A certain campaign website launched last week was a bit security-broken, in a way that has wider lessons for AI-coded stuff. Writing 👇 blog.harrym.com/p/hold-the-s...

NEW The High Court rules the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful. What did the judgment say and not say, and what has changed and not changed. And what happens next. Quick explainer by me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

👇Just an hour left to go on this! Go on and pop a quick response in before bed. Every little helps.

If you haven’t quite yet found the time to do this, please scrape together a few minutes this evening - the consultation closes just before midnight UK time. If time is tight, skip the 200-word open answers. Your votes on closed answers matter. www.gov.uk/government/c...

I've just responded to the Earned Settlement consultation. It closes tonight. The whole idea is dreadful but what stuck with me most is the gross arrogance of the whole exercise. A (cross) thread 🧵

NEW ANALYSIS: China's CO2 has now been 'flat or falling' for 21 months * Down in 2025 * Still below Mar 2024 * Clean energy wave a key factor If this is China's peak (TBC) it's the climate story of the century so far… www.carbonbrief.org/...

@garycp.bsky.social Hello, I notice that you were the first person to post about holdtheline.org.uk on here and Twitter, is it yours? If so please could you follow back for a DM?

Fun new problems for 2026: Claude Code puts API keys in its plan, and then puts its plan on Github/Gist

Rather gratifying, mid-debug on an annoying problem and having asked Claude Code "Is this just stupid Windows bollocks" when it replied "Yes, this is just stupid Windows bollocks" (I have learned my lesson and moved to Ubuntu)

I hope all the UKGC26 folks have a great time tomorrow! I'll be looking out for the highlights

Quietly amused that the Substack article reader pronounces Badenoch "Baddy-knock"

New writing! On realism and antirealism and their mutual unhelpfulness open.substack.com/pub/harrymet...

Sorry to hear of Mark's passing 😔

I don't think any TV people follow me except James, but if you're a TV person who isn't James, you should hire James and also watch his shows. He's rather good.

New writing! On realism and antirealism and their mutual unhelpfulness open.substack.com/pub/harrymet...

AI code reviewer just told the other AI code reviewer, which is itself in another tab, that it was bikeshedding. Quietly amused

Snow in N19! Which of course now means snowy hens 🐔🥰

Life is just one endless round of saying "both of those things can be true at once" and sobbing quietly into a beverage

Juries are not perfect. Many of the worst miscarriages of justice have followed jury trials. But the merit of juries is not so much the power they have, but the power they prevent others from having. They mean a judge cannot just nod-along with prosecution evidence and give a guilty verdict.

👏👏👏

1/ It's interesting, and I am fairly sure good, that the prompts for analysing consultation responses are open source github.com/i-dot-ai/the...

I blogged - about problems, answers, plans and the illusion of control open.substack.com/pub/harrymet...

Gosh. Someone working on One Login should reealllly take another look at these 👀 signin.account.gov.uk/terms-and-co...

👏👏

Life (and the school tea) finds a way

Using AI to automate and accelerate what government currently does replicates the same mistaken approach as the “website government” mindset of the past three decades: it’s “faster horses” instead of improving how government — and democracy — works

Well it's about time

ICYMI: a post about the unintended effects of organisational policy and a different, values-based way of thinking about it harrymetcalfe.substack.com/p/all-policy...

New writing! I've posted on Substack about the limits of organisational policy and the importance of creative interpretation. blog.harrym.com/p/all-policy...

I asked my podcast app to play episodes of More or Less and it decided to start right at the beginning and go through their (entire?) back catalogue. Which has been delightful. It's like visiting another, saner little universe with sensible problems and normal politics and hardly any fascists

Excellent as ever

According to Yougov, 69% of people support the Online Safety Act's age verification, but only 24% of people think it'll actually work. Meaning a considerable group of people support it even though they don't think it will work. Which is a bit depressing, isn't it? yougov.co.uk/technology/a...

NEW What the Afghan ‘super-injunction’ tells us about the UK polity Parliament and regulators are shrugging off a decision that freed the government from accountability By me, (back) at @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/1f1c...

This data breach is bad, but the existence of the app in the first place is even worse. Bleak.

This final. Oh my. Just wanna give Anisimova a big hug

The Archers theme tune. In the past I would sprint across the room to turn it off. Now Alexa gets a _very_ brisk "stop" (/fortheloveofgodsavemefromthetwee)

We’re expanding our network of freelance #WebDevelopers. We’re after people with Java/Kotlin or Twilio experience, but we’re always getting new projects with new requirements. If you’re not looking for work right now but might be in the future then we’d still love to hear from you. bit.ly/4eZzD8J

This is a great piece from @harrym.com - if you've wondered how small, sensible decisions so readily aggregate into big, irrational ones, or whether it's better to design based on logic, over experience, then this is for you blog.harrym.com/p/governance...

I wrote a thing: on the limits of reason, and the need to reclaim human judgement, subjectivity and the primacy of direct experience as vital skills for work and governance blog.harrym.com/p/governance...

My friend @harrym.com is selling a bunch of stuff from his workshop – I know I'm followed by a bunch of nerdy, maker types, so have a look: www.harrym.com/studio

Hello internet. I have started a substack. I want to talk about concepts vs experience, agile and its philosophical underpinnings, how to use all that to change the way organisations do things. If that sounds interesting, please join me! harrymetcalfe.substack.com/p/look-a-sub...

Master lock key safe failure mode #783 🫠

For anyone in/near London, I am downsizing my workshop and have lots of interesting things to sell. More here - www.harrym.com/studio

Copilot just actually rickrolled me. IT'S CONSCIOUS SHEEPLE, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES

Nice to hear @bengoldacre.bsky.social getting a shout-out in the pandemic inquiry yesterday

The UK NHS has asked suppliers in an open letter to boost their cybersecurity practices and help protect hospitals against ransomware attacks. Contractors were asked to keep systems updated, deploy backups+MFA, and implement cyber monitoring+logging capabilities. digital.nhs.uk/cyber-and-da...

This is an extremely good letter

Right, it's been A TIME, and it might be too late, but we have a fantastic website thanks to @natbuckley.bsky.social. Anti-SXSW is vaguely go! We just need you to help make it happen. If you'd like to run an FKFJ event, or get involved: fkfj.london

This thread by @rahaeli.bsky.social about the new Pope's first sermon - essentially a massive slap in the face to the American Right - is extremely interesting. Unrolled version as it's very long: skywriter.blue/pages/rahael...

Does anyone else I know use Zettelkasten (or a similar approach) for note-taking?