Untimely Atlanticism, a note on the UK-US Tech Prosperity Deal
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/datacentre-ismailenesayhan-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="an aisle in a computer hall" decoding="async" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/datacentre-ismailenesayhan-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/datacentre-ismailenesayhan-unsplash-w750-cropped-230x230.png 230w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />I wrote a response to the US/UK Technology deal which was eventually published in the Chartist Magazine. They entitled it, “Untimely Atlanticism” with a sub title, “US AI data centres drain power and offer little for UK jobs while in
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/datacentre-ismailenesayhan-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="an aisle in a computer hall" decoding="async" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/datacentre-ismailenesayhan-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/datacentre-ismailenesayhan-unsplash-w750-cropped-230x230.png 230w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I wrote a response to the US/UK Technology deal which was eventually published in the Chartist Magazine. They entitled it, “Untimely Atlanticism” with a sub title, “US AI data centres drain power and offer little for UK jobs while in Europe opportunities call “. In the Chartist article I say, One of the few substantial outcomes from Donald Trump’s second visit to the UK is the announcement of a UK-US Tech deal, also named the UK-US Tech Prosperity Deal. TechUK states that the key areas for co-operation are Artificial Intelligence, civil nuclear technology, quantum technologies and network technology & cyber-security. The most eye-catching proposals are to enable the US Big Tech companies to build some very large data centres to host nodes in their AI configurations. The Government press release argues that this will help research significant bioscience advances. The scale of some of these data centre builds is enormous. The proposed Microsoft/Nscale data centre is planned to be 50 megawatts with a burst capability of 90 megawatts; these metrics do not include the power draw necessary to run the cooling systems. Google Gemini reports that 50 megawatts could be expected to power 30,000 homes. AI systems and their Data Centres aren’t a public good; the rules-bases, i.e. the knowledge is owned by the software company, and the data centres compete with people for power, water, land, and capital. The US corporate domination of the sector also acts as a talent sink. It is suggested that the deal is worth £31bn of inward investment, but the core IT assets are US-owned and supplied. So these UK-based data centres will be stuffed full of US-manufactured computers. I wonder what the net financial flow is in reality. While they claim that over 5000 jobs will be created and nominate the North East as a location for the new data centres, it doesn’t take very many people to run a data centre and much of the expertise in designing and building them is located abroad. A final worry is that, in reality, AI has no value. It’s being used to create memes and low-value artefacts. It’s also important to understand what makes it an AI solution, as opposed to just more distributed computing complexes. AI would seem to be the layering of heuristic neural networks on top of big data storage and processing systems. The industry has been using these IT architectures, doing this for a decade or so without calling it AI. It has also been doing complex modelling of weather and physics on supercomputers for even longer. Furthermore, given that the outputs of AI systems are based on the captured knowledge, which is current (and popular) today, it remains unclear how AI will innovate. Their protagonists suggest that they can replace labour in white collar work, but this is questionable, and if they do, how will invention occur? More and more people are suggesting the lack of value means that this is a bubble which Is consuming capital and denying it to other, more potentially worthwhile initiatives. The big-tech monopolies are polluting the necessary creative destruction. At the end of the day, this looks like yet another of Trump’s shakedowns; much of the investment will be spent in the USA, and most of the profits will also be repatriated there. Another option alluded to in the CNBC article is greater European co-operation. The UK has rejoined the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking, and coincidentally reversed Reeves’ 2024 cuts in the supercomputing programme. The EU is now talking about an EU IT stack with which the UK could easily cooperate, and both would increase the UK’s cyber-sovereignty. In IT, as in defence, the UK’s future is becoming a choice between the USA and the European Union; this treaty is just another piece of untimely Atlanticism, just as is the decision to buy more US fighter planes and their tactical nuclear payload.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Rachel Reeves in front of No 10/1 with a red box" decoding="async" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-50x50.png 50w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />A quick note on the budget, remembering I wasn’t as critical of last year’s as some, at least not on macro-economic grounds. I was obviously against the failure to abolish the two child cap, but also against the failure to
