Next Labour leader: assessing the field

It seems to have been discussed endlessly, but the identity of Gordon Brown's successor as Labour leader is no clearer than when the subject first started being seriously discussed in 2008. An array of different bookies quote prices on this market, with some coming in and dropping out from time to time. As at the date of writing, you can get prices from Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sporting Index, Stan James, Victor Chandler and William Hill. Prices vary dramatically. By buying Peter Mandelson on Sporting Index, you can get effective odds of 24/1. By way of contrast, you would get a measly 8/1 with Ladbrokes. It pays to shop around.


Best prices last night were as follows:

David Miliband 3/1 (Paddy Power, Stan James)
Ed Miliband 11/2 (Stan James)
Alan Johnson 43/7 (Sporting Index)
Harriet Harman 12/1 (Stan James)
James Purnell 14/1 (William Hill)
Jon Cruddas 20/1 (Stan James)
Peter Mandelson 24/1 (Sporting Index)
Ed Balls 25/1 (Coral)
Andy Burnham 25/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Victor Chandler, William Hill)
Jack Straw 25/1 (Stan James)
Alistair Darling 28/1 (Paddy Power)
John Denham 33/1 (Stan James)
John McFall 40/1 (Paddy Power)
Hilary Benn 49/1 (Sporting Index)
Yvette Cooper 49/1 (Sporting Index)
Jim Murphy 50/1 (Ladbrokes)
Shaun Woodward 50/1 (Ladbrokes, William Hill)
Douglas Alexander 66/1 (Ladbrokes)
Ben Bradshaw 66/1 (William Hill)
Liam Byrne 66/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power)
Peter Hain 66/1 (Ladbrokes)
John McDonnell 66/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Victor Chandler, William Hill)
Diane Abbott 80/1 (Paddy Power)
Tony Blair 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, William Hill)
Hazel Blears 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler)
Charles Clarke 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler, William Hill)
Parmjit Dhanda 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Frank Field 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Caroline Flint 100/1 (Ladbrokes, William Hill)
Geoff Hoon 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
John Hutton 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Tessa Jowell 100/1 (Ladbrokes, Victor Chandler)
Alan Milburn 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
John Reid 100/1 (Ladbrokes)
Bob Ainsworth 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Des Browne 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Ruth Kelly 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Ken Livingstone 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Jacqui Smith 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Sir Alan Sugar 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Stephen Twigg 200/1 (Ladbrokes)
Cherie Blair 500/1 (Ladbrokes)
Alastair Campbell 500/1 (Ladbrokes)
Joanna Lumley 500/1 (Stan James)
Esther Rantzen 500/1 (Stan James)
Nick Palmer 500/1 (Ladbrokes)
Kitty Ussher 500/1 (Ladbrokes)


The field is amazingly open. You could back every candidate in order of lengthening odds up to Hilary Benn and provided you'd weighted the stakes right and hadn't lost out to a long shot, you would still turn a profit. This has to be a market which interests the gambler, the more so because many names can be eliminated quite quickly from consideration. At least one of the named candidates is not a member of the Labour party.


The first thing that we must do is identify who is a possible candidate. Gordon Brown has already stated that he will serve a full term (but no more) as Prime Minister if re-elected, so the next Labour leader will presumably be a Labour MP in the 2010/15 Parliament come what may - this is, I understand, a requirement of the Labour party rule book. No fewer than 13 of the named candidates are not standing as an MP at the next election. While they could of course stand at a later by-election, it seems reasonably safe to me to ignore all of these candidates. The most prominent faller at this first fence is Lord Mandelson.

A tricky fence follows shortly after. Even if a candidate is standing, he or she might not be returned at the general election. Several named candidates have problems on this front. Among the shorter-priced candidates, Jon Cruddas, Ed Balls, Jack Straw and Alistair Darling have non-trivial jobs getting re-elected. If Labour are badly defeated, maybe as many of three of these could fall at this fence. If Labour lose less badly, most or all will survive. You will have to form your own assessment of each of their chances.


Next, we must identify who actually might want the job. If, as I do, you assume that Labour will be in opposition in the next Parliament, this will exclude more people than is immediately obvious. Being leader of the Opposition is a tough job. It doesn't have that much immediate power, only potential power. Many tired ministers might feel that they would rather retire to quieter, better paid work.

