AI offers great opportunity to the public sector. Ministers tell us they are spending on it to boost productivity and drive change. We were told of a £3.25bn Transformation Fund for public services for 2025-8, with £2bn being spent this year and £ 1bn next. The recovery of lost productivity was always planned to take time, with AI mentioned as a way of helping do it. We were treated to another 5 year hockey stick, with extra spending only leading to substantial savings in the final year. I never understood why we needed new investment in AI to recover 2019 levels of productivity when that was a pre AI era. The government should urgently recover the lost productivity on old technology and consider what additional gains there can be by spending on new technology.
The government needs to live up to its words on AI and chart a way of using it that is fair to taxpayers and its staff. Throwing a few hundred million more into the IT budget and hoping the suppliers will spend it well for us is not a good strategy. What is their aim? Which parts of government will benefit most? Is there a central strategy or do different parts of the public sector make their own way through the AI spending grounds? Much of public administration is amenable to more computing assistance, but it needs to be done in a way which keeps the good staff, allows them to direct and improves the lot of the users.
Now we can see the breakdown of the planned Transformation spending for 2026-7 we see £547 m is going on SEND, £ 271 m on Social Care and £150 m on asylum. This implies half the Transformation money is going to three hotspots where budgets are under severe pressure and will not primarily be on AI. There is only £25 m this year for civil service improvement, £210 m for HMRC computer schemes and £194 m specifically earmarked for various cross cutting digital programmes.
I have written before that efficiency and quality are two sides of the same coin. Higher quality and productivity have to be driven daily by senior managers. In government Ministers need to stress their importance. In order to achieve them the top managers need to learn daily from experience. What has gone wrong? What can we do better? What do we not need to do? Which complications mean more likelihood of mistakes and cover ups , even where their ostensible purpose is greater safety or accountability? Intelligent use of AI can clearly change the frontier between what you can let a machine do and what has to be done by a person. AI cannot substitute for hands on direction and responsibility for the service held by people.
When I was leading industrial companies I gave myself two important tasks as part of the job to highlight the importance to my teams of quality and efficiency. I asked to be informed of all serious complaints and accidents so I could see what was going wrong and insist on remedies, with a view to designing out the risks. I was also the questioner for the future, asking my managers all the time what we could be producing next that would be better, how we could improve service quality and customer relations, identifying inadequacies and antiquities in our factories and products.
Managers were often shocked to be told that most of what they are making today they will not be making in five years time. People get caught up in the here and now, but some have to look to the future. What look like good secure jobs today, backed by a steady flow of orders, can vanish tomorrow if leaders do no think ahead about what consumers will want and expect next. Making records in an age of downloads or selling carts in an age of cars do not create many jobs or need large factories.
Cost down or cost control is part of daily life of any company that wants to survive in a competitive market. Left wing critics think management is driven by an unhealthy desire to maximise profits, always looking for ways to do things more effectively. They need to understand that the prime reason for costs down is to provide customers with keener prices. This is followed by the need to control costs to stay in the market, protecting the company’s jobs. Put up prices too much and allow costs to be out of control like government and the jobs will be lost to competitors.
Profits too do matter, because out of the profits you can afford to research the future, launch the new products and services and above all pay for the new factories and computers you will need to deliver a good answer. Most profits do not go to rich shareholders. If no profits go to rich shareholders there will be no rich shareholders creating the company and the jobs in the first place. Profits go to new investment, to paying interest on borrowed capital, and to paying dividends to the pension funds and insurance schemes of the many as well.
AI is seen by some as a major threat to jobs, as AI will be able to do more things better and more cheaply than employing a person to do them. For any individual company there is no choice if they want to survive. If the computer is cheaper and better the company will need to use it more to stay in the market. Used properly society gets richer, meaning we will have more to spend on new products and services still not yet dreamed up. The cost savings from AI get recycled, helping growth and prosperity. Real wages go up as jobs change and total output and income rises.
Just look at the energy of Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies, that understands all this. Last quarter it reeled off an incredible list of all the things it was doing to widen its reach and serve its customers better. In the retail space alone it launched the faster supply of medicines to people with bigger discounts on price, expanded its ultra fast delivery service offering 30 minute same day delivery in some big cities, added millions of new products and many brands to its range of products for sale, launched Amazon Supply Chain services so other companies could use the advantages of its efficient supply and delivery systems, announced Proteus, an enhanced robot lifting loads in warehouses , and developed Alexa as a Shopping Assistant.
