For those of us in early-GDS who kept track of the Chief Mousers, this is very sad news. I am however very glad Palmerston enjoyed their retirement in Bermuda.

⚠️ Despite all the hype, chatbots still make terrible doctors. Out today is the largest user study of language models for medical self-diagnosis. We found that chatbots provide inaccurate and inconsistent answers, and that people are better off using online searches or their own judgment.

McSweeney. Starmer. Mandelson. Enough Can we please re-centre and focus on what Epstein is about. Justice for these women. Stopping this shit so no more women, girls have to go through this again.

Dywedodd y Prif Weinidog wrth @willhaycardiff.bsky.social ei bod yn anfodlon gyda chyflymder trawsnewid digidol. Rydyn ni hefyd. Mae’r broblem yn systemig - mae gennym amgylchedd lle mae’n haws siarad am newid nag yw hi i’w gyflawni mewn gwirionedd. Darllenwch ein hymateb, a sut i’w drwsio.

The FM told @willhaycardiff.bsky.social she's frustrated with the pace of digital transformation. We are too. The problem is systemic - we have an environment where it is easier to talk about change than to actually do it. Read our response, and how to fix it.

I've written a piece for the @econ-observatory.bsky.social on the history of GDS. Notably, why you need change both top down and bottom up incentives if you're aiming to help a large, federated organisation adopt radical change.

Really excited to share a thing I've been working on: a new book from @publicdigital.bsky.social on shaping technology for transformation. Tech is a fundamental part of every organisation - but they're often hamstrung by layers of digital geology, alongside huge pressure to chase the latest hype.

"They told us what they were going to do. They published it. They put it on a website. And when it happened, the press was surprised." Hoo boy, everyone should bookmark this @parkermolloy.com piece & make sure everyone involved in media reads it.

It’s part of France’s open source collaboration software suite that other governments can adopt and run.

Three errors here. First, in confusing some kind of SEND classification (20%) with EHCPs (5.5%). Secondly in assuming it gives automatic right to DLA. Though there is a strong ECHP/DLA overlap. Third in assuming that those moving to DLA to PIP never work (it's not an out of work benefit).

The insanity of UK public bodies threatening other UK public bodies with the apparent intention of limiting the reuse of UK address data. Meanwhile the rest of the world has long recognised that postal address data is critical digital public infrastructure in the 21st century.

If you - like me - are totally baffled by the complete incoherence of the Labour Party’s positioning ahead of #Senedd26, this thread from RWJ shines a bit of light on the already glaring inconsistencies in the FM’s speech on Labour’s constitutional aims for the futurenof #Wales. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿👇👇

In tribute to Mark Longair: www.mysociety.org/2026/01/15/a...

👀

Yes: we spent unfathomable millions on a bridge to nowhere because process forced us to. But we also spent £100m on an unusable prison because of recklessness about process. State capacity is not a problem that bold leadership will magically resolve. open.substack.com/pub/howtorun...

www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/b... Another Oracle “success” story

For devolution watchers or those with a more recent (and perhaps fleeting) interest in this year’s Senedd election, this is an interesting read from @willhaycardiff.bsky.social on Welsh Labour’s election strategy #senedd #devolution

In Govilon it’s raining, but ~2 mins drive away this was happening…

The latest advice from Monmouthshire Council #StormGoretti

Freezing cold on the side of a mountain to see in the new year. No I don’t know why either.

A very personal year note from me. 2025 has been a difficult year - navigating burn out and loss. Forcing a pause, a lot of reflection, and a much-needed re-evalation of how I work and who I am. dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/20...

For those interested, raw data download is here along with some basic cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...

New paper by @oohgpwales.bsky.social and AI colleagues on the pros and cons of AI in primary care #medsky #healthpolicy www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The media is constantly trying to push the angle that young people, particularly young men, are about to go, if not already going, fascist and young folk refute that every time at every juncture. I've got more time for them than any other demographic by a full country mile.

New 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 data paints picture of consolidation within two blocs: a Welsh-identifying/progressive bloc (with Plaid as largest party) and a British-identifying/conservative bloc (with Reform as largest). Adds to evidence that 2026 is shaping up to be 2-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK 🧵

Excellent work > "If discovery now shapes small-business survival, then competition, fairness, and urban regeneration can no longer ignore platform ranking systems." laurenleek.substack.com/p/how-google...