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Rachel Reeves in front of No 10/1 with a red box" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/reeves-freemalaysiatoday-cc-by-w750-cropped-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> A quick note on the budget, remembering I wasn’t as critical of last year’s as some, at least not on macro-economic grounds. I was obviously against the failure to abolish the two child cap, but also against the failure to properly fund universities, students, and local government. So this budget is, to me, a bit meh and I agree with Fisher, why wait for a year? Still nothing on HE or Local Government finance, and the wealth taxation is very weak and poorly focused. No capital gains tax equalisation, no financial transaction tax. The freezing of tax free allowance amounts is probably more damaging to those on the margin of the upper rate tax band but as I read it, it’s a piece of accounting magic. There were no plans to change it for the next two tax years anyway, and they can change their minds, although some of the impact will occur after the next election. Also the FT reports that leading business people consider it insufficiently stimulating of growth, which in their case is probably not code for, “We need to rejoin the single market and customs union.”, although there are many, including me and Liz Webster, that are saying so; our macro-economic arguments recently augmented by a report from the US non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research and by Ryan Bourne’s recanting of his pro-Brexit position. Image Credit: from freemalaysiatoday cc 2024 by
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />“Your Party”’s decision to make their founding conference a sortition selected meeting is causing some interest, although often from observers. The two articles to/on which I am replying and commenting are Against sortition by Michael Chessum at Prometheus and For
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> “Your Party”’s decision to make their founding conference a sortition selected meeting is causing some interest, although often from observers. The two articles to/on which I am replying and commenting are Against sortition by Michael Chessum at Prometheus and For democracy, against sortition by Will Roberts in Solidarity. In this article, I look at their arguments and their proposals for democratic engagement, and then look at how sortition selected citizen assemblies can improve decision making and democratic engagement. I feel there is a danger of losing the good in citizens’ assemblies within the polemic of democratic power. Sortition and politics Both articles promote classical, debate based forms of policy development, with local meetings, delegates and conferences. Within the trade union movement, an important part of the labour movement’s deliberative process, distinguishing it from Parliaments is that conferences are made-up of delegates who received mandates and so discussion occurs at both the local level on the national level. It is unfortunate that certainly within the Labour Party, too many MP’s and councillors take the Burkean view that all they owe their voters and parties is their judgement i.e. they cannot be instructed on how to vote, certainly not by local activists or even voters. The Labour movement’s practice has grown out of the requirement of the Unions for the discipline of collective action; strikes only work if they stop work in the workplace and they need to have confidence that delegates to conference represent their members and not themselves and that all will commit to the decisions of the collective. It also has important implication for the behaviour of the losers in a strike vote. Chessum’s article argues that much of Momentum’s democratic failure was that its Conference was abolished and the branches closed down. This was made worse by the barrier that LOTO put up to ensure that even a de-politicised Momentum did not influence LOTO , leading to the location of effective political debate becoming uniquely located amongst self-selected “senior” activists. Will Robert’s article is more polemic, but to my mind both he and Chessum misunderstand how sortition can expose a lived experience that representatives often leave behind as they climb the ladders of representative democracy. Robert does highlight the power of leaderships in all-member ballots, citing the Momentum coup, and the 2023 UCU higher education dispute. He also values the experience of delegates which one can understand if you’ve seen the way in which Labour’s full-time staff ‘guide’ & thwart new delegates, and union bureaucracies promote the election of new delegates as a vibrancy goal. Both authors are calling for branch and delegate structure with debate occurring and decisions made at all levels of the organisation. I feel that much of the debate around the governance of “Your Party” and other political entities, ignores the experience of the trade union movement in resisting the Thatcherite anti-union laws, which imposed firstly individual balloting on national committees and general secretaries, then on strike ballots requiring super majorities. Individual balloting isolates people and increases the fear, it also allows the billionaire owned press to influence these ballots. The absence of debate and workplace meetings increases the isolation and fear. These rules are not neutral, they are and were designed to pacify or neutralise the unions and their membership. This is important as it has become common in progressive movements (and now the trade unions) to elect national committees by all member ballots, and to set or confirm policy using plebiscites. We also have a further example of the dissipation of radical energy by a surfeit of so-called democracy by looking at the history of Podemos, which in many ways Momentum mirrored. For the governance and political direction of a political party, it’s crucial that political debates take place and visible democratic resolutions occur. Our two authors are concerned that decisions have the backing of the membership, because it’s movements that change