More of this please! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When will this totally mad nonsense end? I mean _really_. www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad...

Amusing Claude Code phrase number 761: "permissive footgun". Indeed Claude, indeed. Naughty robot.

[boomer-esque rant warning] There really is something about people outsourcing their responsibility to insurance companies "because of insurance reasons" that grinds my gears very loudly Don't blame the insurance monster, just own your decision

Just watched two founders on a panel, both who sell services to the NHS, both just answered a question about how to sell into the NHS by saying that it's too hard, and they shouldn't try. "Choose another vertical", one said. This makes me sad. If worked in the NHS it would be make me very sad.

New writing! On finding meaning in work, and the effect AI will have on that, and what to do about it. blog.harrym.com/p/the-specta...

More pondering on AI as I wrangle with what it means for public servants... Here's where I've got to so far: There is a useful path to take between hype and doom. It's time to keep experimenting and learning as nobody knows what the future will bring. jasonkitcat.com/2026/03/02/s...

A new post on something I've been wanting to talk about for a longgg time #writing open.substack.com/pub/lanaharp...

Cannot tell if satire

Brilliant, geeky, healthy news... well done to @bengoldacre.bsky.social et al.

How can it possibly be the case that a fresh Ubuntu install, in 2026, still doesn't understand what monitors I have and what resolutions they support? This was annoying and weird ten years ago

The lack of coverage on this story is surprising, but ho hum. TL;DR: the medics who broke windows at JP Morgan as part of a climate protest, and who suffered a mistrial two years ago, have just been retried and found unanimously not guilty. thedoctor.bma.org.uk/articles/hea...

"The Ministry of Justice will deploy machine learning to identify at-risk children for early intervention and to help prevent them falling into a life of crime" <- focus on structures and causes, not individuals, and look deeper than just "data" [repeat forever] www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

I’m pretty confident in calling this fake. The user who posted it seems to be part of a substantial network of accounts with similar usernames all posting and commenting on each other’s content. Ironically it’s a great example of an AI agent making stuff up to tell you what you want to hear

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)