Each of us will form our own assessment of who has the appetite for the job. For myself, I doubt whether Alan Johnson, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw or Alistair Darling are that interested. They will probably feel that they have done their bit. Each might quite have fancied being Prime Minister, but that's a very different proposition. In the case of Alan Johnson, I'm not even sure that he ever wanted that job.


Then we must see who has the backing to justify a run. Most MPs fancy themselves as party leaders in the abstract, but they need to gather enough support to justify a run and not humiliate themselves. If available, the following will stand: David Miliband, Ed Balls and John McDonnell. Jon Cruddas has been giving recent smoke signals that he proposes to stand also, if the Sundays are to be believed.

Mr Smithson has often noted how the Labour party rulebook favours a woman candidate. I have suggested above that Harriet Harman probably doesn't want the job, but if I am wrong about this, she will certainly be able to get in the race. We should work on the assumption that there will be a woman candidate, and if it is not to be Harriet Harman, the question is: who? Leaving out those who are standing down and those who are bookies' jokes, the possibilities appear to be Yvette Cooper, Caroline Flint and Tessa Jowell. It is inconceivable that Yvette Cooper would stand against her husband, but if he were defeated at constituency level, she would suddenly look a real contender. Betting on her Labour leadership chances on Sporting Index may be a good proxy bet against her husband's constituency chances. Caroline Flint looks a bit too lightweight, but Tessa Jowell is a long-serving Cabinet minister. Those odds of 100/1 look very attractive. Again, would she want the job?

Ed Miliband could also undoubtedly muster the support to stand, but there is a unique question in relation to him: would he stand against his brother? As an entirely personal observation, I regard Ed as a much better possible leader than David. But we should not be looking at abstract preferences, rather at concrete realities. Ed and David would be fishing in the same voting pool to a considerable extent. The brothers seem genuinely close. Could their family relationships survive a contest against each other for the crown? They are already the two frontrunners in the bookies' eyes - how would Ed argue that he would be better than David? How would David suggest that he rather than Ed would have the right answers for Labour? I do not think that the prices accurately reflect this obstacle. While I rate Ed Miliband highly among the possible contenders, I regard it as a relatively low probability that he will stand at all this time.

Three candidates are telegenic and often mentioned: James Purnell, Andy Burnham and Hilary Benn. I discount both of the last two. Neither is prominent enough. In the case of Hilary Benn, he stumbled badly in the deputy leadership contest in 2007. James Purnell is a better possibility. In the aftermath of defeat, might he look like a man of vision? The question to ask there is whether his fans would prefer to support him or David Miliband. Despite his vacillation, I expect David Miliband to remain the torchbearer of the party right.

I hope that this has been helpful in allowing you to form your own views about who the runners and riders will be. It is only once you have it clear in your own mind who might be standing that you can decide where the value for winners might lie.

2010 Rule Changes and a Look Ahead to Testing

One of the reasons why 2009 was such a great season, with different cars doing better at different tracks (such as a brilliant 2nd place for Force India at Spa), was due to the huge number of rule changes.

Next season will see more rule changes, but nothing on the scale of the 2008-2009 shift. The biggest difference is that refuelling goes out of the window, and so the cars will have bigger fuel tanks. KERS is still an option, but all teams are going without it.

This is rather a shame from my perspective, as I liked KERS and the refuelling strategy was integral to my betting approach.

Pit stops will remain as drivers will have to use both tyre compounds during a race (assuming it stays dry). The F1 website reckons this could make them as quick as 4s.

The points system is also overhauled, to reflect the change of having 13 teams (assuming they all make it…) and 26 drivers. First place will earn 25, then 20, 15, 10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2 and 1. So, even 10th place will now give out points. This seems reasonable and will give middle of the pack teams something to tussle over.

I quickly worked out how this would’ve affected last season. The actual result was:
Jenson Button 95
Sebastian Vettel 84
Rubens Barrichello 77
Mark Webber 69.5
Lewis Hamilton 49

With the new points system it would’ve been:
Button 243
Vettel 203
Barrichello 185
Webber 180
Hamilton 128

So, it makes surprisingly little difference at the top end.

