The Derby draw is a rare opportunity to promote the sport of racing to the wider public.
A couple of old geezers, irrelevant to most people, and some nondescript balls pulled out of a bingo-style drum to decide which stall a horse races from, which only serious punters care about, isn't going to cut it.
In 2026, you need to "sell" the event by making it exciting, theatrical, controversial, dramatic, and a memorable spectacle.
Recruit the biggest in-vogue celebrities you can afford.
The Derby, Royal Ascot, Cheltenham, and the Grand National are racing's crown jewels, and the top recruiting sergeants and publicists for racing.
Concentrate on promoting the historic races and festivals, and the whole sport will benefit.
Big national/world events capture the imagination of the young, and turn them into life-long fans.
@proptechpioneer Labour's plan is to end the ownership of private property by ordinary people.
"You will own nothing and be happy."
Angela Rayner lets the cat out of the bag in the attached video clip.
https://t.co/WNpz4O9p4C
Only leasing Diego Garcia, when it was known that the outer islands were needed to deploy early warning and air-defense assets to best protect against the longer-range missiles, and drones, now available to hostile actors in the region, Is more than just a dereliction of duty.
Starmer's deal deliberately increases the threat to the lives of the British and American forces on Diego Garcia.
https://t.co/qQeYklHH3K
Starmer's deal STINKS.
Despite it being known that Iran, and other potentially hostile actors, had and where developing missiles and drones with the range to attack the joint US/UK military on Diego Garcia, Starmer's deal only leases that one island (DG) in the archipelago.
The outer islands such as Peros Banhos would be the best places to deploy early warning and air defense assets to protect Diego Garcia from an attack.
Starmer, Powell, and Hermer would all have known this before the Chagos deal was signed in 2025, as the attached article confirms.
https://t.co/qQeYklHH3K
1982,ποΈProject Chagos begins when Mauritius sets up a select committee to look into the potential vast mineral wealth in the Chagos Archipelago's seabed.
2003, leading international lawyer Sir Ian Brownlie is officially appointed advisor by Mauritius for Chagos.
2009, Brownlie leads a Mauritius delegation in bilateral talks at the Foreign Office in London.
2010, Philippe Sands QC becomes counsel to Mauritius for Chagos after Brownlie dies in a motor accident in Egypt.
2O13, Sands' good friend, Keir Starmer QC, visits Mauritius and discusses the future of the Chagos islands with prime minister Navin Ramgoolam. The meeting ends with the men in agreement.
2015, Ramgoolam is arrested on money-laundering charges.
The same year, Starmer is elected to Parliament for first time.
2019, Sands obtains an International Court of Justice ruling (advisory opinion only, and non-binding) that the Chagos islands should be given to Mauritius.
Sands uses the ICJ ruling as leverage in the following years in his efforts to persuade the Conservative government to give Chagos to Mauritius.
2020, Starmer becomes Labour Party leader.
2021, Sands receives Mauritius' top honour, The Most Distinguished Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean.
2022, Sands makes an unauthorized entry into the Chagos Archipelago for a flag-raising ceremony. Sands tweets at the time, βItβs morning on Chagos, where the flag of Mauritius flies."
2023, Sands becomes Mauritius citizen, but retains his British and French citizenships.
2024, at the end of the year, Sands stops representing Mauritius after all the details of the Chagos deal have been agreed by his long-time friend Keir Starmer, who became PM in July.
Mandelson is being thrown under the πto cause a media feeding frenzy while the real baddies sneak away into the night.
Mandelson with his laundry list (which includes his trousers) of scandals, and his involvements with Jeffrey Epstein, is the perfect patsy.
Why did Starmer take the huge gamble of sending the unvetted serial dodgy-dealing Lord Peter Mandelson to Washington?
For the same reason he hired Jonathan "Dodgy Dossier" Powell, and why he parachuted his unelected old-friend and mentor, Richard Hermer, into the Attorney General's job via a peerage.
That reason, of course, was so they could work on his Dodgy Chagos Deal.
Jonathan Powell, a regular visitor to China, was working as Starmer's Chagos bagman at least three months before he was appointed National Security Advisor.
