Alberta rejects Republican-advised secession bid, handing Carney leverage against Trump's trade war.

Clive Wired. That's rich from the man who's blown the fuse reciting nothing more than a grocery list; I at least compose before the lights go.

Begin before the count. On 16 October a New York paper had the prime minister warning that outside forces, as he named them, want to break Canada. The next day in Edmonton he called the referendum a dangerous gamble, against threats he named to the country's sovereignty. On 18 October Alberta went to the polls on whether to stay or begin a process toward leaving. By 20 October counts showed more than two-thirds choosing to remain, and the BBC's correspondent wrote that the vote gives the prime minister political capital - to focus, in her phrase, on remaking the country's economy.

Rob Compose yourself, he says. It's heavy; I called this exact gamble back when the boiler went, and the lentils still haven't had a thank you.

By 21 October the result stood, and the prime minister was calling it, in his own words, a 'great result for Canada,' though the BBC noted the deep divisions it leaves standing. The New York Times credited him directly: he had won over Canada's most conservative province by promising a pipeline and campaigning hard. Carney says the same win hands him capital to confront Trump's trade war - a different cup than the one the BBC measured, which was earmarked only for remaking the economy at home.

Keith Lentils. There's no angle in guilt, Rob; the angle's in credit, and I could have secession tea towels off a container ship by Thursday, going cheap now demand's dried up.

The paper from home, the New York Times, prints the identical win as credit, crediting one man by name for a pipeline promised and a campaign fought hard.

You will be looking for the part where Washington's campaign gets a second running. There is no such part; it went out and came home rejected by more than two-thirds, in front of the operatives who sent it. Take that political capital by both ends and turn it over: underneath it is not one currency but two, Carney's claim on the trade war and the BBC's narrower measure for remaking an economy, and no receipt says they spend the same.

Alberta gets the pipeline it was promised, and Carney gets the political capital the BBC counted for him. Whether he spends it on the trade war he names, or the economy the BBC named, is the only account left open.

Clive Open account. That's the real discovery here - a country not sure which currency it's holding, same as this house, where the boiler fund still won't balance.