What did the UK government develop and launch to give users of its services faster and cheaper services? Why did it go on ignoring complaints and putting up with poor service? Why did it greatly increase the costs without improving the quality? Why does it always boast about how much it spends on a service but not about how much service it delivers? Who was the voice in government for the future, seeking to apply the new technologies to delivering better solutions to users that they wanted? Why do so many in government see such digitalisation as there is as a new way to enforce compliance and make things easier for the service supplier, not the user?
When I was a Minister I was shocked at the unwillingness of parts of the public sector to learn from mistakes and to improve what was clearly poor performance. I had to keep repeating the need to answer incoming letters promptly and well. Today emails go unanswered for months in some cases, produce lazy or unhelpful replies sometimes and sometimes go unanswered altogether. When a disaster occurs like the Horizon scandal, the contaminated blood scandal, the avoidable deaths in hospitals scandals, the dumping of refuse in the countryside and the rest there are attempts at cover up, arguments over responsibility, and long delays in providing remedies and compensation. If one of my companies had a worrying complaint I got them to settle urgently, to apologise, and to show the harm was not meant and the remedy was good.
October 17, 2026
Did you use AI to write this article?
Reply No I always research and write my own articles
PS If you read my article instead of coming onto this site to disparage you would see it drew extensively on my past experiences which have not been written up before so would not be accessible to AI search.
October 17, 2026
AI will be resisted by the Public sector unions where it could actually improve productivity and reduce costs.
I volunteer in the local hospital and am amazed at the sheer numbers of people employed pushing carts of documents around. These are not minimum wage jobs and in this electronic age shouldn’t exist.
There is so much scope within government to reduce the headcount and costs but the introduction of AI will no doubt be overseen by another Quango and an increase in staffing.
October 17, 2026
‘Why did it go on ignoring complaints and putting up with poor service? Why did it greatly increase the costs without improving the quality? ‘
Because it can. Once you have done a trial period in public sector roles you can be there for life and it is very difficult to sack you.
To climb the ranks it may help to boost the numbers of people you oversee, or the budget you control. The actual work itself is not the uppermost concern of these people.
AI is a useful excuse for more money to be spent.
October 17, 2026
@Ian Wragg – it was already noted in the media at the beginning of the year that despite Microsoft £9billion contract with the Government the Unions were stalling the implementation for fear of job loses
October 17, 2026
I believe it was Merkel who said she wasn’t convinced about the benefits of the Internet. Following on in this tradition the EU is trying to regulate AI out of existence.
Europe is denied the latest version of the I. Phone because they object to some of the software. No doubt in an attempt to curry favour with Brussels the government will follow suit.
There’s no wonder the EU hasn’t spurned any high tech firms because of the suffocating regulations. It seems the EU position is to take any new invention and strangle it at birth.
October 17, 2026
Burnham has already announced he wants to lead the world in regulating AI thus leaving USA/China to lead the world in AI. Interesting to see the current absolute panic in University maths departments about the rise of AI and ultimately the threat to their jobs – this will be repeated times 100 in the Civil Service.
October 17, 2026
@Roy Grainger – ‘lead the world’, the best bit of humour today. Robbing. stealing, wasting, destroying gerrymandering, ideological dictatorship and above all ‘hating’ the UK and its People he has a lead on some but even then he struggles.
October 17, 2026
You can have iOS27 on your iPhone in the UK if your phone is recent enough and has enough memory. In fact it is already officially 27.0.1 and 27.2 beta 3 for developers (since 05/10/2026).
macworld.com 14/09/2026 ‘Can your iPhone run iOS27? Here is the full compatibility list ‘.
And for the iPhones where Apple Intelligence is not available it is because the phone does not have enough memory to start with as 128 in fact 256 GBytes are likely to be necessary to get the new system with AI if the phone already has a lot of apps, particularly pictures, videos and sound tracks.
So the UK does not prevent anything.