Wheel fairings are no more, after Alonso amusingly lost a tyre because one of his pit crew didn’t fasten it on properly.

Qualifying will be much as before, but with 8 drivers eliminated in Q1 and Q2, so that there remains only 10 for the Q3 shootout. All qualifying sessions will be done with low fuel.

There were murmurings about giving points for pole positions and fastest laps, but I don’t think anything’s been done about it.

So, will these changes benefit or disadvantage any drivers more than others? Hamilton may find the no refuelling tricky. With only one pit stop necessary each race (for tyre changing) he may struggle in certain places to manage his tyres properly. Button’s smooth driving style should prevent him suffering a similar problem.

Last season Vettel was the most consistent qualifier, and the absence of refuelling will increase the importance of qualifying even more in the forthcoming season. Alonso is also very reliable so it might assist him (though he’s not had a top class car for a few seasons which may’ve dulled his edge).

The rule changes are available here:
http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/rules_and_regulations/sporting_regulations/8692/

2010 could be a brilliant season, even better than 2009. There are four potential Constructors’ winners, and probably six potential Drivers’ champions. Testing (12 days of it) begins on 1 February. I strongly advise not betting until at least some of it is complete. Brawn threw an enormous surprise last season, so much so that the world champion-to-be was 70/1.

McLaren finished the 2009 season as the best car, Red Bull were consistently at or near the top throughout and Brawn started with a fantastic advantage over all others. My suspicion is that Mercedes (formerly Brawn) might just have a monstrously good car once again. The Top Gear F1 blog asserted in early November that Ross Brawn switched efforts from developing the 2009 car to producing the 2010 car as soon as the seventh race, after Button’s sixth win. Brawn is an engineering genius, and he’ll now benefit from the support of his old comrade-in-arms Schumacher.

http://sundayafternoonclub.blogs.topgear.com/2009/11/09/ballsy-brawn/

My hunch is that Mercedes will be the top team to start with, but I’m not putting money on it until I see test times. Unfortunately Red Bull won’t be participating in the first 3 days of testing, as they’ll be playing with the wind tunnel instead.

The drivers I’ll be keeping my eye most closely on are Schumacher (not because he was the best of drivers, but because I suspect he’s still good and will be in a great car), Vettel and Massa. Vettel’s around 7/1 and Massa is 14/1. If the Red Bull is decent, Vettel stands a good chance as, possibly excepting Schumacher, I think he’s the best driver on the circuit. Massa I think is very good indeed, and certainly not 3x worse than Alonso who is just 4/1. But, as I said, I’m only keeping my eye on them at the moment.

My intention is to have 1-2 more posts pre-season, regarding the testing times. I’m also considering having pre-qualifying, pre-race and review posts per track rather than just a preview and review.

Morris Dancer

The path to Super Bowl XLIV

Greetings to you all from PoliticalBetting.com's Special Correspondent for Colonial Affairs, and hoping all are having a lucky and prosperous New Year thus far!

With gratitude for my recent TotY gong, I thought I would trash my reputation in one fell swoop by offering an overview of the betting markets covering American Football as we head towards Super Bowl XLIV.

The Super Bowl is the cup final between the winner of the AFC Championship and the NFC Championship. Both championships have a final to decide who plays in the Super Bowl - so the AFC and NFC championship games are like semi-finals. Each of these 'semi-finals' is populated by 2 teams out of 6 seeded teams who made the playoffs. 1st and 2nd place get a first-round bye, and play the winners of 3rd v 6th and 4th v 5th respectively in the divisional deciders (quarter-finals).

So this year, the AFC seeds are
(1) Indianapolis Colts (bye)
(2) San Diego Chargers (bye)
(3) New England Patriots vs (6) Baltimore Ravens
(4) Cincinnati Bengals (5) vs (5) New York Jets

The NFC seeds are
(1) New Orleans Saints (bye)
(2) Minnesota Vikings (bye)
(3) Dallas Cowboys vs (6) Philadelphia Eagles
(4) Arizona Cardinals vs (5) Green Bay Packers

American Football really does have a tradition of 'Any Given Sunday' - that form and talent can be overturned by sheer hard work and luck, and the worst team can (and frequently do) beat the very best. Prediction is a dangerous game, but I think there is some value that might be eeked out of the markets.

