A while back some of you may remember that I wrote a blog post called “The Coalition that Never Was” in which I predicted:

a) the coalition would not bring down the government over the next budget

b) Layton, Dion and Harper will likely be gone within 12 months.

There were a few commentators who disagreed and one of them – Scott Ross –  wanted to place a wager over the issue (a). Namely, he believed that by today – the 29th – the coalition would bring down the government and would take office. I took him up on his offer and during subsequent negotiations (over email) the following terms were agreed to and posted in the post’s comments. Specifically:

Ok, after some offline emailing Scott and I have settled on a bet.

Scott is betting that a coalition will bring down the government on the 27th. I’m betting that it won’t.

The bet will be settled on the 28th – because either there will or will not be a new government.

The loser of this (very friendly) bet agrees to put a button linking to the winner’s blog on a prominent part of their website (likely at the top of the blog).

Today, I’m calling to collect… I hope my button can be posted shortly. I believe we agreed on a two week period for the button’s posting. I also think Scott’s been a phenomenal sport – and so am more than happy to drive traffic his way as well.

As for prediction (b) the odds feel longer but I’m still a believer – I think the first budget/coalition debacle fatally weakened pretty much all of the leaders, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Layton and Harper go down this year. I’m willing to take a friendly wager on this one too…