mark gibson

Reached the age where I look forward to hot tea on a cold day more than I want a cold beer on a hot day.

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@JimDelahunt @ayrracecourse @FIFAWorldCup Betfair exchange gives us a 75% chance of qualifying.

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@ayrracecourse Well named!

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@LadPolitics Restore Burnham

[Luke Tryl @LukeTryl]

🆕 @Moreincommon_ /@UCLPolicyLab poll for @thetimes finds @AndyBurnhamGM leading the race in the Makerfield by-election but over 1 in 10 still undecided about their vote and Restore Britain currently saving their deposit. Andy Burnham on track for Makerfield win — thanks to Restore Britain

https://t.co/rZrKnbQuFr

[Florian Ederer @florianederer]

I believe we now have evidence of FIFA's World Cup ticketing shell game: FIFA is colluding with third-party resale platforms for its own supply management.

Look at this SeatGeek map (secondary market!) for Saudi Arabia vs Cape Verde. The circled areas are not random single resale tickets, but large, contiguous blocks of seats: entire rows and swaths in sections 101/102, 112/113, 119/120, 134–137, 139, ...

The blue circles appeared weeks ago, then the purple blocks suddenly showed up a day or two ago, and the red blocks seem to have appeared recently too.

That's not what ordinary fan or even commercial scalper resale looks like who resell pairs, fours, and scattered seats. Instead, this looks like inventory being dumped in bulk onto secondary markets, at prices below FIFA's official site.

Why doesn't FIFA just lower prices on its own site Probably because official price cuts could trigger refund demands, chargebacks, or consumer-protection headaches from fans who already bought at much higher prices.

Instead FIFA keeps official prices high, avoids openly admitting the market-clearing price is lower, and moves unsold inventory through third-party resale platforms instead.

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@chrisjdavey30 That's not bad... it's 45 seconds for me and has froze twice!

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

Dear @theipaper it's my understanding that buses in Manchester are under public control, rather than ownership. For some reason I've been seeing lots written about Manchester buses recently!

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@KeejayOV3 Restore are going to deliver the victory for Reform.

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@MathsDotScot My daughter did the five most recent past papers last weekend and averaged around 85%, without checking her answers for silly mistakes. She scored 92% in her prelim. She reckons she may have scored as low as 73% on Thursday. She said there were things in it they were never taught

[Jamieleigh @hearts4sharkie]

Higher maths exam was actually tragic I knew I was gonna do bad but what do you mean people are emailing qualifications Scotland and literally started a petition due to the insanity that paper one was. The questions were worded nothing like the past 20 years of past papers!!!!

[Maths.scot @MathsDotScot]

Higher Maths Paper 1

I hesitate to give it oxygen, but what nonsense this petition is!

https://t.co/oBHq9tbUCU

All but Q6, Q9, Q11, Q12 were standard.

The usual command words were used.

No “unusual phrasing”.

No “non-standard notation” (save an American comma in Q6).

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Piers Morgan, "If we discovered last week that Keir Starmer has taken £5,000,000 without declaring it from a crypto billionaire in Thailand, Reform UK would have gone absolutely berserk" @piersmorgan 👏

Robert Jenrick, "We're talking about a gift even before Nigel Farage was a member of parliament"

Fiona Bruce, "But you know you have to declare it in the 12 months before you become an MP"

[Joe @andjustliketwat]

I’ve lived under a Reform led council since June. They’re on the brink of losing control due to councillors leaving, sackings and suspensions all within less than a year. All these new seats will do is expose to people their incompetency. They will absolutely implode before 2029.

[RS Archer @archer_rs]

Less than five hours after he was elected the first Reform councilor has had to stand down after revelations of 'electoral irregularities' are discovered.

[Kate Ferguson @kateferguson4]

Hard to see how these results don’t shatter talk of an Andy Burnham return.

Labour collapsed in the North West. No such thing as a safe Labour seat.

If Andy quit as mayor to run for Parliament Labour could end up losing both by-elections.

Is Manchesterism dead?

[Parody Nigel Farage @Parody_PM]

"UKIP's here... sorry, Reform is here" This blithering idiot doesn't know which party he belongs to. This is the sort of attention to detail you can expect from your Reform councillors.

[Thomas Standfield @TStandfield1789]

Starmer declares a two grand gift for half a dozen pairs of glasses:
National outrage, Starmer's a liar, he's on the take, demands for a GE.
Farage is secretly bunged with £5,000,000 by a crypto billionaire:
Barely gets a mention.
@BBCNews @GMB @itvnews @SkyNews @Ofcom @lisanandy

[Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson]

I’ve just been interviewing @Keir_Starmer for @BBCr4today who says he met the police officers who tasered the suspect in the Golders Green stabbing

“I want everybody just to imagine what it might be like. You're trying to arrest someone who has already attacked two people and has no regard for life. We know that tasers were fired. I know from my own experience with the police, that there are only two shots in a taser, and once you've shot them, there's nothing left. There's a guy on the ground, he's got a rucksack on. And I don't know what was going through the mind of those officers, but if I was there, I'd be thinking, he's going to detonate something. He's going to blow me up and everybody around here. In those circumstances, I think you can quite see why what could have gone through their mind is, we need to do whatever we can to disable this guy."

He added: "Now, when I then see Zak Polanski come out and retweet or support a criticism of that, I think it's disgraceful... He's not fit to lead any political party."

Full interview on @bbcr4today tomorrow from 7am

[mark gibson @Markgibson2018]

@JimDelahunt @PSG_English @FCBayern It's getting dark... next goal's the winner!

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Trump is about to hit REM on camera during an Oval Office event. It's just incredible.