October 17, 2026
@hefner – it seems a retrospective ‘con’ trick that has now been implemented. The hardware has improved over the years, and with good ‘eco’ credentials, its expected to last, not ending up in landfill.
From the manufacturers there is a big ‘No’ in play. Its not just Apple, its Samsung and the other as well, they are changing the ground rules the contract retrospectively to enforce new sales. Seven years and we cripple things over the air unless you buy new.
October 17, 2026
Only partially true. I had/still have an iPhone SE 1st generation (2016). Apple still provided security updates till iOS 15.8.4 and the phone only became ‘dangerous’ near the end of 2025. It really depends on what you are using it for. I guess I could have gone on looking at this blog without problems but my bank made it very clear their app would be frozen with any system less than 16. I tried, it was true.
So roughly nine years was not too bad.
October 18, 2026
@hefner
That’s the problem the iPhone SE is a good phone(even by today’s standards one of the better ones) and why would an enforced through a software up-date that doesn’t change its function e the bit that should confine it to landfill. In the Android World they enforce redundancy even on phones that still function as they were first intended to.
Phones being enforced to be connected to ‘land-fill’ is the modern worlds ‘eco’ contradiction. Likewise many other products seem to have programmed obsolescence.
The UK Consumer Rights Act 2015 of a 6 year Guarantee apparently is not a consumer protection act but a producer protection act, you cant bring any case against the producer after 6 years.
Then people worry about North Sea Oil & Gas, but not excessive unwarranted industrial production
October 17, 2026
Did you actually read what Ian said hefner?
People in the EU are denied the latest iphone version.
As you say, in the UK we are.
Another Brexit dividend as I’m sure you will agree.
October 17, 2026
In view of the recent attack on French shops’ fridges/freezers, it is interesting to note that ‘The Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) bill’ is going slowly through Parliament and does not even include anything about food security.
October 17, 2026
@hefner – looked at correctly it can be seen the UK Cyber Security bill is about protecting the State. They get full access, but no one else is permitted to protect themselves.
In essence they make the Nation, the People vulnerable to all sorts of abuse and dangers. The big question then is in taking on this all embracing ‘Big Brother’ approach are they then liable for every cock-up, indiscretion, nefarious actor?
In saying ‘they then liable’ I don’t mean the Taxpayer I mean them personally for their stupidity and ineptitude. Never has so much damage been done by to few of so many
October 18, 2026
@hefner – it protects no one other than the authorities. Modern cars are especially vulnerable, under EU Law (the UK is half in half out on this) modern cars have Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) to stop people exceeding speed limits.
The point being it is externally controlled. In a similar vein Norway looked to introduce Electric Busses they found that if the over the air WIFI was restricted to China the buses just wouldn’t run.
If you want heated seats in a BMW but forgot to order them, you just email them pay the extra and they turn them on. If cars, things, are controlled externally, logic reasons it is the controller not the user that is liable.
October 17, 2026
JR should try it out of interest. Give me 2000 words on X in the style of Johnredwoodsdiary.com. I have used it but then always done my own work but the AI has often been rather helpful in suggesting some aspects that I might have missed and not covered.
Jacob Rees-Moog is confident that the UK has a higher GDP than Russia (his recent interview with Tucker Carson) should it come to war. Indeed it does but from a war point of view GDP in PPP and overall population, energy and other resources, money spend on weapons, manufacturing abilities, engineering abilities … are surely rather more relevant. In this we are surely well behind them in many ways.
NET Zero and EVs are defence insanity.
October 17, 2026
UK has a very limited number of people who would be willing to fight a war and conscription would be impossible to impose whereas Russia has millions available through its own wider regional population and allies. You can have as much weaponry as you like but without people willing to use it it is worthless.
October 17, 2026
Is there any point in fighting for a country that does not even bother to (even try) to control its borders?
October 17, 2026
You have not seen the Press Ganging in Ukraine then? Thousands of videos posted online, people grabbed on the street or in their kitchens. The screaming of women and children, horrific.
That’s ‘conscription’. I wonder why British people have a default belief that ‘it could never happen here’?
October 17, 2026
AI will be a wonderful tool for governments to further suppress free speech, gerrymandering the electoral system and further controlling, enslaving, partially imprisoning and taxing the people 1984 style. The Spectator had a free speech debate recently (on YouTube).