A brief look at Ladbrokes, and Shadsy is giving little away - there aren't too many big-odds bets available on this weekend's games, but the one that did catch my eye was under American Football - NFL Player Props - player rushing props: Cendric Benson to rush more than 81.5 yards available at 5/6. I think that's value - Benson rushed more than 100 yards a game in most games he played in full this season (almost got a 200-yard game) and if he is fit, he could run double this, even against a good NY Jets defence - I'm biassed (I'm a Bengals fan, and I have "32 Benson" on my jersey), but I would be very surprised if he didn't breach this mark, even if he's having a bad game.

My expectation is that Jets@Bengals could be close, but that the Jets - who were statistically very good, but only got through because the Bengals and Colts rested all players for the playoffs, letting the Jets win easily - don't really belong in the post season. They are highly unlikely to make even the AFC championship, whereas the Bengals (in my view) stand as much chance of winning three games as winning none. A talented-but-erratic team, they have only played well against good sides (sweeping the difficult AFC North vs the Ravens and Steelers, but losing 3 matches in the final 20 seconds to the Chargers, Broncos, Raiders because of errors). In spite of my fandom, I can't help but feel that the Bengals' Chad Ochocinco, Cedric Benson, Jonathan Joseph and Heismann Trophy-winner Carson Palmer are value for the Superbowl at 42.0 on Betfair, if just as a trading bet if they should happen to win a game or two back to back.

Having seen a lot of AFC North archrivals the Baltimore Ravens this season, I also fancy them at 36.0 for the Super Bowl (they are absolutely capable of winning it). They will be playing the Patriots first, but the latter will be without the injured Wide Receiver Wes Welker - the Ravens only need shut out brilliant Patriot WR Randy Moss (!) with the focus of their secondary defence to render Tom Brady's passing game next to useless. A strong line and good rushing could well see the Ravens take this game, and I'd fancy their chances against the San Diego Chargers too. They came within inches (and 17-points *cumulatively*) of beating the Bengals, Vikings, Patriots, Colts, and Steelers during the regular season, which instead of posting a mediocre 9-7 season (9 wins- 7 losses) could have been an NFL-leading 14-2 in spite of the toughest schedule in the league. With Ray Rice on fire, a solid defensive line, and QB Jo Flacco gaining confidence, they are a fieldgoal-kicker away from being perhaps the best all-round team in the AFC.

Betfair is also running Conference markets - I agree with the majority of punters that the AFC v NFC Superbowl should be won by the former. The AFC has more strength in depth, and maybe 4 or its 6 teams would be unsurprising winners of the Super Bowl versus only perhaps 3 NFC teams, so there's little value there.

For my money, I think the New Orleans Saints are both brilliant but falling apart. The value for the NFC Conference winner is still the Minnesota Vikings at 4.1 although with QB Brett Favre's experience, I wouldn't make them second favourite to any team in a Super Bowl, so the 9.0 to go all the way is a better bet (but consider trading it) - the Phillie Eagles are a dark-horse, and worth the 14.5 for the NFC conference as well. The Vikings have had a dismal end to the season when it didn't matter, but the sheer talent of Favre and Adrian Peterson make them the most naturally talented offence in the NFL.

Some experts are talking up the Cowboys and Chargers - maybe my inexperience is telling, but I don't see that Super Bowl happening, and there is no value in those positions even if it does happen. I personally cannot see Peyton Manning's Colts failing to secure the Super Bowl, but unfortunately millions of punters agree and have staked the NFL's 4-time MVP to the hilt.

Key bets: Ravens at 36.0 for the Super Bowl on Betfair (and if the Patriots can beat them, proving they can play without WR Welker, then Patriots 8.0 for the AFC championship might be value too).


Morus (Greg Callus)

The author is now a resident of New York, but inexplicably a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals. WhoDey!

Daddy or Chips? Tough choices in the week that gas went short.

Most posts are framed in a timetable of a few days, weeks or months. But Bunnco’s been thinking hard about a post from John Loony on 30th December that has an effect on how well we’re prepared to the challenges facing us in a few decades. .

The whole point of PoliticalBetting.com is that we’re all trying to look into the future. We look at the membership to be tipsters and provide insights that will help us predict what’s going to happen and how might this impact onto the Political careers and outcomes for parties and politicians. And bunnco's wondering whether Loony's got the crystal ball.

