Michael Butcher

Law, philosophy, science, AI, new technology, Franco-British relations, photography. Views are personal. I may repost things I disagree with.

[Michael Butcher @Delcred]

So beautiful..

[Muse @xmuse_]

Westward, launched in 1910, was the largest yacht ever built under the 1908 International Rule.

135 feet from bow to stern.

She had an incredible life on the water, dominating races on both sides of the Atlantic. But her story ended in 1947 when she was scuttled in the English Channel per her final owner's wishes.

She still holds the title.

The 1908 Rule was retired long ago, so Westward remains the largest yacht ever built to it.

Nothing of the original survives today.

[Christopher Morris @CPMorris1234]

In addition to the recent publication of my book on the Lucy Letby case - Reasonable Doubt: Examining the Case of Lucy Letby - we have also published around 850 references for the book, which you can download here:

https://t.co/gSvhCQi7Yx

[Estudios del Segundo Imperio @CronistadeCorte]

Recibí hace unos días el más reciente trabajo biográfico de @EdwardShawcross, dedicado ahora a Napoleón III. Ha resultado un trabajo sólido y bien estructurado, de fácil y amena lectura que, como obra de divulgación, denota investigación rigurosa y concienzuda en archivos diversos, así como la detenida reflexión del autor sobre los acontecimientos que trata en la obra. Con más de 500 páginas, narra con nitidez los principales acontecimientos de la historia de Francia en el siglo XIX, la lucha de facciones, la sed de poder de Luis Napoleón, su juego de alianzas internacionales y el impacto de ello sobre la política exterior de las naciones europeas y, naturalmente, la proyección de la cultura francesa. Disfruté mucho su biografía sobre Maximiliano y ahora llevo este nuevo volumen conmigo. No dejen de darle una mirada al texto para aprender, aún más, sobre este personaje tan determinante para la segunda mitad del siglo XIX mexicano.

[Michael Butcher @Delcred]

@TeslaBoomerMama The responsibility for information flow to the public is squarely with Tesla. They should be especially disciplined during this period when a merger with SpaceXAI is under consideration. That said it was an excellent interview.

[Edward Shawcross @EdwardShawcross]

"This thoroughgoing reassessment of the man as less of a bounder and a charlatan than something of a doomed visionary, wise before his time, shows an impressive command of its sources and matches the imperial style at its dashing best." Jonathan Keates on The People's Emperor in @Lit_Review https://t.co/iScfB02iQc

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

BA has a new app. DON’T download it. Stick with your old one for as long as you can. I wish I had. The new one is a shambles.
@British_Airways

[Michael Butcher @Delcred]

@eurofootcom Losers

[Edward Shawcross @EdwardShawcross]

Wonderfully erudite and generous review by @jackfdickens for @EngelsbergIdeas. "The People’s Emperor combines shrewd observations with compelling storytelling. Shawcross has a gift for narrative history ... a compulsively readable account". https://t.co/GPhOmB3Fj5

[Alastair Hilton @London_W4]

I am having a drink this evening with a friend in a Chiswick pub. Two policemen have just come into the pub and asked me to step outside. I have stepped outside and they have threatened me because I tweeted about a councillor banning seating outside pubs in Chiswick. They admit on video (watch it!) that I did not break the law at all. They came to threaten me. To warn me off tweeting about councillors and the council. This is modern Britain. This is the police state. Please, please, please watch this video. It does involve me using very bad language, but this has got to be seen. Police coming out to threaten someone who hasn’t committed a crime. I’m fuming.

[Michael Butcher @Delcred]

“Napoleon III's historical reputation never really recovered from the Franco-Prussian War, but was it all his fault?”

[Edward Shawcross @EdwardShawcross]

Must not let foreign troops occupy Paris, must not let foreign troops occupy Paris, must not let foreign troops occupy... Oops!... I did it again. Napoleon III's historical reputation never really recovered from the Franco-Prussian War, but was it all his fault? Find out by reading the People's Emperor, out on Thursday 2 July.

[Michael Butcher @Delcred]

“It is in vain that this great criminal, to escape punishment, tries to take refuge in a coffin.”

[Edward Shawcross @EdwardShawcross]

“It is in vain that this great criminal, to escape punishment, tries to take refuge in a coffin. The future will know all his crimes.” You know you've had an impact when you get an obituary like Napoleon III did. Read about all his crimes: https://t.co/geL03IPhzu

[Michael Butcher @Delcred]

“Scientists have created one of the most detailed 3D reconstructions of a human cell (eukaryotic cell) ever produced.”

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Scientists have created one of the most detailed 3D reconstructions of a human cell (eukaryotic cell) ever produced.

This groundbreaking model, often termed a "Cellular Landscape Cross-Section Through a Eukaryotic Cell," combines data from X-ray tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and cryo-electron microscopy to map molecular structures in extreme detail.

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

THE FIVE TESTS

For weeks I've argued that this party, and this country, needs a proper debate about where we go next. Not a reshuffle. Not a few degrees of course correction. The big, difficult, honest choices we've spent thirty years avoiding.

A few people have asked me what that debate should actually be about. Fair enough. I spent 24 years in the Marines and two in government, and I resigned because I couldn't win the argument I believed in from the inside. So let me make it here, plainly.

This isn't a manifesto, but a set of five tests. Anyone asking to lead our country should be able to look down this list and say yes to all five.

1️⃣ ⁠The Frontline Test
Do we give the people on the frontline the kit they need to do the job, and stand by them when the job is done?

I joined the Marines at 18. I've buried friends. So I do take this one personally.

