Tim

In a silent war against demons I hope you will never see. Back in a bit.

[Will Kingston @WillKingston]

“People are sick of paying the blood price of bourgeois virtue.”

[Climate Warrior🐬 #ClimateJustice🇵🇸🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @ClimateWarrior7]

Nonbinary people are not born. They are made.

I didn't become the nonbinary I am today by just sitting around, waiting for life to come to me.

I got out there and blocked roads and threw soup at paintings.

The climate war made me the nonbinary I am today.

You young people should think about that.

[Simon Cooke @SimonMagus]

People who'd rather other people die than use this technology are the worst sort of people.

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@TomSoede Lol, bless.

[Stuey Beef 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @stuey_beef]

Liz Kendall has described the bosses of Palantir as “Right-wing” in the context of a £330 million NHS contract that could bring more than a million patients off waiting lists.

Stop and think about that breathtaking framing for a moment.

The Technology Secretary of the United Kingdom — whose job is to make public services work better through technology — has introduced a political litmus test for NHS suppliers.

Not a competence test.
Not a value-for-money test. Not a patient outcomes test.

A political character assessment of the executives running the company.

Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel is an outspoken libertarian and Trump supporter.

That is well-documented.

It is also entirely irrelevant to whether their data platform can reduce NHS waiting lists by a million patients.

By Kendall’s logic, any tech company whose leadership holds views she disapproves of is a potential candidate for contract cancellation.

That is not a procurement policy.
That is ideological vetting.

The NHS spends billions with private contractors.

It uses American software, German medical equipment, and Japanese diagnostic technology.

At no point has any government minister previously suggested that the political views of a supplier’s board were relevant to whether the NHS should use their products.

Liz Kendall has just established that they are.

The implications for every future NHS tech contract — and for every company that doesn’t want to be labelled “Right-wing” by a minister — are significant.

[Jonathan Norris @jonnorris12]

Spot on.

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@Nick_Wellings @DanNeidle @afneil You mean "tax someone who isn't me". And no, because you need to attract the wealthy, not disincentivise them from investing here. Most wealth is in pension funds too.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

@afneil If people want larger state, better funded public services, etc., I'd much rather they argue for higher taxes than to indulge in the fantasy that you can just do it by taxing the rich.

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@scruffiness @stuey_beef @IvorGCampbell Good summary here https://t.co/KGrjomVBnc

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@scruffiness @stuey_beef @IvorGCampbell It's illegal to enter on a tourist visa and not declare significant work activity. But bad for lots of reasons as you point out.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Wow. A billion of taxpayers money. Most of which will be frittered away and never seen again. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, US AI companies plan to invest £750 billion this year.

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@peterkyle @BBCSimonJack No-one is going to create a trillion dollar firm here and then be taxed the bejesus out of. You're an utter idiot.

[Pat @KhunPat27]

Children seeing nudity online? Unacceptable.

Men parading through British city centres in leather fetish gear during “Pride” pretending to be dogs? Teaching primary students about anal sex? Stunning and brave.

Got it 👍

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@scruffiness @stuey_beef @IvorGCampbell There's a clear difference between checking emails periodically and claiming a day in Europe as a working from home day (or attending a conference or meeting). It should be prohibited by terms of employment.

[Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis]

SCAM ADS.

Turned on @gmb to see @susannareid100 and @edballs rightly hauling science and tech secretary @leicesterliz over the coals for repeated, consistent, dangerous scam adverts that destroy people's finances and mental health.

I'm delighted to hear her say she will investigate action and talk to Ofcom BUT, even though the law is in the online safety, and has been for years, the regulator hasn't even started implementation and is legally obliged to a consultation first which means even if it started today (unlikely) we wouldn't have any actual meaningful implementation in place until the end of 2027.

And that law only effects the biggest platforms, no all the ad networks and others. The whole thing is so depressing.

[Tim @shoottheducks]

@NJ_Timothy What data protection rules are being breached, do you happen to know? It's anonymised data.

[Mary Harrington @moveincircles]

We're being pressured to accept digital surveillance by default, under the banner of child safety. The proposals stink, and should be fought tooth and nail - because we've already seen the inevitable resulting mission creep in the "Online Safety Act":

[Tim @shoottheducks]

They simply don't understand or accept second order consequences, and this is across the board for all policies. Three more years and it's likely the damage will be impossible to fix.

[Tim @shoottheducks]

Starmer is of course mandating the wrong solution. And he's doing it in a sort of "CEO" imperious way - "fix it in three months and don't tell me you can't". The issue is it's easy to use old tech to take photos, old digital cameras, scans of analogue photos, and then you encrypt

[Tim @shoottheducks]

It's a massive Labour blind spot generally - they see a problem in a subset and fix it there, ignoring the other cases. We saw it with assisted dying and the vulnerable, we're now seeing it with couples living together without a civil partnership versus, say, a long term lodger