Loony wrote

48. General question to whoever: what happens when the oil / coal runs out? We’ve only got a few decades / centuries of it left. Whether it causes global warming or not, it will have to be replaced by something or else we’ll have to have some sort of mass extinction again. Triffids?
by JohnLoony December 30th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

Bunnco knows that it’s the nature of politics to make choices between competing priorities.

* We know we haven’t got unlimited money, so where should we spend what dosh we’ve got?
* We haven’t got unlimited grit, so which roads should be treated?
* We haven’t got unlimited oil/gas, so which factories should we close to eke out the supplies when things get short?

It’s the role of politics to answer these dilemmas and the responsibility of politicians to make the decisions that address them. In post 165 of that thread, madasafish had a go at answering the question as if he were a politician.

Simple. Priority to agriculture. Fertiliser, growing, collection, processing and distribution of food.
Then to armies: lots of wars to fight. Over food.
And then to police. Breakdown of law and order.
Undertakers: body burial.
Above all , no fertilisers = 5 billion surplus mouths not fed.
by madasafish December 30th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Bunnco happens to think that madasafish is right-on-the-money, especially as he knows a thing or two about farming and fertilisers. And politics.

But what’s actually happened this week when the circumstances predicted by JohnLoony actually happened for the first time?
What was the Government’s knee-jerk response to the shortage of gas this week?

To divert the supplies of gas away from the factories on Teesside and in Cheshire that produce nitrogen fertilisers. Nitrogen fertilisers are produced from ammonia, in an energy-intensive process where natural gas is the feedstock.

I suppose it’s understandable to choke-back gas to factories help keep people warm in their homes in the cold snap. But what are we going to do in 15-20 years time when the gas is really running out and there’s a forced choice to be made between using gas to produce the fertilisers that feed the world or heating our homes? In the week when gas went short, Government cut back on the means to grow food with the spring growing season and peak usage just around the corner.

That’s not a long-term solution. It’s a road map to hunger. And we've just experienced the policy that will lead to it for the first time. We've just seen the future.

This week’s shortages of gas have shown what happens when there’s been a failure to formulate a proper energy policy with the ultimate result that we damage our ability to feed ourselves.

Say what you like, but it’s the role of Government to provide the framework where sufficient food, energy and raw materials [like salt] are available to support the population and economy.

Now fast forward a few years to a time when we’ve only got a few days supply of gas on-hand and we’re faced with either the lights going out or going hungry. That’s the legacy of 12 years of Labour chasing the 24 news cycle rather than planning for the future. Who said we were best prepared?

And the PB posters who pointed the way in a thread about the PB Tipsters of the Year were neither mad or loony. They were madasafish and JohnLoony. They're PB's long-term tipsters of the new Decade.

Bunnco – your man on the spot

Could Harriet be behind the plot

ITV news is reporting that Patricia Hewitt is acting for Harriet Harman. Clearly this move was more than just a call for a secret ballot. There has to be current cabinet minister involved. Whatever it's hard to see how Gordon can now go on until May.

Mike Smithson

Emergency overflow

In the excitement, pb1 seems to be on air only intermittently. I've therefore reposted the main thread here so that refugees from pb1 can make their contributions:

How serious is the Hewitt/Hoon move?

News is just breaking that the former chief whip, Geoff Hoon along with the former cabinet minister, Patricia Hewitt, have sent a message to all Labour MPs calling for a secret ballot to resolve the leadership issue once and for all.

The fact that Hoon is a former chief whip gives this an added credence.

Is there real momentum behind this?

Developing.

Will 'Text Gary to 65000' Change the Face of Political Campaigning?

A new twist in the way in which the http://freegary.org.uk/campaign is being run has implications for Political Campaigning in the UK and for the first time in this country applies the lessons learned from Obama’s 2008 victory. Political Campaign Managers Take Note: A new type of Interactive Campaigning is coming to a constituency near you.

Some months ago Bunnco decided that inflation was just round the corner. So he bought a house in Norwich to rent out on the basis that it was less likely to devalue as fast as Sterling will. My new tenant moved in last week and, in passing, told me that she’s involved in the campaign to prevent Gary McKinnon’s extradition to the US on charges of computer hacking and espionage. The campaign is about to step up a gear in advance of an Appeal Court hearing and new technology to spread the word is being developed just two streets away. As it was just around the corner, I called by….