• Proposing the motion:
• Kelvin MacKenzie (Former Editor, The Sun)
• Kellie-Jay Keen (Women’s rights campaigner)
• Opposing the motion:
• Jonathan Sumption (Former Supreme Court Justice)
• Ed Vaizey (Politician and commentator)
The latter two so appallingly blasé it is rather worse than a few incompetent police. The two tier war on free speech infects nearly all of the judiciary, the state sector, the BBC, MSM, the Governments for at least the past 20 years. The Islamophobia definition (the irrational fear, hatred, prejudice, or hostility directed toward Islam or individual Muslims) being one of the worst recent moves in this let’s kill free speech direction. Who decides what is irrational?
Experts like the ones who funded the gain of function experiments, pushed the net zero/climate alarmist lunacy and coerced net harm ineffective and dangerous COVID “vaccines” into billions of people – even the ones with zero risk from covid, and locked down the economy?
October 17, 2026
In the Netherlands they have implemented a programm called The Digital Government and even its developer is very critical about it. It has all gone too far. People get stuck in all these digital public sector “services”.
October 17, 2026
They can (sometimes) save time for the government officials and ration services – but usually waste more time for the tax paying public and time is yet another tax and inconvenience on top of the actual tax!
I often used to stop in Hampstead to have a coffee with someone or pop into Waterstones etc. putting a few £1 coins in the parking circa 15 years back. They switched to a time wasting app which was far too much hassle so we never went there again,
October 17, 2026
AI is a tool just as is a hammer or a carving knife – they can all be used to do good things or to do evil & bad things. So what do you think a government and state sector like the one we have in the UK will do? Good things to help the public, lower taxes, reduce red tape or will they use these tool to demand even more cash with menaces, further kill free speech or perhaps just to smash tax payers in the face? Judge on their record so far perhaps?
October 17, 2026
Whilst I am sure Ai will be a benefit to higher efficiency and lower costs for many organisations, I am somewhat concerned that the criminal element will always be one step ahead of the good guys, in using it for fraudulent purposes.
I really do not think that many people are aware as yet to the huge changes in business, work and job security, like art, music, design, law, and other professions that Ai may bring about.
Interestingly the mobile skilled grunt jobs of plumbers, bricklayers, electricians, plasterers, painters decorators and like will probably be least affected, whilst those jobs that previously required university degrees, lawyers, accountants, teachers, and in some cases GP Doctors and the like, will probably feel most of the hit.
The times they are a changing ?
October 17, 2026
Well we have robot brick laying machines, driving machines and all sorts of automated building systems, cranes, earth shifters, robot lifting devices, roofing machines, welding machines… AI and robotics will affect almost all jobs – even sex machines.
Given that so much of what the state does is hugely damaging (net zero, Covid “vaccines”, gain of function experiments, Covid lockdowns, over regulation and over taxation… then do we want it to be done more efficiently?
October 17, 2026
Lifelogic
Indeed Brick laying machines are available, but often do not work well on difficult ground and compact sites where there are different designs, and short runs of Brickwork.
The best invention for bricklayers in years past was the availability of simple corner profiles.
Pointless getting a bricklaying machine on site for a simple extension.
October 17, 2026
BA, really notable that during the wild inflation of the Weimar Republic in Germany after WW1 it was the tradesmen that survived but Civil Servant types were completely wiped out financially.
October 17, 2026
We can stop duplication. Currently, and for many years, DWP has provided Motability cars, or the mobility component of PIP, to chauffeur children to school. At the same time, local authorities have been providing, under SEND, a free taxi service for the same children. Why?
We should also be asking why so many people are now considered disabled. Something has either gone drastically wrong with the health of the population, or there is fraud being carried out. I suspect it is the latter. AI is a great tool for investigating this.
October 17, 2026
Lifelogic,
I had already tried this for you:-
‘write me a paragraph in the style of Lifelogic of John Redwoods diary on PPE degrees must include doomloop’
“The continuing obsession of the British establishment with the Oxford PPE degree remains the central driver of our national decline, trapping the country in a self-inflicted economic doom loop. “
October 17, 2026
C,
Probably both- poor lifestyles and skiving/fraud resulting in doctors signing many off work.
