Edward Cumming

[Aaron Newbury @AJNewbury94]

I have to admit, Burnham's speech comes off as a bit naïve. To be blunt, it smacks of a man who's grown extremely used to not having much scrutiny and to being the centre of local power and attention for nearly a decade.

Him not taking questions at the end is just as telling. Burnham will effectively become Prime Minister by default: no contest inside his own party, no general election mandate for the changes he wants, and of course no scrutiny from the press.

His entire speech was, in effect, "why can't everyone be more like me" and yet it announced almost nothing. Nothing on cost, nothing on how any of it actually gets done. Just a collection of soundbites, and painfully political ones at that, with no substance behind them.

"A circuit-breaker." "Good growth in every postcode." All of it sounds lovely (let's do the good things and not the bad ones). Nobody's ever thought of that before!! But… how?

Being a Mayor is a fundamentally different job to being Prime Minister. A Mayor spends money, much of it handed to him by central government, and never has to weigh one department's misery against another's. The job he's warming himself up for is the one that has to make those trade-offs, and nothing today suggested he's reckoned with that.

He reaches, as these people always do, towards the idea of a country "lifted back up", homes built, places regenerated, industry revived, pride in place, etc etc. There are models for this. You can run massive public housing programmes, but historically they're delivered through expensive, highly centralised, government-run schemes. Singapore being the obvious example. What they are not delivered by is building a second centre of government.

What Burnham is really offering is top-down socialism with a smile. Devolution on steroids doesn't shrink the state, it bloats it. A "No.10 North" doesn't move power closer to people, it just builds more state, in a second place, at additional cost. It's more process, dressed up as a radical idea nobody's ever had before.

More and more, political speeches are just a hodge-podge of pleasant noise. We will do things, lots of things, good things. We'll make sure things you like have "social value", we'll make you proud of [insert thing to be proud of], we'll deliver [insert policy that sounds really nice].

But the problems this country faces are enormous. Law and order is eroding, and rebuilding it means serious money for police, courts and prisons. The state grows more expensive by the year while the workforce paying for it keeps shrinking. We have an energy crisis and a poverty crisis, conflicts multiplying abroad and armed forces begging for cash, and more than a million young people out of work - on top of housing nobody can afford, child poverty, and a generation that feels detached from the society around it.

You don't fix any of that with a slogan and a second postcode for the guy in charge.

Every Mayor thinks his city is the best, and Mayors, almost uniquely in British politics, are rarely questioned. Today we all saw what nearly a decade of that does to a man. And thanks to his refusal to so much as take a question, we've had no chance to hold a single one of his plans up to the light.

[Mark Knight @knigma]

@alryanradio While there's much nostalgia, turning off 198 kHz from Droitwich is a poor choice for national resilience. One transmitter that covers the entire UK and associated waters that can be received on a battery powered radio without any Internet, satellite, or mains.

[Edward Cumming @eccumming]

@HarryTaylr A sad day

[Tom Peck @tompeck]

Little bit of history made as Harry Kane, John Stones and Jordan Henderson look set to become the first England internationals to go through a change of prime minister during a major international tournament for a record breaking third time.

[Edward Cumming @eccumming]

@hnjsamuels Brilliant display by him

[Sam @Discoplomacy]

Can’t think of any other governments publishing work of this quality with this regularity.

Great work to all involved.

https://t.co/upXz47i0Gy

[Edward Cumming @eccumming]

@ARoberts2016 @ryanbuss19 @Jonah_238 @Mozza_61 @Robbie8Bunn @jasoncowley9 @wilson1253 @sam_wills10 🫣😂

[(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻) @dizzy_thinks]

I'm just going to keep posting this all day https://t.co/gAKmSudn08 but whether any Lobby hack can be bothered to read _and_ understand it let alone politicians is unknown.

[Marcus Walker @WalkerMarcus]

It is literally insane simultaneously to think that 16 and 17 year olds are mature enough to vote but not mature enough to look at Instagram at 8:30pm. This is comically absurd.

[FIA @fia]

A podium decades in the making 🇬🇧

For the first time since the 1968 US Grand Prix, all three places on a Formula 1 podium are occupied by British drivers 👏

#FIA #F1 #BarcelonaGP

[Cherop🕸️ @iamcheropmark]

@LewisHamilton "He's too old."
"He's lost his pace."
"Leclerc is the better driver."

Never write off greatness 💪

[Lewis Hamilton @LewisHamilton]

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

[Ross Taylor @rosstaylor90]

A few words on the Sovereign AI debate, having built several LLMs in Meta while in the UK and now working as a UK based startup:

1. Lots of people are trying to do the right thing to make the UK a better place to start AI companies. Time lags until the benefit show, but you should judge on the intent now. I support the direction of travel!

2. DeepMind has been enormously beneficial for the UK, but it has muddied the waters for a sovereign LLM company to emerge as (until recently) the Government continued to celebrate it as a British achievement / push it as a national champion.

