies

Menzies Campbell and Lord Coe, obviously.

Slightly less obviously, Colin Moynihan.

Also, how do you measure public sector productivity? There is virtually nothing that the public sector sells at competitive market prices. That is not what it's there to do.

People wanted and expected him not to be crap. He's also clearly a decent man in a way that's rare for a holder of high office. Someone who displayed the visible cynicism of a career politician would not be a vessel for such lofty hopes after 14 Tory years. It's the anger of dashed expectations.

Exactly this and exactly my own experience.

Plus you remind yourself that these adverts are made, placed and paid for by profit-seeking capitalists, and that the Woke Mind Virus does not survive long in a corporate boardroom.

Yeah but fucking hell, Jay, we've got to make our indigenous bland crap *taste* of something.

It's a daft bit of the tax code that encourages all sorts of counterproductive jiggery-pokery that better policy would render unnecessary.

£100k is a very nice wage and nobody on slightly north of that is going short, silly tax effects or not.

These are not incompatible thoughts ...

Sincere question but what is the reference to the Mail back page? Googling hasn't helped and I feel that I ought to know this ...

The most obvious figure is probably still Rayner, although she will need to do her period in exile first. She has a killer instinct that I do not see in many other senior Labour figures.

Bloody hell Roland, get well soon.

I think this is a reference to World Cups and other specific events where there is a national team to root for, not sporting events in general.

I struggle to find malign intent in someone putting the flag up on the day the national team plays a big game. Dicier if it's left up all year round ...

I've just been to the story and it talks about "drinking, defecating and e-bikes" being banned.

Why would you list those three things in that order? The middle one is *obviously* the punchline, so it goes last.

FFS it's bugging the hell out of me.

Jamie Waylett the first one, right?

... this man. God works in mysterious ways.

Semi-relevantly, the biggest penis I have ever seen belonged to ...

So this increases the valuation of a person's pension asset, but is by definition only ever something that can be inherited. The person themselves can gain no benefit from it during their lifetime.

Also, without getting too dull and technical about it, a significant slice of the cash value of many defined benefit pension pots is the "widow's" element - that is, a smaller continuing pension paid to a surviving spouse after the person dies.

You are Simon Gilbert and I claim my £5!

Hello, I am a civil servant in a film. I am also old, grey and dull, and while my secret vice is something much more mundane and furtive (alcohol?, porn?) it still leaves me open to blackmail. However, I also have a dependability and stoicism which benefits the main characters at unexpected moments.

This is true and a great way to frame the key generational fairness point.

Full disclosure ... I am 46

It's a big bargaining chip for Heathrow in their endless negotiation with the DfT.

Basically they have guaranteed and preferential track access rights at Paddington and the entire GWR timetable is essentially designed around them.

Even if the trains are near empty, why would they give that up?

I know what you mean ... rather naff US seafood restaurant chain Red Lobster does these things called Cheddar Bay Biscuits as part of the cover charge. They are a bit like cheese scones but lighter than air and they might possibly be the best thing ever.

Either would work!

It pulled no punches whatsoever, did it? The bit where the hedgehogs - key main characters - were just unceremoniously flattened by a juggernaut was a gut punch that 8 year olds don't often have to deal with.

To be absolutely clear I wish no ill to anyone here. I hope the bullet is dodged tomorrow night and that everyone gets home safe. But I really fear that one year, it won't be.

This is not a joke and there is no political undertone to me saying this. Just look at the things! Cannot think of any more dangerous practice anywhere in the UK public realm. Multiple serious injuries or even deaths are a very real possibility.

Enormous, completely unofficial, built by volunteers absent any safety or design requirements, usually on small patches of open ground in built up areas. Never mind the fire aspect, that fact that some of them don't collapse beforehand is a miracle - see picture.

I do not have any dog in the fight of Northern Irish politics but the Unionist bonfires are objectively a huge Health and Safety risk that would be banned without a second thought in any other part of the UK.

My email from a few weeks ago. EU diplomats’ worst-case scenario was a “dirty Brexit” of Britain simply ignoring laws in a disorderly unwinding of membership. It would have been a bad idea - but one that, tellingly. never seemed to occur on this side of the channel

Why hasn’t someone in Cerne Abbas started a fashion brand called Tommy Hill Figure?