There are lots of campaigns about. Some are very local – perhaps a fund raiser for the local children’s hospice or hospital scanner. Others are regional or national, often run by professional campaigning organisations like the larger well-funded charities. Newspapers used to be ‘campaigning’ organisations, championing one issue or another. And Government with the deepest pockets of all gets in on the act too with shady organisations like the ‘Carbon Trust’.

So it's difficult for the one-man band campaign get traction when there are so many other issues competing for attention. But things have changed and since Labour’s victory in 1997, technology has democratised campaigning. No longer are we spoon-fed the lobby correspondent’s view. We can think for ourselves. And we can publish ourselves. Just ask Guido.

It's easy to forget that in the old days running a single-issue grassroots campaign meant getting cold on a wet Saturday afternoon Demo in London waving placards & blowing whistles. But that's all old hat and technologic advances have are bleeding into political campaigning at local level.

In my own backyard back in 2007, South Norfolk Conservatives launched their district Council election campaign on YouTube as part of an integrated technological fight and turned a deficit of 8 seats into a majority of 32 at the Council. It was the Conservative's best showing in that set of elections and at the time it was a first. The technology worked and now everybody’s doing it.

The Interweb has changed much but not everybody is like us, sat hunched in front of the PC reading posts like this or twittering away on myfacespace. It's a start but to go massive, you need a message and SMS. Yes, internet is good but there are more mobile phones than people. And that’s what Obama’s people understood in 2008.

So that’s why I’m interested to follow the way in which the tussle to prevent Gary Mckinnon being extradited to the US is breaking even newer technical ground implementing the text-message technology that Obama used to such great effect. Where it was used it’s reported to have increased votes and turnout resulting in a 10% swing in certain districts. And if you think that sort of thing doesn’t work over here and I’m over-egging this, just ask Simon Cowell and Rage Against the Machine.

People who want to register their support for Gary McKinnon’s Appeal against Extradition need only text 'Gary' to 65000. So far, nothing new. But where this campaign partially innovates in the political sphere is that they’ll receive a text reply, which they can pass onto friends and family.

This has previously been financially out of reach as the reply text message for a mass campaign has previously cost a fortune.

Positive-feedback makes a campaign both viral and interactive. And it can now be done for a couple of hundred quid… Just the sort of thing that makes it viable in a single constituency, which is why I’m following the outcome closely.

In a further development, the total replies for McKinnon will be collated and duplicates removed using the sender’s mobile number as the key [with the first digits then removed to protect privacy and prevent spam]. The total number of unique respondents are thus validated and a daily summary sent to key politicians, including in the this case, the Home Secretary, to keep up campaign momentum.

So, the same technique used by commercial sponsors to generate sales leads from TV Adverts, where funding isn’t a problem, is now breaking into the UK Political & Campaigning scene at prices any candidate can afford.

Forget about Uniform National Swing. If you want to get elected it’s all about campaigning, pledge building & getting out the vote and then polling one more vote than the next man in your seat. In the marginal constituencies where General Elections are decided, this sort of technical edge, especially driving turnout from 6pm on polling day that will deliver results at the margin where a handful of votes is enough. It’s why Obama did it. It’s why the local Tories are putting so much faith in their MyConservatives approach. And why the others are frantically playing catch-up.

I’m not one to join single-issue campaigns. After all, politics is one great big campaign anyway. But I believe that participation in Politics is partly about respect for the ‘little man’ standing-up for people like Gary McKinnon, impaired as he is with Aspergers Syndrome. How can he be characterised in the same way as a Taliban insurgent? It’s insane to suppose that he was maliciously responsible for derailing CIA/FBI computer systems, which should have been better protected anyway. He should be getting a medal, not a life term. For those of us that have interest in technology and its role in Political Campaigning and Betting, McKinnon is a case of There But For The Grace of God Go I. Rant over.

But follow the technical aspects of Gary’s Protest carefully and text Gary 65000. It's Free. Pass it on.

Bunnco - Your Man On The Spot

http://freegary.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon