Yvette cooper reminds me of Harold Wilson..with longer hair and without the wit…..

Hey Marquee Mark:

I guess the point I was making is that oil is a fungible commodity, and if oil is sent from Canada to China, then it will displace barrels that would be sent there from somewhere else. So, Keystone XL might make America feel better about getting oil more locally, but it doesn’t really add to any ‘energy security’.

When I say this is mostly about refining, I speak as a fairly knowledgeable party. I am an investor in a number of Canadian oil companies, and am a regular visitor to Calgary and Fort McMurray. The oil produced from oil sands – except in the rare cases where it has been put through an upgrader to become syncrude – is mostly very heavy and bitumanous. There is limited heavy oil processing capability in Canada and northern US (Husky and BP own a refinery in Detroit that is currently being upgraded to handle heavy crude), and this has limited the growth of the oil sands industry.

The gulf coast refinieries – Texas, etc – are ‘complex’ and are capable of processing these heavy crudes. As Mexican and Venezuelan production has tailed off, imports into the US have increasingly been of – more expensive – lighter oils. (Nigerian Bonny and UK Brent are both light oil, for example.) This means the refineries are not making anywhere near as much money as they might, and it restricts the growth of production from the Canadian oil sands. (Although I would note there are other barriers to increased production in Canada -not least the extraordinary cost inflation in Northern Alberta.)

I think he must be referring to changes made to the weightings ages ago – when they took out the NOTW etc.

Don’t recall anything else being mentioned since then and seemed unlikely that we’d missed it.

Straw clutching if it isn’t.

Interesting – although I always take hypothetical polling with a pinch of salt, a marked increase for one or more of the others (except Blair) will help to push a narrative.

A pity (seriously!) that they didn’t include Gordon Brown, for reference.

exactly.  Deloittes are not exactly cash-strapped.

Does she smoke a pipe? Or cigars?

Thanks. I will send you a pdf.
A critique is always welcome. I am researching a couple of other projects as well.

You hit on an important issue with cost inflation – I expect that to be one of the issues that dogs the development of shale gas…

Enjoy reading this blog as a lurker but finding all this criticism of bookies on this Romney / Santorum mess a bit churlish and suspect it to be driven entirely by personal gain as opposed to rational assessment – as a disinterested party it seems just as reasonable for Romney backers to have been paid as Santorum – the very most they should be getting is a voiding of the bet given the unusual circumstances

‘Good explanation but does not account for why he said he needed the
woman in the lab (Molly?).  Surely she helped set something up?’

Snap! That is what I thought when the credits rolled without us finding out how Molly helped Sherlock. Also think that considering the whole Moriarty plot was about not just discrediting Holmes, but destroying him. It was then no surprise the little girl screamed at him after being kidnapped by Moriarty.

After that John King attack on Newt on the CNN debate.  Here is my Favourite CNN example of their journalistic integrity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NZPNJeTvv8&feature=player_embedded

I have no idea what her personal habits are..

Aside from disaster relief the government shouldn’t be giving any money away on overseas aid unless it can be shown to be directly helping British interests.

Actually it shouldn’t be giving money away at all – aid should be in the form of material goods and services, preferably produced in Britain. Thereby reducing losses due to corruption.

It would also be preferable if instead of the government choosing the aid projects themselves every adult or taxpayer in this country was given their own ‘aid allowance’ whereby the government would double up any personal contributions. A ‘Big Society’ idea which would be more likely to get the aid to those who deserve it.

At present though overseas aid decisions are based upon how much guilt western politicians feel, how much overseas politicians need to be bribed and how big the photo opportunities are.
 

Yvette Cooper…smoking the pipe…Ed Balls…

Enough!  You’ll set off a Certain Someone who will cite the Certain Reason that Yvette can never be PM…

Indeed – short-circuit the whole thing and talk about Ramsey McDonald and Clem Attlee.