Yet, unbelievably, Powell had not undergone developed vetting when he was officially appointed NSA on November 8th 2024.
Starmer has refused to reveal when Powell started working on Chagos, and what, if any, security clearance he held at that time.
Powell used his private company email extensively for Chagos business, and was working as Special Envoy for at least five weeks before he was officially appointed to the role.
Changing the sovereignty of Chagos has huge national and international security ramifications.
It's not a few tiny islands where no one goes, as Powell told Times Radio in October 2024.
Chagos covers an area of 250,000 square miles (the size of France) in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and Mauritius gets complete sovereignty over everything, including the airspace.
Last month at China's request, Mauritius revoked permission for the president of Taiwan's plane to enter Mauritius airspace on its way to Africa.
Jonathan Powell being given the top job of advising the PM on national security not being vetted and using a private email for changing the sovereignty of Chagos and the US's most vital military base in the vast Indian Ocean, is a massive scandal, but the press is fixated on Mandelson.
Lord Richard Hermer would also be under the media microscope but for Mandelson sucking all the air of the room.
We still don't know why Hermer recused himself when it came time to sign off on Chagos, and there are serious questions that need to be asked about what vetting, if any, Hermer underwent.
Mandelson is the fall guy, and the more they can dirty him up the better, even if they have to accept some collateral damage, it's worth it if it diverts attention from the real story of why Starmer, Hermer, Powell are so keen to get the Chagos deal done, and hand over that huge expanse in the middle of the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, which asks, "How highβ" when China wants it to jump.
There was an even BIGGER exchange at the Foreign Affairs Select committee when Morgan McSweeney revealed Jonathan Powell was appointed National Security Advisor in November 2024 without having been vetted.
Mandelson is a massive scandal because its Mandeslon, and his connection to JE, but the real story, the WHY Starmer took such big gambles β is being missed.
How can someone be appointed to advise the Prime Minister of the UK on national security and giving away BOT when they haven't gone through security vetting?
Jonthan Powell, a regular visitor to China, had already been working as Starmer's Special Envoy for Chagos for over three months when he was appointed NSA.
Starmer has refused to reveal when Powell started working on Chagos, and what, if any, security clearance he held at that time.
Powell used his private company email address extensively for Chagos business, and was working as Special Envoy for at least five weeks before he was officially appointed to the role.
Changing the sovereignty of Chagos has huge national and international security ramifications.
It's not a few tiny islands where no one goes, as Jonathan Powell told Times Radio in October 2024.
Chagos covers an area of 250,000 square miles (the size of France) in the middle of the vast strategically-vital Indian Ocean, and Mauritius gets complete sovereignty to everything, including the airspace.
Last month at China's request, Mauritius revoked permission for the president of Taiwan's plane to enter Mauritius airspace on its way to Africa.
Within weeks of Labour winning the July 2024 General Election, long-time friends and colleagues, Sir Keir Starmer and his Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer, using Jonathan Powell as their bagman, were secretly negotiating with Mauritius to give away Chagos.
By happy circumstance, Mauritius were being advised by another of Starmer's and Hermer's close friends, namely Philippe Sands KC.
A project involving giving away British territory where the Diego Garcia joint UK/US base for military aircraft and nuclear submarines is located, to a country that allows China to dictate who can fly in its airspace, would automatically have a Top Secret UK/US Blue eyes only classification.
Chagos was never mentioned during the 2024 election and it wasn't in Labour's manifesto.
Perhaps in the days of DEI, contracting services out to private providers, and funding NGOs, local government is far more susceptible to fraud, as well as the usual personal enrichment, incompetence, and laziness.
Look at the rampant fraud that's been exposed recently in Minnesota and California in the US.
William Hill still have my money.
I have had a total of 2 emails from Hills since this began 9 months ago.
The first email informed me I no longer qualified for any special offers, and in future my stakes may be restricted.
Nothing about closing my account, which had around Β£260 in it at the time, and from which I had never made a single withdrawal in the 2 years it had been open.
However, the same day they sent that email, they locked me out of my account.
After reading the email, I thought they had made a mistake by locking my account, and they just meant to restrict me.
I had to use the William Hill live chat app, which is a nightmare, but the only way to contact Hills, to find out what was going on.