🚨Airbus has just confirmed to me that this issue does indeed relate to single-event upsets, also known as bit flips🚨

Interesting thread. Concludes with this issues being related to corrupted bits caused by solar radiation.

This is pretty massive. There is scant detail so far but they say "solar radiation" has caused problems for some aircraft. This *could* be related to single-event upsets, where cosmic rays trigger computer errors. I've asked Airbus if they can share more detail. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv...

🚨 NEW: 'FROZEN 2': 🧊 Here's the Wales Fiscal Analysis team's first breakdown on what the 2025 Autumn Budget means for Wales 🚨NEWYDD: Beth mae Cyllideb y Hydref 2025 yn ei olygu i Gymru? Dyma ddadansoddiad cyntaf o'r newidiadau sydd ar y ffordd blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal...

I also write about how little the floods have been covered in national newspapers, and how appalled I am that the Prime Minister has said nothing to the people of Monmouthshire directly. Please read and share. www.thenerve.news/p/storm-clau...

Last Friday night and Saturday morning, Monmouthshire was hit by devastating floods. Monmouth’s high street, a place that I’ve barely known wet before, became a high roaring river (see the pictures of how it lies normally, as it did on Thursday, with the flooded Waitrose high above).

A huge thank you to Steph, Penny, @mhwauben.bsky.social & Michelle for a pre-Christmas cracker of a Data Bites @publicdigital.bsky.social last night Watch back bit.ly/databites60 & check out the new StatsWales, the new Stats Code of Practice, the Data for London Library & the Census consultation!

South Wales Fire and Rescue declared a major incident in Monmouth in the early hours of Saturday.

Oh god. [we are okay] This is hugely upsetting.

A bit of a holiday rant... We need to stop designing "target architectures." They're a fantasy. A waste of money. An approach that forces decisions too early, kills speed, and guarantees you'll never fix legacy tech. A utopian plan that's an anchor, not a map. dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/th...

New post on the Transform Wales blog from @niacampbell.bsky.social. We've learned the language of digital in Wales - agile, user-centred, transformation. Now it's time to learn how to live it. transform.wales/blog/2025/pr...

A huge thank you to Simon @metoffice.gov.uk, @elmosmoe.bsky.social @scottishaialliance.bsky.social, James from JDAC and Lauren from GIAA for a brilliant Data Bites AI special @publicdigital.bsky.social last night Watch back as live (write up/audio/slides to follow) bit.ly/databites59

Welsh word of the day: Gobaith - hope medium.com/@DyfrigJones...

My latest newsletter with all the analysis from a historic Caerphilly byelection willhaywardwales.substack.com/p/plaid-smas...

An historic night in Caerphilly / Caerffili as Plaid Cymru end more than a hundred years of Labour representation. Share of the vote: Plaid 47 per cent Reform 35 per cent Labour 11 per cent www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...

New writing from me… Events like this week’s AWS outage are becoming more and more common. Whether it’s an accidental tech failure like Monday, or a major cyber attack, the only constant is the certainty that something will break. www.techmonitor.ai/comment-2/th... /1

TONIGHT!

A reminder. Only 6.9% of people in Wales were born overseas. Just 2.9% of people in Caerphilly were born overseas. Whereas 38% of medical consultants in Wales were born overseas. Immigrants are not holding our NHS back, they are propping it up.

Today's AWS outage demonstrates that 'accidental technology failure' is as much of a risk to company operations as a cyber attack, as PD CTO @daivaughan.uk tells ComputerWeekly.com www.computerweekly.com/news/3666329...

These sorts of major outages are thankfully very rare - but they do highlight how interconnected services now are. As we saw last year with Crowdstrike, companies that have thought about resilience will be back up and running quickly. Others may take some time.

JLR, M&S, Co-op and Harrods all allegedly outsourced things like cyber security and service desks to the same supplier

Researchers pointed a satellite dish at the sky for 3 years and monitored what unencrypted data it picked up. The results were shocking: They obtained thousands of T-Mobile users' phone calls and texts, military and law enforcement secrets, much more: www.wired.com/story/satell... 🧵👇