society not committees, nor even parliaments. In this, I agree with them. The decision to use Sortition on “Your Party” is almost certainly taken to ensure control by its founding leadership. Listening harder A huge problem in British and possibly western democratic politics is the lack of pluralism, which itself is a road to failure, and Citizens’ Assemblies are a way of introducing new ideas into a polarised debate. In the US & UK, this is exacerbated by the winner take all nature of electoral victory and the lack of a need to continue to negotiate with your opponents. To argue that sortition has no role in politics, is, I suggest, a mistake. Chessum, argues that there is a crisis of democracy and I would argue that sortition based citizens’ assemblies engage people who will not otherwise be engaged, as might doorstep canvassing if it was done with less cynicism. Over the last few years, I have observed CoFoE , the EU’s ECP on virtual worlds and the Democratic Odyssey and while I can and have written essays on their weaknesses, they reach people that politics finds hard to reach and inspire them with the value of politics. They also often have different priorities to politicians. For instance, CoFoE’s citizen members having little interest in developing or even defending, the spitzenkanditaten process, or renaming the institutions and Momentum’s Council voting in favour of ‘freedom of movement’ against the wishes of its leadership. I wouldn’t wish to argue that sortition is the best way to convene a legislature or a party’s equivalent body but I strongly believe that they help solve certain problems well. One example of its success or at least its longevity is in Ost-Belgien which has developed a standing citizens’ assembly that works with the Parliament. It only represents about 80,000 people and thus makes quota sampled citizens’ assemblies more representative and their lived experience closer to the problems they seek to solve. The Ost-Belgien government also has limited competencies. In the UK, some local authorities have experimented with citizens’ assemblies and others with neighbourhood town hall meetings to either make recommendations or even take decisions. It’s not a totally alien idea. For more on the history and success of citizens’ assemblies, I made some notes on them at a page called “Citizens Assemblies” which captures some very heavyweight reviews including those from the OECD and the UK Parliament, together with a paper1 focusing on the UK & Ireland and performing a SWOT analysis; it also examines the resistance from the organs of representative democracy. On that page, I also link to Blokker & Gull’s paper2 on citizen’s assemblies and constitutional change. There are known weaknesses, including the fact that members are self-selected, i.e. they need to be willing [& able] to travel and commit the time even before the statistical quota’s are applied. The selection of topics, experts and language is also a source of power and it remains very hard to isolate a citizen’s assembly from the power of lobbying either by corporations or political parties. Some of these risks can be mitigated, others remain very hard such as lobbying, So where citizen’s assemblies are set up and given appropriate tasks, where lived experience is important and possibly the communities represented are relatively small, they enhance both democracy and the quality of decision, it shouldn’t be posed as an alternative. People like to be listened to. POWER FROM THE PEOPLE? Citizens’ Assemblies in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland by Frances Foley published by FES. Blokker, Paul and Gül, Volkan, Citizen Deliberation and Constitutional Change (February 15, 2023). M. Reuchamps and Y. Welp (Eds.), Deliberative Constitution-Making: Opportunities and Challenges, Routledge. Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4359555 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4359555 See also Building a permanent European Citizens Assembly (ECA) together from Citizen’s Takeover Europe.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Image Sign in front of the CJEU's Palais de la Cour de Justice" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />The Commission of the European Union has issued a report proposing what they call the digitalization of justice. At the moment, this is mainly about best practise, although it seems they plan to improve digital access to the European court’s
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Image Sign in front of the CJEU's Palais de la Cour de Justice" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CJEU_complex-and-sign-March_2023-cropped-via-wikipedia-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> The Commission of the European Union has issued a report proposing what they call the digitalization of justice. At the moment, this is mainly about best practise, although it seems they plan to improve digital access to the European court’s case law. A commentary has been made by the EU’s agency for fundamental rights cautiously welcoming the report but highlighting both the risks to privacy and the threat that such schemes will fail to improve justice for citizens, or worse. A further commentary can be found at the EU Observer, taking an equally cautions approach.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="dancers in a european square" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I watched the first day of the EU UK parliamentary partnership assembly. The first session was on general issues & trade and the second on defence. I made some notes which you can read overleaf. Following the agenda of the meeting, I talk of Trade and Defence in two parts. Throughout, I question the UK's half hearted commitment. Use the read more button to see the whole article. ...
