Little FT

Van der Telegraaf Generator.

Atlantis obviously.

I'm going to spend up to £30bn on my wife's birthday present.

They have just announced her replacement.

Wonderful record.

Clearly the M-W compiler is not a fan of bike racing.

Is that the digital teams moving from DCMS to DSIT rather than actual cuts?

is that because all the digital people went to DSIT?

I wondered what that sound was in the background of our meeting.

a cartoon character wearing glasses and a red jacket is standing in front of a mirror ALT: a cartoon character wearing glasses and a red jacket is standing in front of a mirror

Either them or Gerry Anderson

Why, @washingtonpost.com, would you frame legal challenges to Trump's assault on democracy & the rule of law as driven by partisan, woke liberals? We need to make legible what is happening, & that it is citizens trying to save our basic American institutions & values, not partisan politics at work.

Love to refer to award-winning scientists as ‘overseas labour’. Going to start referring to Erling Haaland, Mo Salah and William Saliba as ‘overseas labour’ we have become reliant upon.

If only we had free speech absolutists in charge like in the US, where universities are at last free to say whatever they are told.

Not even fire. Oh wait a minute.

TL:DR - pick a different Gove SPAD - @samfr.bsky.social not Cummings. The civil service isn’t the Rolls Royce of legend, and never was, but if you don’t try to understand why it behaves the way it does you’ll struggle to get things done.

No one could accuse the previous government of consistency in its thinking, but the CS will have developed coping mechanisms. It doesn't means you aren't critical, but just wishing there was a different civil service - the ninjas in the back room - isn’t going to get you far. You need to lead it.

In 97 and 2010 the CS had worked with a government for a long time and as a result, regardless of how "impartial" it aspired to be, had absorbed a set of values and priorities, and short cut paths to move from problem to solution. It took several years to adapt to a different approach.

A change of Government is disorienting for civil servants, however you voted. You think you’ve been doing your best and suddenly it is the wrong thing. You have to learn a whole new way of thinking. That is hard for the top of Whitehall, and even harder to make it percolate down.

Many of these systems take time to change even where there is no need for legislation. As well as setting high standards and clear objectives, you need to take people with you - explaining what you want and why, why people need to do things differently, setting out means not just ends.

...to find yourself mystified that a huge, complex machine designed to do (however imperfectly) what the last Government wanted it to do won't turn on a sixpence to deliver a different set of priorities shows you don't really understand complex systems.

100%. Saying "Cummings is right" is such a lazy response. There are big capacity and capability issues in the civil service, some from inertia, some from resource constraints and some from eight years of crises and resets under a succession of PMs (several under the same one). But.. (thread)

is the link faulty? I get a page not found message

I wouldn't join a starter pack that would have me as a member. He says obviously waving.

you beat me to it.

Yeah, yeah, it was your children listening, not you. Sure.

Chief Scientific Adviser - Civil Service Jobs - GOV.UKGOV.UK Search and apply for jobs in the UK Civil Service

Big DG-level job at Defra: Chief Scientific Adviser www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi... (deadline: 1 Jan 2025...!)