3. Similarly, people are now celebrating recent US investment in King’s Cross, while also wanting more UK sovereignty. Clearly some income effects here, but I would worry about the substitution effects too. AI is not like other types of foreign investment.

4. The relevant talent nexuses in UK that could develop a competitive foundation model are from GDM and old Meta AI GenAI. Also some folks from smaller groups, ex Conjecture, Stability. The talent is still there, although a lot was snapped up by US FM companies in the past year. I personally think it’s not too difficult to develop new talent either from UK universities, but you probably need an ex GDM or Meta core (Gemini or Llama). Or if not: show evidence first (technical reports) before claiming you can do it.

5. Building an LLM is very different from doing regular AI research - skillset is different. Former is closer to engineering; long hours, often unsexy work. Important to distinguish between these two types of talent in the UK ecosystem; arguably too much focus on the latter / ideas guys.

6. On research - DeepSeek R1 post-train cost $300k . Yes, they also needed an ablation budget and to train a base model, invest in infra and talent - and yes the cost of an R1 moment is increasing year on year - but the idea that you need $1bn plus immediately to show results is complete FUD. You need billions to scale, not to validate new directions.

7. In my experience, every failed LLM effort (from model results perspective) I witnessed in the past came from a combination of poor leadership, politics, unclear vision, and premature scaling. Good efforts usually started from small teams who had worked with each other for a long time, had shared thesis, and scaled progressively in bite-sized pieces. Some recent lessons here for neolabs as well.

8. Things take time. Eg we’ve spent ~12 months mostly on internal infra just to get into the position to be able to make big swings. It’s important to nurture new companies through the initial phase. Expectation management is also crucial. I think expecting new UK companies to have single big bang releases is very dangerous; sort of like overwatering a plant. The correct release pattern is “decent”. “decent”, “decent”, “quite good actually”, “holy shit”.

9. Please don’t allow politicians or journalists to kill recent or upcoming AI investment efforts. We will need way more - at the price of potential inefficiency in places - as AI is existential for the country. Ambitious projects are usually incredibly fragile in the early stages; look after them!

10. Mythos is a good triggering moment, but what’s coming will make it look like a toy, so it’s worth building for what’s coming in 5 years time - not a current generation model.

Very proud to be building in the UK - more to share on that soon - alongside many other great early stage AI companies! 🇬🇧

[Daniel Storey @danielstorey85]

Don't know if this is common knowledge, but the BBC has produced a spoiler-free link to watch World Cup match highlights without knowing the score.

Simply go here:

https://t.co/dg52CjYbN8

[Edward Cumming @eccumming]

@SportingFC @NonLeagueCrowd @bbchw @bbcmtd @SouthernLeague1 @CJphotos_ @Breedstar13 @JoeDoyle_95 @HaydenReeves_ @joshdugmore26 @Anitagemmell Photo 4 - when playing that way!

[Mike Pompeo @mikepompeo]

Within hours of being announced as the nominee to be the U.S. Director of the CIA, I received a hand-delivered message on MI6 stationery congratulating me on my nomination. It was signed simply "C" in green ink. Legendary. I shared it with my son and even he thought I was now cool!

More than that, this note, from Sir Alex Younger, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom, confirmed what I already believed: the work that the CIA and MI6 did together mattered, that the partnership was critical, and that two leaders focused on the mission could save lives and provide tools for our nations to deter our adversaries.

Alex's passing this week brought back so many memories of our time in service together. He flew to Langley to see me the day I was confirmed. We brought our two senior teams together in the UK to plan and coordinate and build in the first several weeks of my time on duty: making clear to them all that this relationship was more than special - it was critical for the security of our two countries.

Alex was a remarkable intelligence partner. When we needed help, it wasn't "let me see;" it was "this matters to you and America we'll get it done." And he and his team always did. I think he knew we would do the same for him and his team and his nation. Many Americans are alive today because of his leadership of MI6, I never knew how to thank him enough.

Alex became a friend as well. In the years since we both left office we would see each other from time to time. He was always so kind, so thoughtful, so smart. His deep love of his country was surpassed only by his deep commitment and love of his family. Decent and proper - and funny as hell - Alex was "C." As espionage requires, he was quiet, not attention seeking. He knew what evil was and he was ruthless in his efforts to crush it with every legal tool at his command. And he knew who his friends were and committed himself to supporting them.

I miss Sir Alex Younger. He was a role model for me and a man with whom every minute I spent was valued and savored. Blessings to you Alex. Praying for you and for your family. Well done and may you rest in peace in His hands.

[Edward Cumming @eccumming]

Very thought-provoking

[Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306]

Blog
https://t.co/fJAhJGplYD

[Ryle Nugent @ryle_nugent]

This is glorious. I’ve read it 3 times already and it was only published 71 minutes ago.

Paul Howard: You’ll spend the rest of your life chasing the way your first World Cup made you feel

https://t.co/bv1eZRhr9w