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="dancers in a european square" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/eudance-danielsilva-unsplash-w750h250-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I watched the first day of the EU UK parliamentary partnership assembly. This was set up by the trade and co-operation agreement and meets every six months. It consists of parliamentarians from the European Parliament and the UK Parliament. The first session was on general issues & trade and the second on defence. I made some notes which follow that structure, and add some comments of my own. Trade I think there was some very polite disagreement between NST and šefčovič whose speech was read. I don’t think HMG really understand the EU’s position on the eight UK treaty infractions required to fully meet the withdrawal agreement on citizenship and the Windsor agreement on the NI/Irish customs border. HMG think they’re making progress I’m not so sure The MEPs reinforced importance of Erasmus and the youth experience scheme and the need for pace on Erasmus, CBAM (energy) and SAFE (Defence). The UK’s delay seems to be focused on money. It seems that too many have not read the recent communique after the May summit in full. I comment on the May summit, with articles on my first impressions, where I sum up the meeting as a draw and explaining the basic compromises, second thoughts where I examine the transatlantic dimension of politics as it impacts EU/UK relations and a 3rd piece where I quote a number of press sources critical of the ambition and pace of the UK Government. I classify it as a draw, because, The EU have ensured the current treaties are confirmed and that any entrance to the single market includes dynamic alignment, CJEU judicial authority and financial contributions, in exchange, the UK have obtained agreement that the Commission will engage in pre-legislative consultation. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and an all Irish energy market was was raised by an Irish MEP. I note that, the EU is building an energy connection to the Republic, the UK is running out of time for an easy path to get what we need. The Republic of Ireland seemed overrepresented in the EU delegation. (14% vs 2% of MEPs, there was 1 Ulster Unionist MP on the UK side. This underlines the importance of the Northern Ireland protocol, and the Windsor Framework at least to the EU, and it took an MEP to remind the meeting that NI voted to remain. The size of the Irish contingent in the EU delegation may illustrate the declining importance of the UK relationship to the politics of the other member states,) Barry Adams MEP (Renew/Eire) called for two parties to stop being transactional to be strategic good advice in my opinion. Lord David Frost wasted our time. Stella Creasy MP supported the reset topics and added less paperwork as a demand, but the simplest way to reduce the paperwork is to rejoin the single market as otherwise we seem to be rejoining one agency at a time. Defence and Security While everyone thinks that defence is important and cooperation critical, the left wing Irish MP reminded HMG that not all the EU is in NATO. The UK minister’s speech was very much NATO first, EU second. No wonder there’s a dispute on funding which is delaying the closing of a defence agreement. On the EU side, several MEPs put stakes in the ground, on Northern Ireland and Gibraltar and funding programmes, i.e. Erasmus & Defence with calls for more pace and a strategic approach. It should be clearly understood that the EU is not going to sign a deal where every line is a UK win, so much for, “A government spokesman said: “We are not interested in divergence for divergence’s sake, or a race to the bottom in standards. If shared high standards with the EU will cut barriers to trade, we will consider them as long as they’re in our national interest and don’t cross our red lines.” One problem is that the UK Government is behaving as if it doesn’t really care. There is no strategy and given a choice between rejecting freedom of movement, and better trade and even defence, it’s clear what this government will choose. The meeting is useful for commentators and observers, in that behind the curtain of impeccable manners except for Lord Frost, there is a disagreement about defence which the government to be their Ace of Trumps; unfortunately, the EU seem to be bidding for a No Trump contract. The following day the FT reports, Dispute over money threatens EU-UK ‘reset’ talks – https://on.ft.com/3XCgT72 via @FT. Although the article focuses on the defence agreement and the UK’s attempt to raise the potential British gains, the Defence stream was the most concrete of the agreements made in May; if that can’t be closed, then we need to question if anything can be.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Ed Miliband at #lab14" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />I was writing about something else, and wrote this on party management. It’s coherent, but doesn’t belong in what I am writing, and so I thought I’d share it now, “Your Party” is planning a Sortition based founding conference. It
