Soy Adrián

Would love Wednesday to finally do it. I agree that Middlesbrough will be the strongest of the relegated trio - Monk looks like an solid appointment and their squad is decent. Slutsky at Hull is an odd one.

I can't see him being their style at all. Can't think of anyone off the top of my head, Silva from Hull was perhaps the obvious one and I wonder whether he might be thinking that he should have turned Watford down.

Ironically, from the data published by YouGov it looks like people who were in employment were more likely to vote Labour. (the Tory vote was kept afloat by the retired, obviously)

That makes Hart going to West Ham more likely then. Not sure it's wise - Adrian proved himself again in the last few games so keeper shouldn't really be out priority, and he'll be on big wages.

I'd echo that. May would have still won because she could have played it relatively safe and reassured Tory members that she could be trusted to carry out Brexit. In other words, her key message from the GE campaign would have actually been useful because there wouldn't have been any other big issues to discuss. Leadsom wouldn't have been effective enough to exploit any weaknesses.

I would genuinely love to know the image of me that you've developed.

I wasn't aware I was so high up in the party, someone should have told me.

Yes, it was very good. I had misgivings going into it with both Corbyn's team and his most vehement critics, but both largely stepped up and knuckled down respectively.

Labour in Manchester Central, and all the other Manchester seats. In where I used to live in Sheffield, we did a clean sweep for the first time as well.

You do realise that he'll be happy, right?

I'm going 44 to 36, 70 seat majority. Assuming the polling average is very slightly off in favour of the Tories due to last minute swing to the incumbent.

It's not that simple, though. Firstly the economy has slipped down in people's minds as this campaign has gone on - it's usually pretty much the biggest issue in most elections, but this time more coverage has been on Brexit and public services (because of what the two main parties see as their strengths) and obviously security. In 2015 it was arguably the main factor in the election - the Tories were still relentlessly pushing their "Labour crashed the car" line, which is less effective now as they've continued to miss deficit targets and the New Labour governments recede from recent memory. Labour was always going to struggle in 2015 with the conditions like that because there was no clear strategy throughout Harman and Miliband's tenures. We probably could have done better, and maybe even won, with a bolder strategy if it had been implemented right from the start in 2010 but it wasn't done and the conditions for Corbyn in that sense are more favourable this time around.

What about the other 99% of civil servants? The 2015 Tory campaign was outstanding compared to this one. For starters, the manifesto then was deliberately designed to be so innocuous that no one would talk about it and Cameron could instead focus on his strengths.

The concept that a civil service job is a job for life is woefully outdated.

You really have no idea about anything, do you?

How did you work that one out?

Which is that?

What were you even attempting to say with that?

Labour were competitive last time, so that's not inconceivable, but the UKIP vote falling should still deliver it for the Tories.

The SDP in has basically been taken over by former Kippers, at least in Sheffield. Why are we even speculating whether the Guardian might endorse the Tories? The Lib Dems perhaps on the basis of their EU stance, but it's highly likely they'll back Labour despite their antipathy to Corbyn.

Well this is a trainwreck.

Would Wednesday or Fulham have been much better? I've not followed the Championship in close detail this season but it's seemed like the top two were way ahead of the rest, and there were half a dozen similar-ish teams who could have made the playoffs.

I'd support STV as well - it's pretty much the only system that can deliver more proportionality without having a 'party list' element, which for me is even more anti-democratic than non-proportional systems like FPTP. I'd take AV over FPTP every day of the week as well. While the Electoral Commission is independent and draws the boundaries for new constituencies, from memory the government of the day is able to define some of the rules by which they do so. One which the Tories will always maintain is that constituencies are currently drawn by the number of voters, rather than the number of people. This doesn't really make a great deal of sense given an MP is supposed to represent constituents whether they're eligible to vote or not. Labour seats tend to have more under 18's in them though, meaning that redrawing the boundaries based on population would end up creating more Labour seats. Funny that.

I think Zabaleta's decline has looked exaggerated because of the demands that Guardiola has placed on his FBs and the way that City play. I imagine we'll use him as a more defensive option than Byram in bigger games. And like you say, a free is a free and 32 isn't that old if he's looked after himself.

You'd expect the SNP to be on about 3-4% given Scotland has 9% of the seats, so yes that does seem rather low. I don't think either main party thinks the gap is actually 5%.