Yeah, to be fair the article’s not very clear.

I would say that elections are public affairs, and have widespread coverage, including public polling data, but I can see the analogy to insider trading.

To be even clearer, he didn’t bet on the outcome of the election, just that it would take place in July. Legally Sunak has to call an election before January 2025 but there has been a lot of speculation for the last six months about when it’s going to happen. A lot of people assumed we wouldn’t have an election until the autumn so Sunak’s announcement a few weeks ago came as a big surprise.

It also gives a very positive spin to Ingvar Kamprad who was a literal Nazi sympathiser/fascist during WWII, friends with Swedish fascist Per Engdahl and recruiter for the Swedish Socialist Movement (the SSS).

He bet on the date of the election. It’s not that he could impact the date (probably) but that he knew the announcement would happen a couple of days later. So less akin to throwing a fight and more having insider information about who was going to win. To me it seems similar (tho less financially rewarding) to buying stock in a company when your role in government means you know the value is going to increase soon when a new policy is introduced.

This is a great article on the insanity of Sark’s governmental system. It goes into the attempts of the Barclay brothers (UK media barons) to gain control of the island in the 2000s and their eventual failure:

The quirkiest of the British Isles is a self-governing jurisdiction between Guernsey and France just over three miles long and less than two miles wide. Sark has its own parliament, its own taxes and its own traffic laws (permitting only tractors, bikes and horse-drawn vehicles). Its central, fertile plateau is protected by cliffs on almost all sides that rise to over three hundred feet. There are no natural harbours. In 1862, the lords of the Admiralty of the world’s greatest naval power came to inspect its defences but sailed away, finding nowhere suitable to disembark. Whenever strong easterlies made it impossible to land at Creux beach, travellers had to anchor at Havre Gosselin instead, which meant mounting a precarious fifty-step ladder straight up the rocks: a proper jetty was built only in 1912. Walkers could access one of the best beaches, at Port es Saies, by means of a rope hanging over the cliff.

Yep, that’s the stuff!

I love mayonnaise and lime pickle together, especially mixed into a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Also, it’s a classic in the north of England but fruit cake with a slice of cheese (cheddar or Wensleydale) is great.

Oof yeah, my teacher used me as an example of someone with a round face in art class when I was about 10 and I still feel self-conscious about my face shape sometimes.

I have a hard time understanding the mentality of people having kids while complaining, there’s not enough fresh water.

I mean for one, people don’t always have a choice about having children if they can’t access birth control.

And there are cultural pressures that mean that having children is less of a choice and more a pre-ordained stage of life.

I use ethicalbooksearch.com to find the best second hand options in the UK. You can change your location to Canada, for which they say they search Awesome Books, Better World Books, Biblio and ebooks.