October 17, 2026
“why so many people are now considered disabled” well if you tax something you get less of it and if you give money or things away for free you get a long queue. Follow the money.
AI could indeed be an efficient tool to control benefits but with Labour is there really any government will to address this?
October 17, 2026
“AI offers great opportunity to the public sector.” It certainly does alas it is likely it will be used to further fine, tax, inconvenience and exploit the productive sector. The public sector have little incentive to provided anything much of value to the tax payers who fund them but have lots of incentives to fine, tax, extract licence fees off them especially by mugging motorists, litter droppers, people who put the wrong rubbish out…
Endless ulez etc. Cameras, AI, 15 minute city fines, tax filing fines and errors, bus lane fines… will be even easier once everyone has been forced to have id chips implanted or just face recognition. We will all surely become modern slaves.
October 17, 2026
I can understand AI being attractive in the public sector. It allows them to generate soulless garbage much more quickly than they could otherwise. No wonder Hollywood script writers are worried.
In my own life, it seems there is little use for it. Will it control a robot to pick off blackfly and greenfly, pull up the weeds, tracing out the perennial weed roots, picking out slugs and snails from vegetable patches, zap cabbage white butterflies?.
I’ll look in on the debate when it seems it can do something useful.
October 17, 2026
You are way behind the times and not well informed. There are numerous examples of it already doing something useful – for example Palantir’s software to assist the police in intelligence analysis (which the Mayor of London wants to ban of course). And the recent solving of hundreds of mathematical proofs. And it’s use in gene editing to produce new medical therapies.
Hollywood scriptwriters are more concerned about the IP/copyright aspects of how AI is trained which to be fair is a real issue.
October 17, 2026
So much Hollywood stuff is generic anyway even before AI.
It’s impossible to copy original, innovative, unique content.
‘Be yourself, everyone else is taken’ – Oscar Wilde
No-one can copy a personality that is unique and spontaneous and has SOUL!
(So one unintended benefit of AI is that it could hopefully challenge content creators to be more original and creative!)
October 17, 2026
When lawyers got word processors and email all the documents got longer, ever more convoluted and the fees ever higher. Tools that should have reduced costs were just used to increase complexity and it became less efficient in general for clients. How many lifetimes are needed now to read all the volumes of law or our longest(?) tax code in the world?
I understand that very few dogs have even heard of the dangerous dogs act, let alone read it, the same for dog owners I suspect!
October 17, 2026
Yet imagine the opprobrium which would be directed toward the first person in public life who proposed handing over the NHS etc. to Amazon, Google etc to run for a fraction of their present cost. That challenge is the real struggle here-getting the public to vote for politicians who understand the problem and solution well enough to make this happen. Getting the public sector to turn on itself is really a non-starter.
October 17, 2026
Would you be so happy if your medical data were made available to your insurance company without any checks by your GP and if subsequently your insurance premium were to increase without you being told the reason. That is exactly what is happening in the USA and having Palantir now with contracts with the MoD (£240 m), the NHS (£330 m on the Federated Data Platform, more and more rejected by the GPs), £30,000/month for the Financial Conduct Authority, plus other contracts signed these last few months with the police forces, DEFRA, AWE, Highways England, …
17/02/2026 ‘Switzerland rejected Palantir. The UK gave it the keys to everything’.
What you do not seem to realise is that some ‘private sector’ (Palantir and others) are already very much handling your data, not so much the ‘dreaded public sector’.
October 17, 2026
I would like my insurance to be guaranteed by the Government and my insurance company to check on my GP.
October 18, 2026
hefner
If you do not declare correctly all your medical history to your insurers then you invalidate your cover.
In the event of a claim they will re check your original declaration and any errors or omissions will give grounds to refuse your claim.
If your insurer could get your medical for you and quote correctly then I would be happy for that to happen.
October 18, 2026
Have you already asked your surgery/GP for a full transcript of your visits/treatments/possible stays in hospitals and operations? You are entitled to ask for it. Depending on your circumstances this document might be several tens of pages long.
You should ask for it, study it, and then come back telling me what you think.
