Ministers plan linking patient data to benefit claims and employment statistics. As Streeting promises to make the NHS "accountable" for whether patients are in work by setting new targets for 'getting people back to work'. That NHSE (DHSC) Palantir contract should help www.ft.com/content/6943...

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Is Mandelson’s new nickname “The Dark Mr”?

For people who care about that sort of thing, the membership of the National Data Library Expert Advisory Group has been published today - including me www.gov.uk/government/g...

When Trump’s first term began, Bezos added a slogan to The Washington Post: ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ Media barons *always* have power to turn off the lights. There is no surprise here Support independent media; now, always

Imagine this being what finally leads to her downfall, getting got by the coastguard

Anyone playing with openclawd? I have an experiment to try and don’t really want to let it loose on my laptop. Ask it to suggest starting a thread to check all the erdos problems for solutions in the existing maths literature which aren’t generally known… @simonwillison.net

What happens when a major publisher passes off BBC-funded content as “exclusive” and tries to make its readers pay twice for it? Glad to see this particular fox being shot manchestermill.co.uk/why-the-mill...

And the thing that really bugs me about this proposal is that the debate has settled into the groove of making millions of teens and families change their behaviour and enforce new law, rather than a handful of companies

Mean and selfish people are convinced that everyone is like them. To such a degree that they reveal on live TV that their parents blatantly broke tax laws, because they assume that everyone would do the same.

New research maps the campaign to erase trans people from UK data 🔢 This peer-reviewed article offers the first detailed account of how UK campaign groups have sought to define sex as strictly biological across the census, policing, healthcare and digital ID. doi.org/10.1080/0958...

One of my fave scenes from #StargateSG1 and horribly apposite: www.tumblr.com/checkerdandy...

The actual gov.uk pothole reporting thingy - which isn't linked - expects the person using it to know the postcode of the road they found a pothole on www.gov.uk/report-pothole

With the lack of regard for young women having images modified, I wonder what happens if grok is asked to do the same to Trump/Elno/JD adding in the lower body surgery they vehemently dislike…

Since there seems to be, for some reason, a new influx of Bluesky users (welcome!)... If you're interested in data and AI, you might like to follow members of the Data and AI Civil Society Network set up by @connectedbydata.org Starter Pack: bsky.app/starter-pack... List: bsky.app/profile/gavi...

Historically, we've focused a lot on the brutal actions of authoritarian regimes, and today is no different.

I dug behind the industry paywall to find out, what *are* the geniusly clever things that AI can predict will increase NHS A&E pressures? You’ll never guess - Flu - Winter - Icy weather - Friday nights - Christmas - New Years Eve Jeez, Dom’s old mates at Faculty AI (o yes) really saw Wes coming

This is the key point and I don’t know about you but I don’t find it very reassuring. (It’s from the House of Commons briefing which has the whole shameful history of how governments have given themselves powers they really should not have) researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN...

Waaaaait wait wait when these guys said they wanted to colonize a little island somewhere did they mean our little island? My preferred island for them is any island further away from me

Just wow. @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy came out swinging in this article. He's right though and that's the coolest part.

One of the best parts of Christmas… it’s #duvetKnowItsChristmas A laugh about where we are sleeping tonight, and a few pennies for those who don’t have a bed. Merry merry, all 🎄 www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

The immigration hostile environment encourages overzealous over enforcement because there is no penalty in that direction. But there are severe penalties for under enforcement.

I vaguely remember @quinn.yoyodyne-it.eu and someone else did a double-act talk at a conference (CCC or similar?) mid-2010s(?) which in my head was titled "the consequence fairy got drunk"(?) - needless to say, I now can't find any reference to it. Does anyone else remember wtf I'm on about?

This thread is worth a read. Anti immigration policies only make life more miserable for EVERYONE

That old stick about the Roman Empire, and how the actual sign of the collapse was a bridge falling down and nobody coming to fix it.

Even in the midst of the homophobic 1980s, when Section 28 was spawned, I don’t recall any BBC freelancer being hauled off the air for expressing support for gay people.

THIS.

So did the BBC force out a science presenter because he holds views compatible with science and a belief in human rights?

Beware fast-track justice. This is what it does The mum is bounced around, getting no help or answers, then just enters a guilty plea for her distressed autistic teenage son to get it over with www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/a...

Preorder today. “Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance.” #books

Your wee reminder I'm running an event called After Section 28 which looks at the growing anti-rights movement and attacks on LGBTQ+ people Want to be an ally? Come learn + get equipped with what help we need Speakers off chart good, more to be announced www.tickettailor.com/events/after...

Hey folks - I'm looking for a reasonable cost, preferable nice social enterprise in Cambridge who could do some hot drinks throughout a day at a conference, possibly some bakes/biscuits. Any ideas?

They're going to find it much harder to Cass their way to an adhd ban, but they're going to give it a go anyway. Once again, overplaying their hand. Far more people with kids with adhd than with trans kids. This will hopefully show more people who they really are

please share this postdoc job alert! come join the budding Biodiversity Cell Atlas initiative as a postdoc or senior postdoc at @sangerinstitute.bsky.social working closely with @arnausebe.bsky.social and me to make progress on what we cover in this paper www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Royal Mail have written a GDPR policy for their letter to Santa scheme that is a) pitched at children explaining how their data is used and b) fully committed to the existence of Father Christmas and it’s just… really cute

Aerated concrete and EHCPs: https://richardpope.org/2025/11/26/aerated-concrete-and-ehcps/

But "child safety" is so important to this and previous governments that the whole population must be forbidden confidential conversations and encrypted backups or cloud storage.

Will be published at midnight - I hope of interest

Control of your own devices is temporary, but surveillance is forever.

I presented the Consequence Check tool to some digital folks in govt this week. It's a methodology for rapidly QAing tech products against their social impacts, not just their tech specification, designed to help surface trade offs www.careful.industries/blog/2025-11... Someone asked a very good Q

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death. Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written." Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating. 🧪🧬🧫

The upcoming ID Cards consultation www.no2id.uk/2025/upcomin...

On a typical day, 3% of people who complete Wordle get it in one guess. Which means around one person in 30 completes Wordle on incognito mode, then goes back in a second time and gets it “in one”. There’s something oddly fascinating about this.

Owen is right to highlight this. As taxpayers, we already paid. All this will do is introduce higher prices to all consumers and businesses.

I've just been reminded about an event we ran in October 2010 called Beyond Blogging at @wellcometrust.bsky.social The list of speakers is quite wonderful. @jackthurston.bsky.social @jenitennison.com @paulclarke.com @richardpope.org @smithsam.bsky.social @lesteph.com Evan Harris, Jonathan Raper

Today in the Database State www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

To be clear about this, this is a very very very bad idea.

The other £50 note lying on the pavement with respect to tax policy is to turn Tell Us Once into a full concierge service covering the utilities, bank accounts and probate, but only for people paying the full rate of IHT.