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Ed Miliband at #lab14" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/lab14-2-w650-guardian-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I was writing about something else, and wrote this on party management. It’s coherent, but doesn’t belong in what I am writing, and so I thought I’d share it now, “Your Party” is planning a Sortition based founding conference. It has probably chosen this for reasons of control but, “Your Party”’s problems occur in many parties, and I am reminded of the white paper “The (Unintended) Consequences of New Labour: Party Leadership vs Party Management in the British Labour Party…, a white paper to the PSA” by Emanuelle Averil on New Labour, which examines its managerialism and the destruction of its activist commitment and influence. The paper was published in 2015 before the General Election. I read it in 2017 and strangely ended up sitting next to her at Conference ’19. I posted my comments in a blog, A note on Emanuelle Averil’s “the unintended consequences of New Labour” and in that article I selected some quotes. While being 20 years old, these comments seem equally relevant today, particularly about the Labour Party. I quote her on how suppressing the activist layer was mistaken and led to a failure to connect to the electorate, how factionalism suppresses plurality which made renewal impossible, how triangulation led to voter alienation and its control freakery led to a toxification of its image. We might debate about the noughties, but it’s clearly true today.
Immigration based on compassion and dignity
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> The Government have announced major regressive changes to the Asylum regime. These are all regressive, & vindictive. They must be opposed, and those MPs & Peers opposing these measures supported. This article looks at a couple of statements in opposition, and points at the Momentum model motion. While various press sources seem to have seen the proposals, I can't find the formal government statement. (10:57), see overleaf for more ...
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Control-Immigration-Mug-w750-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> The Government have announced major regressive changes to the Asylum regime. These are all regressive, & vindictive. They must be opposed, and those MPs & Peers opposing these measures supported. This article looks at a couple of statements in opposition, and points at the Momentum model motion. While various press sources seem to have seen the proposals, I can’t find the formal government statement. (10:57) Here’s my Union branch’s short statement on it, and here’s Stella Creasy MP, my Union branch’s short statement and Tom Vaughn MP. Stella’s article ends, “As another row on immigration and refugees awaits parliament, it is clear the problem is not immigrants, but politicians themselves” My union branch, Our branch strongly supports the GMB policy of welcoming migrants and allowing them to build lives here. Our branch officers condem these further additions to the hostile environment and its extension to those granted asylum. …https://t.co/6GusZhrauy — GMB London Central (X58) (@GmbX58) November 17, 2025 The Prime Minister said in September that we are at a fork in the road. These asylum proposals suggest we have taken the wrong turning. The idea that recognised refugees need to be deported is wrong. We absolutely need immigration controls. And where those controls decide to… — Tony Vaughan KC MP (@tonyvaughanMP) November 16, 2025 Momentum have written to their members/supporters with a model motion to pursue through CLPs which identifies the changes, and calls for the scheme to be opposed. They say, on 17th November 2025, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced changes to asylum policy. These changes include: People granted asylum would need to wait 20 years before they can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain or Settled Status. Those granted asylum will have their refugee status reviewed every 30 months, and if their home country is considered to be “safe” they could be liable for immediate deportation. ⁠Refugees will only be able to bring spouses or children to the UK if they meet a minimum income threshold. ⁠The statutory legal duty to provide asylum seekers who would otherwise face destitution with accommodation and weekly allowances would be revoked. Support would then be removed for asylum seekers who have a right to work, who break the law, or work outside of their legal restrictions. ⁠AI will be used to assess the ages of people seeking asylum. ⁠Legislation will be brought to make significant changes to the Modern Slavery Act. They add, at present, people granted refugee status can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain or Settled Status after five years And that Keir Starmer was elected to the leadership of the Labour Party on a platform of “defending migrants rights”, and “an immigration system based on compassion and dignity.”