I hope your back, knees and hips are still alright, otherwise prepare yourself for some delay if you stay with the NHS or some surprising expenses if you ever need to go private.
October 18, 2026
I have.
That is because it is difficult to remember all ones medical history and notes made by Doctors in order to fill in medical history on insurance applications absolutely correctly.
How much easier if the insurance companies could quote you having already had sight of your records.
PS
My knees, hips and back are all fine.
But thanks for asking.
October 18, 2026
indeed my medical cover for Holidays even wants me to divulge, any visit to the Doctor (for any reason), any change in medication or prescriptions, otherwise they say they have the power to refuse any claim for non disclosure.
Typical of the insurance industry these days I am afraid.
Thus fail to disclose anything at your peril.
October 17, 2026
John, you are trying to compare apples and oranges here. The Public Sector exists to maintain the public sector. The Private sector exists to produce increasing wealth. The two objectives are not comparable. The Public Sector in these modern times is driven by the unions. They have only one desire which is to increase their share of the economy and hence their take of GDP. That desire then translates into higher pay, better pensions and more perks such as working from home and longer holidays.
The Private sector is interested in adding vale to its activities which will translate into higher revenues via increased sales if the management are successful. Those revenues can then be deployed, to further the size of the business and reward share holders in appropriate measure. Where revenues are deployed depends on management but are increasingly taken by state interference. Unfortunately state mandated payments on social benefits, think DEI, ESG, plus licence costs/delays to operate, taxation and green levies have become onerous. All state mandates are beyond the Private Sector’s management control but forces businesses to make decision they do control.. The only way a private company can deal with untenable state demands for money is to either pay, close down or leave for lower demand areas of the world.
The latter two options are now in full use.
We have to find a way to put a cap on the Public Sector as a portion of GDP/GNP. Until we do that, the ever expanding Public Sector will continue to destroy entrepreneurial spirit in the country along with growth. Until we return to the mindset of previous times when the Public Sector respected rather than condemned their Private Sector paymasters, we will not see any improvement in efficiency of quality from those paid out of the tax payer’s pocket.
October 17, 2026
AI requires massive data centres that consume electricity to cool the servers. If we are moving into an AI driven society we need a lot of these, but clearly people don’t like the idea of these being built on open space in their locality. This will limit our potential for being a big player in AI.
However. We are an island. Our sea surrounds us. It is cold. Why can’t data centres be built in sea lagoons. More expensive to build, much cheaper to cool. Wind and or tidal power at sea is a realistic source of energy independent of the grid.
I’m not convinced AI solves all our societies problems, but it can make some industries more efficient ….. and definitely could replace a lot of wfh jobs … civil service comes to mind immediately.
October 17, 2026
There are too many in college these days studying subjects that are not appropiate any more with chances for a full work career almost gone. For a long time now I have wondered that higher education in some part is more to do with the teaching staff protecting their own jobs rather than considering the chances for students future employment.
October 17, 2026
If people want to protect our great nation from AI, the EU, Socialism, WOKE, Bureaucracy, High Taxation, High Immigration, Putin, Trump, Crass American commercialisation (such as ugly signage in our beautiful, old towns), Crime, Relatively Low Productivity, Where there is Low Patriotism, And Dysfunctional Family Life, Marxism, Communism etc – so many enemies – then we can only achieve this through The Christian God.
If we want to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, we can only do so through The Christian God – The King of Kings (please bless our great nation – and in particular, with peace, a strong economy, a beautiful culture and civilisation, and a united and happy people).
For God, family, king and country.
October 17, 2026
I’m not attacking immigration or foreigners but out-of-control immigration that we cannot afford / that our children will have to pay for and not fair on them. And when some immigrants are just milking our overly-liberal system.
There has always been immigration in this country but until fairly recently (getting worse over the decades – and in particular in recent years) was generally more-a-less always under control.
October 17, 2026
Also, I am strongly pro sovereignty (in every sense) but we still have to achieve that whilst keeping our country strong (in every sense), united and happy whilst having warm and friendly relations with the European continent (but whilst we remain 100% sovereign).