I sat in government and watched us write a defence plan for a world that no longer exists, discussed in rooms I was kept out of. A 100k drone is now sinking warships that cost a billion. That is the reality of the wars being fought right now.

Passing this means 3% of GDP as the floor, not the ceiling. Buying for the next war, not the last. And fixing the Legacy Act so blokes in their seventies aren't back in the dock for what they were cleared of decades ago.

2️⃣ The Next-Generation Test
Are we handing the next generation a better deal than the one we inherited, or a worse one?

I'm a lad from a tough part of Aberdeen. My mum raised five of us through some bleak years. The only reason I got out was because I was given an opportunity. That cannot be said for young people today.

Nearly a million young people, around one in eight, are now outside work, education or training. That isn't their failure. It's ours.

Fixing this means a NEETs and youth unemployment target with a date, the youth guarantee delivered not just announced. Restoring the link between work and a decent life for the under 30s, on housing, wages and opportunity. Skills and apprenticeship numbers that beat the last government, not just match it.

Talent is everywhere in this country. Opportunity isn't. Fix that and you fix half of everything else...

3️⃣ ⁠The Trillion-Pound Test
Is the plan to add a trillion pounds to what Britain earns, or to manage the decline more politely?

Here's the lesson I learned from Ukraine and in government, and it never changes. We invent things. Other countries build them. Other countries decide. We're brilliant at the first mile and absent for the next ninety nine.

So set a target and be judged on it. A trillion pounds added to our GDP within a decade. Yes, it's ambitious. We should be ambitious!

Getting there means backing the high tech inventors just as much as the high street traders. Your local coffee shop shouldn't be paying more tax per cappuccino than Starbucks does. So why on earth do they?

It means an industrial strategy worth the name. Things to make and things to sell, in Barrow, in Derby, in every region. Our industrial base is national security, so we should fund it like it.

And it means building the chips and the compute here, not inventing the breakthrough and watching someone else scale it. Data is the new gunpowder.

4️⃣ The 10% Test
Can we make the country work 10% better, instead of only ever asking for 10% more?

I saw this from the inside. We patch the symptom this year, but the bill grows next year, and we end up paying for failure at the most expensive end of every system.

A 10% improvement in outcomes across a handful of our biggest problems, ill health, reoffending, wasted potential, would free up somewhere between £40 and £60 billion a year. We're already paying those costs. We just pay them too late, when they're at their worst.

Passing this means investing early instead of paying far more later, and having the honesty to admit that not every pound we spend today delivers an immediate return.

5️⃣ ⁠The Lights-On Test
Does our energy policy keep the lights on, the bills down and factories open, or do we keep chasing a target and hope the rest sorts itself out?

For years we've treated net zero as the only goal, and everything else, your bill, our industry, whether the grid even stays up, as a problem for later. That’s the wrong way around.

Make energy security the goal. Power that people, businesses, and industry can afford, and a grid that stays on when someone tries to switch it off. Do that and net zero follows. Chase the target on its own, and you end up with neither.

Passing this means a serious baseload, nuclear and the North Sea, built in time to matter. Strong countries have cheap, secure energy. Weak countries don't.

None of this is complicated. It's the oldest deal there is. You serve the country, the country stands by you. In uniform, in a hospital, in a classroom, on a building site. Right now that deal is broken, and everyone keeping our country going can feel it.

That broken deal is the real reason for the frustration out there. It's why trust has drained out of politics. And it's why our party that won a landslide is, halfway through the term, already arguing about who leads it.

But changing the person at the top fixes nothing if we don't fix the deal underneath. Swap one leader for another and leave the deal broken, and we'll be right back here in eighteen months, asking the same question all over again.

So I'm not interested in who gets what job. I'm interested in whether we've got the courage to pass these tests.

We've been promised a debate. This is my opening offer to it. And if that debate ever becomes a contest, it should be fought on this ground, not on personalities.

I know where I stand.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

The snooty outrage of a disgruntled 18th-century duchess forced to interact with the peasantry.

[Andy Burnham @andyburnham]

I have never taken part in a coup against any Leader of the Labour Party and I am not going to start now. 2/3

[Edward Shawcross @EdwardShawcross]

"This is a book written to be enjoyed: it’s a gripping, fascinating biography that rightly rehabilitates the statesman but also relishes the power, the sex and the fun of his extraordinary rise and fall." Beyond thrilled to read this generous review of The People's Emperor by the fantastic @simonmontefiore.

[FrancoBritishCouncil @francobritish]

L'année prochaine marquera le 10 anniversaire du Programme des Young et Local Leaders franco-britanniques. Nous prévoyons une année 2027 riche en événements pour les anciens participants. Si vous souhaitez parrainer/organiser événements en France ou au R-U [email protected]

[Andrew Montford @aDissentient]

Letter in the Times...

[Alex Harrowell @yorksranter]

This is by far the best writing on the Ulster riots I have seen, from local journalists who know what they are talking about and have real sources: https://t.co/eYyi2DkViW

[Al Carns @AlistairCarns]

This week the most advanced AI model on the planet got switched off by a foreign government. British researchers were studying it. British companies were testing it. British hospitals were piloting it. Not any more.

This isn't an AI story. It's the story of every industry we used to lead.

Britain has some of the best AI talent in the world. DeepMind was built here. Our AI Safety Institute writes the rules other countries follow. We have the researchers, the universities, the standards.

What we don't have is the power stations to run the data centres, the planning system to build them, or the industrial base to make the chips. So the work happens here and the value lands somewhere else. We invent. Others build. Others decide. Then we read about it on Saturday morning.

Same story as the kit our soldiers don't have. Same story as the factories we used to.

I spent nine months in government making this argument inside the room. I'll make it louder from outside.