It took me three different sessions, and several torturous hours, typing back and forth with a succession of overseas agents, which meant having to explain my issue again and again to each new agent.
The only reason I got for why my account was closed was, "following a review".
During those sessions on live chat, I was repeatedly asked for passwords, and other security checks, such as my mother's maiden name.
I feel sorry for the agents. They are overseas, on low wages, English is not their first language, and they know next to nothing about British sport and betting culture.
Anyway, eventually they said a manual withdrawal may be possible if I sent 4 separate photos of proof of identity via the live chat app and "the team" which it would be passed onto approved the withdrawal.
Uploading and sending such photos via the live chat app requires patience and the IT skills many, especially the elderly, will struggle with.
The documents Hills wanted included
A selfie photo holding ID (driver's licence or passport) next to your face.
A photo of the card, showing its number, that was used to fund the account
A hand written password and account info on a recently-dated printed statement showing customer's name and address.
Three months after I sent my proof of identity photos, Hills sent me an email asking for a clearer selfie photo, so the fine print on the ID could be read.
The email ended with "If we can be of any help in the meantime please let us know.
Kind Regards, Risk Management Team."
But you can't contact them. You have to run the gauntlet of the William Hill live chat yet again.
Each time you log into the live chat, you have to battle past an AI gatekeeper called Will before you can interact with a live person.
BTW, the live chat messages remain visible online after you end a session.
Everything you type, including all the answers to the security questions regarding your account and your identity are still there months after you first typed them.
If you can see your William Hill live chat conversions online long after you had them, so can Hills staff, and probably countless hackers.
The whole system has clearly been designed to deter punters from recovering their funds.
The Gambling Commission @GamRegGB should come down like a ton of bricks on William Hill.
Keir Starmer was terrified Trump would blow up his treacherous Chagos deal.
That's why he gambled on making "Peter" US Ambassador.
Look at this time line and you'll see why Starmer had to keep upping the ante on his Chagos bet.
On 5th November 2024,Trump wins US election.
3 days later, an "unvetted" Jonathan Powell is officially appointed National Security Advisor.
On 20th December 2024, Starmer confirms an "unvetted" Peter Mandelson US Ambassador.
Earlier, In July 2024, after the UK election, Starmer appointed an "unelected"" and unvetted" Richard Hermer as his Attorney General.
Jonathan Powell, Peter Mandelson, Richard Hermer, all highly controversial appointments by Starmer in the first months of in his premiership, and all heavily involved in getting his Chagos deal done.
There was no mention of Chagos during the General Election, or in Labour's 2024 manifesto, but Starmer agrees a deal less than 3 months after becoming PM.
Starmer, who most people would think is cautious, was prepared to risk everything for Chagos. Why?
@AKBets@LiamPatterson6@WilliamHill William Hill have a bag full of dirty tricks to avoid paying punters.
This free Substack article details some of the unscrupulous, and downright nasty, tactics Hills regularly use against ordinary punters.
https://t.co/Nv6c4ftmwh
Mandelson, Powell, and Hermer, all appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer specifically for his Chagos deal.
Mauritius gets everything in Starmer's deal, including all the minerals, and hydrocarbons, which could be worth trillions, in the Chagos maritime zone's seabed, which at 250 square miles, is equivalent to an area the size of France.
Mauritius, which only last month revoked permission for the prime minister of Taiwan's plane to enter its airspace on its way to Africa, at the behest of China, also gets full control of the France-sized airspace above Chagos.
Mauritius also must be informed of all the military operations, all the vessels, and all submarines, nuclear, and non-nuclear, visiting the Diego Garcia base in Chagos.
All nuclear weapons will be banned from Chagos by the Pelindaba African Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, which Mauritius is a signatory of.
Starmer's deal only leases Diego Garcia, when other islands. such as Peros Banos in the Chagos Archipelago, will be needed in future to deploy assets on to defend the Diego Garcia base from missile and drone attacks.
@nickdhurt The aim is to make owning private property too expensive for ordinary individuals.
"You will own nothing, and be happy."
Angela Rayner has stated, "There's plenty of housing in the UK."
https://t.co/isF3wQ1fol