[Tubby Isaacs]

Strong defence of the Palantir NHS contract here by a former very serious NHS IT manager.

He's very sure that there's no alternative to it, at least not before the break in the contract can be exercised. He says data protection arguments are mistaken anyway, akin to thinking that using Word means that Bill Gates has your data. I've great frustration with the way these sort of issues get pushed now (normally with Jolyon Maugham and a predictable group of backbench MPs in the vicinity) with no sense of trade offs. If a load more people die because of bad data, that's not on them- they'll probably trace the problem back to Wes Streeting's donors anyway.

I do think there is a stronger case with new Palantir contracts though. And I think pushing longer term independence from US tech is a sensible idea.

https://www.bartlettdata.co.uk/post/blog-coming-soon

[The Weeping Angel]

Yeah, Starmer gets easy media coverage.

This "scandal" was all about process. That's why people are concentrating on it. If the argument were that Starmer had to resign for appointing Mandelson, that would have been made months ago, when it wasn't. And lots of media types said it was a good appointment, so calling for resignation over it would be a stretch even for them.

I have no idea what Starmer has done to Stephen Bush.

Bush dislikes Starmer full stop, so nothing he ever does is right.

[Youngian]

Looks increasingly unlikely that tangible results in office are enough to secure re-election.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Agree. There’s always going to be wedge issues nowadays. If you improve waiting lists, you’ll still get it in the neck for not cancelling the Palantir contract or whatever.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Getting back to policy, this is not particularly encouraging on dynamic alignment.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-limits-of-dynamic-alignment/

This would be a massive political undertaking, and will set all the Brexiters off as being a "rule taker", but likely has limited economic effect, certainly before the next election. And this is way further than anybody else has been prepared to go on meeting EU standards since we left.

The optimistic view is that it sets up a pivot to Single Market or membership in the next Parliament.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Removing mines from busy shipping lanes is bad now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't know if the Burnham news will finally enable the Government to talk about governing (at least till Andy has either returned in triumph or crashed and burned), but I'm going to do my bit. The Institute of Government (who've been very critical of some stuff) like what was in the King's Speech about civil service reform.

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org. ... ice-reform

The monarch said that the government:
“will bring forward proposals that strengthen the delivery, accountability, innovation and productivity of the civil service. These proposals will also seek to safeguard its impartiality and core values, to enhance trust and confidence in the institutions of government.”
Senior Whitehall figures are talking about this as a ‘Northcote-Trevelyan moment’, referring to the 19th century report that founded the civil service in its current form, enshrining merit-based appointments and impartiality. Including such a commitment in the King’s Speech also suggests that the government is seriously – and rightly – thinking about legislating to address these issues. We can expect progress over the course of this year – ideally a rapid white paper followed by legislation.

Starmer's got a reputation as a ditherer, but I wonder if the Ollie Robbins business might focus his mind? I hope so.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour handing us over to big tech latest.

Millions of pounds have been saved by replacing a Palantir IT system which helps to find homes for Ukrainian refugees with one built by its own experts, a government department has said, external.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l2j1lxdk5o

They'll get no credit for this. You can see why Labour governments think, fuck it, at least someone else gets some of the blame and leave stuff outsourced.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Stephen Bush telling us how it's all done. We'll have to see if the employment effects of the Government's policy is as catastrophic as he thinks. Lots of people would agree with him on Employers NI, but the ones (at least in politics) are telling us we just do cuts or conjure up some fantasy EU agreement to avoid difficult choices. Not sure that all that many people would agree that you couldn't then have the worker rights and the minimum wage rises too. That would seem to be a route to the government losing more votes to the Greens.

[Tubby Isaacs]

As nearly always from this lot, mostly deeply unimpressive. WASPI and energy bill subsidies (as opposed to giving poor people extra money) are bad policies, that cost a lot and go to lots of very well off people. The FBU guy was telling us the other day that "unfit" Starmer was failing the working class.

About all we're missing on there is "abolish tuition fees" for fake progressivity.