Sure, a lot to hope for. But I’ve experienced numerous miracles, and in particular, the miracle-like and over years. Nothing is impossible for the King of Kings. And a country’s success overall depends on Him. This is 100% what great Britons would say / agree with me on 100% – people such as Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke etc – all British, Christian, sane, amusing, political/cultural heroes of mine.
October 17, 2026
You are looking for Billy Graham’s site.
This is a lowly political site.
October 17, 2026
Also, Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke (all heroes of mine) were more Christian than me. And would 100% agree with me that our country will only go to the dogs if modern man turns his back on trad Christian values (which Nietzsche rightly pointed out – and even more so than his day).
Lastly, Billy Graham was a nonconformist Christian. I am a conformist Christian who follows the trad Christian values of our great country that precisely Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Samuel Johnson and Edmund Burke would have followed as well. I am the exact same as them. But they were more Christian, in values and virtue, and much more intelligent and cultured than me. That’s the only difference!
October 17, 2026
So hardly any difference at all 😂🤣
October 17, 2026
(Or less than a few months or more than a few years)
October 17, 2026
Then earlier in the year we had the media reports, if true, that the Civil Service(its Union) were resisting the implementation of AI due to fear that the over bloated service could loose jobs.
Then again if AI doesn’t primarily replace jobs what is the point!?
The UK Government contract for this with Microsoft is ~£9 billion total (~£1.9 billion per year) over 5 years – ‘black-hole’ ?
October 17, 2026
Yes, working smarter should be built into any organisation, and we don’ need fancy computer processes to make a success of that, although a well designed computer process will certainly help, but initially whatever the process it should be possible to do it ‘manually’.
Why are so many people getting so noisy about AI? Some are saying the bad news is generated from the States because the Democrats want to stir up trouble for Trump by making AI look dangerous.
AI will be whatever is made of it. The more irrationality that goes into the design, the less benefits will be delivered. Getting AI just because it’s flavour of the month is not a good reason. A purpose needs to be worked out to see if AI can potentially achieve that goal. Some goals will never need anything but smart productive people.
The guiding lights for any organisation has to be the top managers – without innovative and smart working at the top the lower realms of the workplace will just do what comes automatically.
October 17, 2026
Only Grok is a truth seeker.
Some other AI have already reached the point where they deny the existence of the Caucasian race.
AI is not independent of humanity, it is programmed with bias. It then takes that bias to it ultimate conclusion because it has no humanity to stop it at any point. It can’t ’change It’s mind’. It just lies instead. There is no punishment for getting anything wrong.
It’s very dangerous.
We might have to smash the machines.
October 18, 2026
As if !
gmelius.com 14/04/2026 ‘ChatGPT vs Gemini vs CoPilot vs Claude vs Perplexity vs Grok: Which AI assistant is right for you?’.
‘Grok: Conversational and witty, excels at personality-driven interactions, though less dependable for precise accuracy’ … so no surprise that some here love its GIGO.
October 17, 2026
Being churlish for a moment, there is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is a media on message phrase, it is neither artificial or intelligent.
What there is in reality are LLM’s (Large Language Models) these are databases that collect all known(they have to be known) publications, and to compound that as served by the Internet. Then are able to query what is known and tell you the majority of results are suggesting. The big caveat that is a footnote to all these searches is ‘AI responses may include mistakes.’ and is printed at the bottom of every response.
It is why when using the internet you will see more ‘are you human challenges’. The so-called AI Bots are writing their own rules on what is meant by copyright – they are taking on the Chinese Model of – ‘the right to copy’
October 17, 2026
Growing population,less Jobs
October 17, 2026
In AI the UK thanks to the likes of Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman used to be massive on the world stage, the leading edge, a UK enterprise. With their Company ‘Deep Mind’ they desired to ‘give back’ by using their technology to transform the NHS. The NHS who knows
These guys were immensely successful, but unfortunately being in the Socialist UK, like all UK businesses this century they are not wanted. The UK Government crucifies and discourages success and those wishing to contribute to Society. If you are not owned, controlled, ruled by the State you are rejected by the State
Deepmind is now a Google company with Hassabis & Legg still on top of it. Mustafa Suleyman He is the CEO of Microsoft AI. So, there you have it a World lead handed over through incompetence and ideology. Think of your daily AI offerings, Google and Microsoft Dominate
The UK now has to ‘pay’ a foreign none contributing organisation just to have a token in the game.