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="an AI chip on a board" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />Five things It’s useless as a pillar of a growth/industrial policy.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="an AI chip on a board" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/aichip-via-unsplash-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> Five things There’s no positive business model, they can’t replace staff, or at least not without new supervisors. They are now borrowing to invest in each other. Hallucinations are a feature, it gets things wrong, The rule base’s ownership is obscure and Code is Law It’s [deliberately] wasteful of resources which people need to live. It’s useless as a pillar of a growth/industrial policy.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ashkan-forouzani-rosegarden-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="a red rose" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ashkan-forouzani-rosegarden-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ashkan-forouzani-rosegarden-unsplash-w750-cropped-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />The Labour Party staff stopped reporting membership to the NEC earlier this year, but they reported the end of year membership to Annual Conference and of course the electoral commission. A number of years ago, I made a chart showing
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ashkan-forouzani-rosegarden-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="a red rose" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ashkan-forouzani-rosegarden-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/ashkan-forouzani-rosegarden-unsplash-w750-cropped-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> The Labour Party staff stopped reporting membership to the NEC earlier this year, but they reported the end of year membership to Annual Conference and of course the electoral commission. A number of years ago, I made a chart showing Labour’s membership from 1989 to 2021; I have just updated it using the end of 2024 figures. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="414" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1024x414.png" alt="" class="wp-image-13598" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1024x414.png 1024w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-300x121.png 300w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-768x310.png 768w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image.png 1269w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> There are stories published that Reform have overtaken Labour in terms of membership numbers; it would take an extraordinary amount of departures for this to be true. This article in the New Statesman published under a pseudonym as a gossip column is headlined as such and points at Labour List reporting the membership in Feb as 309,000.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Karen Hao in front of a book shelf" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I have recently, watched the YouTube video, “How tech CEOs are lying to you”, where Karen Hao is interviewed by Aaron Bastani on Novara Media's channel. Ms Hao has just published a book, “Empire of AI” and the interview covers the topics of the book. At the centre of her arguments are, that large language modules aka AI, and their use of resources, water, power, land and rare metals are a choice, and one that society cannot afford. She questions the business model of the AI industry, sees it as a threat to [US] wealth and notes its scofflaw approach to its own regulation and its oppression of poor and vulnerable communities. She is highly critical of the motivations of the oligarchs funding the AI bubble. The remainder of this article, which is over 2000 words is overleaf, use the "Read More" button ....
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Karen Hao in front of a book shelf" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/karenhao-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I have recently, watched the YouTube video, “How tech CEOs are lying to you”, where Karen Hao is interviewed by Aaron Bastani on Novara Media’s channel. Ms Hao has just published a book, “Empire of AI” and the interview covers the topics of the book. At the centre of her arguments are, that large language modules, and their use of resources, water, power, land and rare metals are a choice, and one that society cannot afford. She questions the business model of the AI industry, sees it as a threat to [US] wealth and notes its scofflaw approach to its own regulation and its oppression of poor and vulnerable communities. She is highly critical of the motivations of the oligarchs funding the AI bubble. What follows is my notes of the interview. I have rearranged the order to try and tell the story without repetition or diversion. She argues that at the centre, the industry’s self serving ideology , the messianic commitment of its protagonists, the questionable value of the industry, the public cost in land, water, electricity and talent, and the threat to democracy as they avoid and corrupt the regulators are all things we should be highly concerned about. She also argues the lack of business model and its failure to create wealth is a threat to the [US] economy. They talk about what is AI, how it came to be, OpenAI vs Google, the immense resources required to run the infrastructure and the conflicts with democratic accountability & legal regulation. She also highlights the export of oppression to countries with even weaker labour