@anthonyjwells: Otherwise sensible @libcon post, but the implication for the unwary is that Labour’s recent troubles are from methodology changes…(1 of 2)

@anthonyjwells: They aren’t – the methodology changes were months ago, the recent poll movements are genuine shifts in public opinion (2 of 2)

I know I should not post clips from the Mail (I did scroll past all the bulimia and cellulite stories) but I know there are a few film buffs on here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2089506/The-ultimate-film-buff-Man-decides-watch-600-movies-released-2011–doing-year.

‘Man decides to watch all 600 movies released in 2011… and is doing the same this year’

Crikey they’re a picky bunch :^)

So straw clutching. Way down thread, I mentioned info from Sky reporter that Labour can’t understand why they’re polling so feebly.

I assume this effort from Dr Clark is an attempt to find an unrelated reason in preference to no policies, terrible leader, contradicting themselves.

“Labour can’t understand why they’re polling so feebly.”

Ed Miliband is Crap.

Nothing else matters.

I know one thing, if they don’t explain it at the start of the next series, there may well be rioting in the streets. 

Be honest Southam, you are a Labour man through and through.

you just couldn’t bring yourself to vote for Brown,but you will be running back for more next time.

BTW, now that EiT has unmasked SeanT, is it not time for Mr Pork to own up to being a Welshman who voted for Lembit last time?

And as for James Kelly, his mother is Chinese from Shanghai and his father is former Russian KGB agent, now a mafioso in Khabarovsk.  His aim is to get rid of the British nuclear deterrent so that North Korea can invade.

great photo Mike, clearly shows Romney flinching under Newts attack.

So according to you Labour is now in the hands of ther left, even
though the left – or what is left of it – is denouncing the leadership
for selling out to the Tories and the Blairites.

Who are these people that you are talking to?

This is contemptuous and patronising.  That’s discourteous in my book.

‘I know one thing, if they don’t explain it at the start of the next series, there may well be rioting in the streets’

Mrs B, you are right.

The results of the ComRes poll will be entertaining whatever they say re Who’d be best leader. It’s not going to be good for EdM, it stirs up the rest and if Tony got pole position, that’d be hilarious.

IIRC YouGov had a smaller gene pool when they asked the same question last week.

Betfair are in a trickier position than standard bookies since they have to be fair to backers and layers; everything will hinge on whether the declaration given on the night is considered to be an “official result” (NB I realise it isn’t the final result).

And since it’s you: Animals that Dec has a fear of? (9)

Anteaters?

Nope, but right lines…

Antelopes. 

Yes, but on reflection Anteaters is fine too!  “Herd animals…” would be better!

Agreed, and it also points to the fact that then next Labour Leader should not allow themselves to become as disconnected from their Scottish base.

Encouraging the education of women in developing countries, promoting vaccination, supporting microfinance projects, assisting economic development all make developing countries wealthier.

Wealthier countries provide more opportunities for their indigenous population, discouraging emigration and reducing the likelihood that they will declare war.  Additionally, wealthier countries (where wealth is well spread) are less conducive to the growth of radical fundamentalist religion.  Furthermore, wealthier countries are more likely to become markets for our exports.

All these tend to make us “richer and safer” – providing that it is well targeted.

Not sure that is the end of the story.

How about – Sherlock asked Molly for some blood that he could use to pretend he had a serious head injury when he hit the ground. Molly also set up the staff to race out with the stretcher to collect Sherlock and take him inside to recover from the non-fatal fall. Meanwhile as Watson raced over to see how Holmes was one of the Baker Street Irregulars had been tasked to knock him over so he is not capable of detecting a pulse on Sherlock in the brief seconds he is allowed before he is taken away. 

It’s not just that Ed Miliband is crap.  The whole of Labour is crap.  In the worst economic mess for decades, with Coalition partners still working out the boundaries of their respective powers, and a whole raft of newbies to Government still making mistakes, Labour have been presented with many large rocks with which to load their trebuchet. But they seem to have no idea of how to fire these weapons without dropping rocks on each other!

The economy will improve.  The Coalition will work out their strengths and weaknesses.  The work experience Ministers will get their work experience. It is only going to get harder for Labour over the next three years in the run up to the election.

Peter – any progress with Betfair?