Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Today, Lord Callanan asked Cabinet Office Minister, Baroness Twycross, how Sarah Helm, the wife of National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, knew details of the decision to proscribe Palestine Action.
The minister refused to answer.
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Lord Jonathan Sumption defines the core limits of the rule of law and warns that courts in the UK and US have dangerously overreached by meddling in political policy rather than simply checking state power.
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Former Brexit negotiator explains why it is so wrong for Burnham to try undoing Brexit:
- Creates huge divisions
- Sluggish growth across the EU compared to UK since Brexit
- We have a trade deal, we don't need to bind into EU rule again
- 10,000 new EU regulations since we left
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Isolated as they are from the rest of the world, many civil servants (including even press officers) lack the feedback loops to understand why this is odd for a government official to do.
This is largely by choice - extreme interpretations of the terms of the civil service code make civil servants incredibly averse to engaging with outsiders, and when they do it is often through complex stage-managed encounters. Some senior leaders are much more relaxed about it, but that rarely cascades down through the organisations they lead.
But if you spend all lot of time doing mandatory DEI training, or in workshops with other people about DEI issues, and in a closed loop where you only get emails from other people pushing these ‘non-political political’ ideas in their signatures, it’s easy to lose track.
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
These are exceptionally difficult matters. I know the Secretary of State will not have taken the decision to intervene lightly.
But the decision to ban a lawful march because of the threat of violence and disorder means that those threatening violence and disorder have won.
It is now essential that those who have broken the law over the past fortnight are held to account.
While many will be dismayed by this, the right reaction has to be calm and cool heads. Nothing will be gained by actions that further inflame tensions.
NI secretary to ban the Drumcree parade bbc.in/4yj8jdr
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
It's very straightforward:
A new Terminator film with the right director would probably hit $2 billion in global box office and cripple the AI industry, perhaps pushing the global economy into recession.
RT @tomekkorbak: Last week I was called into a meeting with OpenAI’s head of safety and told they no longer trust me. A security guard took…
This quoted post is unavailable.
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
In 1997 the Tories bequeathed New Labour:
- 3.5% GDP growth
- 4.5% wage growth
- 4.6% manufacturing output growth
- Energy independence and falling energy prices
- A brand new nuclear power station (1995)
- New reservoirs (1992)
- Construction of Manchester airport's second runway
- Falling unemployment
- London as the world’s leading foreign-exchange centre
- A newly opened Channel Tunnel
- Debt at just 37% of GDP
- On track for a balanced budget
Andy Burnham just said that this was failure. Somehow.
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
When I was in government, I liked to think about it as a massive information processing machine, but basically all the wires were broken and sometimes the cogs and wheels all hated each other.
Obviously you just want to ask the machine a question and get an answer. You don't want to have to think about the wires and cogs and wheels! Or which ones have how much power! And that's for someone *inside* government. Then imagine being on the outside.
It was ~2020 and GPT-3 had just come out. I ran around telling people this was how we were all going to do government from now on. I simulated some war games and some generals' eyes went wide. I would put quotes from GPT-3 in notes to the Prime Minister. I called up the digital service and they ~sort of laughed at the time, but kindly went along with it when I told them to form a team and work on it with me.
I mostly left feeling like we should just scrap it all and rebuild a country around post-2020 technology. I'm fairly confident that the governments that do that will win.
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
This story confirms a deep fear of mine. That out of a mixture of carelessness, incompetence, indifference and denial the Home Office is rubber stamping terrorists, that would like to kill people like me and my family, access to the country. This should provoke a real reckoning.
EXCLUSIVE: The former bodyguard of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, was given asylum and citizenship in the UK — then “plotted” huge foiled terror attack targeting Jews in Europe last year
Mr X had legal anonymity for 100 years: Sunday Times quashed this
thetimes.com/uk/crime/articl…
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
At this time when our rural communities feel under attack by a raft of ill-thought through & damaging government policies, I was delighted to support today's Campaign for the Countryside, organised by the @CAupdates, pushing for a much-needed #RuralReset. ruralreset.org
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
What fresh hell is this?!!!
1) The Education Secretary seems to have forgotten that education is about teaching children things they don’t already know. That’s rather the point.
2) Coursework is a disaster for the most disadvantaged and doubling down on it in the age of AI is frankly bonkers.
Lucy Powell seems determined to lower standards for the next generation.
I think education should be about what you can do, and not what you can’t do.