protection laws than the US, highlighting the maltreatment of workers in East Africa and Columbia who work on influencing the model training. How we got here and the big choice She argues that the term, AI was coined in 1956 to attract research funding. It now means many things partly because there is no consensus as to what human intelligence is. AI mostly means deep learning systems, which google gemini defines as, “A deep learning system is a type of artificial intelligence and machine learning that uses a complex architecture of artificial neural networks, inspired by the human brain, to learn from vast amounts of data and make decisions with minimal human intervention. It processes information through multiple layers to identify increasingly complex patterns, enabling tasks such as image and speech recognition, natural language processing, and making predictions in applications like self-driving cars and chatbots.” The Wikipedia page on Deep Learning, is also helpful. 10 years ago, people thought that incremental innovation of AI technology would be enough, Open AI was led by people who disagreed with this and decided that scale was the appropriate route to beating Google because Google had the talent and competing with that talent was too hard. Chat GPT was founded as a competitor to Google; they originally argued for the need for non-profit governance because of the existential danger to humanity if run by for-profits. The scale model was adopted as a competitive weapon and is not necessary. The choice of scale meant that the bottleneck ceased to be talent and was to become [working] capital. They were founded as a not for profit but needed to become a for-profit in order to attract the capital that scale required. There was also at this time, a choice between Altman & Musk as CEO; the talent in AI chose Altman. Altman came from the world of venture capital (VC), and was seen as an investor not a CEO. He also cultivated politicians while at Y Combinator (YC). Bastani asks what he does, despite his perceived personal shortcomings. Hao says that he is great at talent acquisition and motivation. He is good at getting people to give him what he needs, talent, resources, capital, land, water and laws. He operates best in one-to-one meetings, which leads to a dichotomy of views on him. They explored some alternatives, and some earlier competitors to Open AI. One of these is the Chinese developed Deepseek, which Hao explains is a simplification of the scaling models. She also states that Open AI and US Big Tech won’t adopt it because of the barriers to entry that the need for large scale funding creates together with the sunk investment i.e. what they’ve already spent. In passing she mentions, Stable Diffusion which came to market before Open AI and was invented in Europe. It has been eclipsed by several other players and I wonder if this is yet another example of proving that Europe can turn money into ideas, but not ideas into money. (British capitalism is lazy and not interested in innovation or British welfare; it doesn’t care where profit, interest or fees come from.) Does it do anything worthwhile? They turned to consider what the AI business model is and what it does in terms of participating in a productive economy. They ask how much AI do we need anyway and what are we using it for? It would seem that we are mostly generating memes or images. While I do use it for this purpose, I have to ask if it’s not really overly expensive for making decorations for my blog. The nature of monopoly in within the internet services industries has led to what Cory Doctorow calls enshittification, see https://pluralistic.net/tag/enshittification/ where he eloquently shows how Amazon fails to serve its supply chain or its customers and is a notoriously bad employer. Others have documented both Facebook and Googles paths journeying to this end point as these companies prioritise profit over customer service. Returning to the issue of the Open AI business model, Hao argues that, it’s not just the money. There is a belief in the need for a true AI. This creates pressure on the legacy players. As a hedge bet against the dream of creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Open AI and its chatbot competitors are offering labour substitution as a value proposition. She is doubtful the extent to which it will succeed, but there is a bandwagon effect attracting capital. If everyone’s wrong, then the amount of capital invested in AI is large enough to drag the US economy down and we’ve seen the effect of such a bubble bursting. The exorbitant cost It is common knowledge that there is an immense consumption of resources involved, on power, Hao says, that McKinsey predict +50% to +120% of UK power capability needed globally. (I don’t find this very accessible, and I need to find the source. ) Finding hard data is very hard, but in 2024, Microsoft and & Google increased their carbon production by 30%, and as a result of Hao’s suggestions, I searched for and found two McKinsey reports The-role-of-power-in-unlocking-the-european-ai-revolution, and How-data-centers-and-the-energy-sector-can-sate-ais-hunger-for-power. In order to meet this demand, the fossil fuel providers are extending the life of coal mines and coal burning plants. She says that, Musk’s XAI is powered by unlicensed methane burning powerplants. This becomes more than a threat to the climate, it is also a direct threat to public health. Furthermore, Data Centres need fresh water to cool the computers. This is usually acquired using current infrastructure which is designed to support consumer consumption and