Notions of evil and shame are socially necessary. In their absence we have to consider extreme measures to prevent antisocial behavior like this.

Serco is operating a nuclear missile detection radar at RAF Fylingdales. Genuine question: at what point did we decide that tracking incoming nuclear warheads was a job for an outsourcing company? This is a facility within the US Missile Defence network. It detects ballistic missile launches. It provides early warning of nuclear attack. It operates 24/7/365. It is one of the most sensitive military installations on British soil. And it's run by the company that couldn't staff the Olympics and charged the taxpayer for tagging dead people. What happens when the contract expires in five years? Serco renegotiates. From a position of strength. Because by then THEY have the institutional knowledge. THEY have the trained staff. THEY understand the system. The MoD has nobody who can replace them because the capability was outsourced five years ago. That's the outsourcing trap. Year one: competitive tender. Year five: sole supplier. Year ten: permanent dependency. The contractor becomes irreplaceable because the client gave away the capability to replace them. Missile defence should be: Operated by RAF personnel. Trained in-house. Knowledge retained in the military. No contractor dependency. No five-year renegotiation cycle. No profit margin on nuclear early warning. If the radar fails at 3am who's accountable? An RAF commanding officer in the chain of command? Or a Serco shift manager reporting to a regional director reporting to a board in London reporting to shareholders? When the thing that detects nuclear missiles is run by a company whose primary obligation is shareholder returns, the priorities are no longer aligned with national security. They're aligned with the contract. builduk.club defence charter. Sovereign capability. In-house operation. No outsourcing of existential infrastructure.

Privatized water, sewage and mail delivery not enough? Privatize air defense! The UK is so bizarre. Deeply socialist AND deeply corporatist, in exactly the wrong places. Air defense radars should be run by soldiers and airmen. Housing should be private. Insane.

This is true.

What a gift.

The much-awaited Kickstarter project for an Apple-style split keyboard just decided they wouldn't ship the product to the EU, since the "right to repair" regulation would have made it 22% thicker. Perfect illustration of 1/ why you don't let bureaucrats (much less European ones) design by regulation 2/ the European woe of overregulating while having a decreasingly relevant market internationally. Companies can just pick option B: "I guess we just won't sell to Europe, then."

Kemi is right!

Build HS3.

Your interest rate literally doubles if you earn an extra penny. This is an obviously very, very dumb policy.

This isn’t how people work in the real world. I do not have a single client that would think earning another £10,000 to keep only £2,600 of it would be worth their time.

I applaud @SamJRushworth for engaging with folks on twitter. I hope that people are able to convince him that the more the government takes of an incremental pound the less willing someone is to work to generate it. At some point, they just... don't bother.

I would like to work in this office.

Stock transfer taxes are just as stupid as real estate transfer taxes. Tailor made to stop economic growth.

How do you know if you're living in a dystopia?

I really don't mind this. I don't think you should either.

Incredible surprise - my @VirginAtlantic flight today has @Starlink onboard. So much for @British_Airways being the only UK airline with Starlink.

you used to write code by hand and when it didn’t work you had to go into the codebase and understand all the functions sometimes people would go on for days about variable names and we would argue about what programming language was better