No wonder Parliament wants to change the voting system they know they are about to be found out big time for their ongoing ineptitude.
..written without the use of AI, so human not perfect
October 17, 2026
Maybe it was AI but I saw our Chancellor & Foreign Secretary living it large and laughing, on taxpayers money, in a tuk-tuk in Bangkok ….defo a misuse of AI
October 18, 2026
Glen
Yes, also seen it.
Looks very realistic though, and therein is the problem, what is real, and what is fake.
October 17, 2026
what the public sector needs is a radical simplification of the rules. for instance if you radically simplified the tax and benefits systems they would be far cheaper to automate and administer. this would free a lot of people and money up for better things than admin. but this needs the politicians to buy into not constantly tweaking benefits and taxes, which is hard to see them delivering.
AI is just more tech hype, its little different to similar hypes of the past.
October 17, 2026
Yes we need Radical capitalism.
October 17, 2026
Civil Servants and their Unions will do everything they can to sabotage AI. We have far too many Civil Servants, circa 500,000, when I am confident the job could be done with somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000. That would need a government committed to not passing new laws every week! Since we left, the EU has introduced about 25,000 new laws, which explains why it is struggling.
You only have to ring a bank, the NHS, doctors, or most large businesses to find robot telephone systems that make it hard to speak to a human being. If AI is used like that, it will be a disaster, and the government will use it in the least efficient, most difficult way! It is staggering you have to write an article which should be basic common sense for the PM, Ministers and MPs.
October 17, 2026
I have problems enough with my mobile phone.That said my google “questions” on my laptop are so
responsive,detailed and “anything else?” that I conclude this is AI(artificial intelligence?).It is quite
seductive and like talking to someone across the table.Therein lies the danger.Across the table is
someone I know “on line ” it could be “big brother” and I have to be alert.Given it’s immediacy I
sense I am in contact with an entity that contains all human knowledge,available immediately.
This intelligence is terrifying as,probably,it is beyond control
October 17, 2026
Civil Service Unions like other Unions would traditionally reluctantly initially go along and coexist with any new AI or technology where it benefits them with no loss of their existing lucrative status quo existence.
However once the full implications of the radical shake out dawns on them they will resist loss of power, status and privilege.
Their track record of 5 decades of increasing employees compared to the loss of jobs in the Private Sector due to computers is a woeful performance waste.
It’s like asking the inmates to be creative when most have zero incentives to be world class performers in their respective commercial equivalent activities.
October 17, 2026
Italian cities on fire now…
I dont think the ruling class here in the UK are anywhere near making sense on these issues
October 18, 2026
Wise words John but unfortunately they are falling on deaf ears as far as this Government is concerned.
They are being battered by events (and will increasingly be so). It’s very hard to find solutions when things are going badly wrong and your day is spent fighting fires and dealing with budget constraints and angry management. I’ve been there and done that. Worked very long days and had many sleepless nights for two and a half years. Eventually got it sorted and was promoted for my pains. I wouldn’t want to do it again though.
October 18, 2026
AI is a tool, which like a knife can be used usefully to benefit the owner and the World’s population or used as a weapon to destroy. It’s power means that it can become a terrifying weapon when in the hands of those whose religious beliefs are so strong that the owner has no doubt in their mind that they are right and doing God’s will, whether that be saving the planet from humanity or that everyone should go straight to the wonderful afterlife they believe exists for them and other believers.
October 18, 2026
Just for information, there is what looks to be an open access file on how to minimise the role of AI on Android and Apple based phones (and very likely tablets and possibly laptops/desktops) available from Which Tech 01/10/2026 ‘How to remove AI from your life’.
The info is available for Microsoft 11, Microsoft 365’s and Outlook’s CoPilot, Google’s Gmail, Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, Android AI, and Samsung’s Galaxy AI.
It appears impossible to cancel Meta AI on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. But it appears that -ai in a Google Search should prevent the AI Overview from appearing.
Unfortunately all the AI gimmicks have to be installed with the more recent/latest updates meaning that the updates will be much more greedy in memory but in most cases it will be possible to switch the AI off if one does not want it. Your choice.