Read my full piece in @theobserveruk where I set out my vision for reforming England's education system - from tackling the SEND crisis to reimagining what success looks like beyond exams.
observer.co.uk/news/national…
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Labour has failed to understand that …
… the problem lies with the rules government imposes on itself
Quangos are often used as a way of bypassing these rules (on pay, T&C etc) …
… but that comes at the price of ministerial oversight …
… and bringing officials “back into the Dept” doesn’t solve anything IF YOU DONT FIX THE RULES
EXCLUSIVE from @oliver_wright
Labour’s pledge to scrap the organisation that runs the NHS is unravelling due to its workers’ high salaries
Wes Streeting announced in March last year that the government would abolish the “world’s biggest quango”, NHS England, and bring responsibility for managing the health service back to Whitehall
But now ministers have been asked to consider setting up another quango, described as NHS England 2.0, to take on many of the current body’s staff
Yvette Cooper, the new health secretary, was warned by officials that the initial plan was unworkable because NHS England staff had far better pay and conditions than counterparts at the Department of Health
NHS managers can earn up to £45,000 more than those doing their equivalent role in the civil service
Under government finance rules, Cooper would need permission from the Treasury for each staff member’s salary that exceeds the normal civil service pay level
She has been advised by officials to set up a new quango that would employ thousands of those currently working for NHS England
Cooper is expected to make a decision by the end of the week. The legislation needed to enact the change is due to come before MPs next week
A government source insisted that NHS England staff would be brought into the health department but confirmed there were financial issues to work through. They denied a new quango would need to be created
thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Interesting from Sir Anthony Seldon’s new book “Sunak at 10” (and also “Truss at 10”) that I was TWICE almost made Chief Whip in Autumn 2022.
I would have been pleased to serve.
But one thing’s for sure - I wouldn’t have published a tell-all memoir about it!
#WhipsOmerta
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
The tragic death of 26-year-old Chloe Moffat should concern everyone and @hmtreasury has serious questions to answer.
Chloe denied the allegations made against her. Yet she was confronted by two managers, refused the presence of a friend, left uncertain about whether she would lose her livelihood, and immediately locked out of her work emails. The coroner found that this meeting “materially contributed” to her death.
I know only too well the devastating power of an allegation.
An allegation is not a fact and it is not guilt. Yet handled without humanity, fairness or proper safeguards, allegations alone can destroy reputations, careers and lives.
That a great department of state apparently failed to follow its own disciplinary policy - and, according to Chloe’s father, provided no safeguarding or support during or after that meeting - is deeply disturbing.
My thoughts are with David and Anne Moffat. Their determination that something positive should emerge from an unbearable loss deserves more than expressions of sympathy.
HM Treasury must demonstrate accountability and ensure no employee is ever again left feeling so isolated and frightened when facing unproven allegations.
theguardian.com/politics/202…
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
Well said Ian Botham:
“Whitehall is turning England into a tinderbox. Defra’s response to climate change has been to sharply increase vegetation. Over the past 20 years its cuts in upland cattle and sheep grazing led to a 25 per cent increase in highly flammable grass.
Another genius move has been to stop preventative burning of heather. During damp winter months these burns safely prune the dead material which is then replaced by younger plants. It is the dead heather that is combustible. And thanks to Defra we now have 74 per cent more of it. The winter burns used to create firebreaks. Now we have huge expanses of continuous, ageing vegetation. The result is disaster after disaster.
When Downing Street starts asking questions of Defra, jaws will drop. Why did it further restrict winter burns despite the National Fire Chiefs Council warning this risked the lives of "firefighters and the public"? How come it also ignored the pleading of top wildfire scientists not to go ahead?
In 2007, officials said that stopping winter burns would produce "a much increased risk" of wildfires. Which is exactly what we are getting. Rewilded land going up in smoke.
Other countries have learnt the hard way. Australia and California tried suppressing the prescribed burns that indigenous people had used for tens of thousands of years. By some calculations, dozens died before their governments saw sense. What will it take for ours to wake up?
This is a crisis caused by years of Whitehall grabbing power away from the countryside.”
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
This is a really excellent appointment by the UK. Prof Dennis Whyte ran one of the best fusion labs in the world at MIT, and he founded SPARC which lead to Commonwealth Fusion Systems, one of the best startups in the field.
UK Stand Up Tall!
Benjamin Barnard retweeted
The blue skies are definitely making a difference!
Join us on Easter Sunday and Monday, 5th & 6th April 2026.
shop.myonlinebooking.co.uk/p…
Photo Credits: Garden Team
