Snooker, and Strictly come Coaltion Building

The prediction game is a dangerous one. Indeed, it is probably best to only make predictions you are prepared to put your money on them. This column prefers to reserve its money only for gambling on sporting events, rather than political. Indeed, given the problems with Snooker's world number 1, wise punters tend not to bet on anything that talks.

Still, for what it is worth, I have found some advice for Nick Clegg, cue John Kenneth Galbraith; Politics, he said, is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

For Labour's part, this column salutes Gordon Brown's statesmanship yesterday in his resignation, and his political career. Galbraith's advice is still relevant to Labour. The potential for disaster is to go into government in this fashion. Opposition is clearly unpalatable, but may cost Labour, the centre-left and our progressive majority less in the long run.