was In the case of the UK built 100 years ago. It should be noted that much of the US power and water infrastructure is also old and poorly maintained. The Data Centres, thus compete with people for drinking water. There are examples from the US where drinking water is mixed with lower quality water which causes public health problems. This is an issue that needs to be addressed in the UK now that the UK-US Technology deal has been announced. The data centers are located in poor communities, and she illustrates the effect by quoting examples from Arizona where the Data Centre’s compete for water, but in the UK we are used to hosepipe bans, and Hao states that there is now a ban on housing construction in the M4 corridor because of the data centres’ competing need for electricity. ( So while we used to talk about people, schools and health services as the necessary infrastructure, we have entered a world in which electricity and water also require planning, and the M4 corridor is not a poor area in England.) Hao raised the issue that some of the inventors working in the UK, are Brits, educated and trained in the UK so the taxpayer investment in that migrating human capital is lost to the sterling economy. Some of them may seek to come back given the Trump administration’s policies on visas and entry to the USA. Hao mentions two engagements by Open AI with the global labour market taking advantage of weaker employee protection laws and lower wages/cost of living expenses. She mentions Kenya and content filtering, which can be a traumatising experience, leading to PTSD and she has a hwrrowing story about its impact on family life. She also quotes a Venezuelan refugee suffering from depression due to the pressures of working on a work sharig platform and competing for tasks with too many others. Workers were made to bid for the jobs, and rates were very low. Hao speaks of the racism that allows some to earn millions and others to earn pennies. Maybe we’ll make a Marxist of her yet. Democracy, Regulation and Lobbying Their scofflaw approach to even basic regulation constraints is a threat to democracy. Like Karen, I have met some of these people and understand their contempt for regulation, I remember the surprise that Monopoly is an illegal business model expessed by some of the most senior business executives and the shock expressed by US colleagues when we explained the TUPE laws to them. The interference in public decision making occurs at all levels, from Parish to International level and it’s why anti-lobbying laws are so important. We can see the effect of this in the coming fallout from the UK US Tech Trade deal. They explore the impact of the State/Enterprise osmosis and Hao considers the colonisation of India via the East India company which she sees as an example in terms of power and style, emphasising in particular the permeability between private and state power. Today we call it buying laws, but with Trump the threat of force is always there. She’s not clear how the new state monopoly capitalism/empire will come to be; in the 18th century the UK nationalised the EIC, who knows what’ll happen next time. Further understanding requires the exploration of the relationship between the [US] state and private big tech. This metaphor reinforces Hao’s statement that the political/big tech complex see foreign countries and their peoples as ‘resources’, as does the treatment of workers from global south. She notes that the “Big Beautiful Bill” prohibits state regulation of AI. What to do? Peoples and states need to organise for data & compute sovereignty. The EU are seeding an EU stack which not only articulates the need for open and maintainable software products, but includes physical resources too, systems, networks and storage. She emphasises that colossal data centres are not needed; it’s Open AI that has made this necessary. She also calls out the impact of the fossil fuel lobbying. There are examples of places and communities that fight back, she quotes that in Chile, artists are fighting for ownership of the training inputs and this is also a fight in the US & Europe. She says that in the EU privacy laws are an important constraint, and that the role of AI in education is a democratic battleground. It would be good to see more people fighting for priority in the use of land and water but the opportunity is there and will become more acute as the the UK Government seeks to roll out the data centres envisaged by the US/UK Tech deal. I hope this article has enough of me in it to make it a worth while read, even if only through its structure. The interview has its transcript published at singjupost, for those who prefer to read & skim. I ran the interview at1:25 speed, at least the secondtime. A much shorter and more focused review is at Empire of AI by Karen Hao – book review by Ali Caterall, with a sub title of “A powerful, troubling exposé revealing tech giant OpenAI’s secretive rise, enormous resource demands, and internal struggles, while debating its wider impact on society and the environment”.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Reuters Square, if its still called that in black and white." decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />While posting my notes on my reference back for Labour Conference I fell back on the OBR statistic that Brexit had cost the UK 4% of GDP. I thought a chart would have been helpful and so went looking for
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Reuters Square, if its still called that in black and white." decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/cw-arielpilotto-unsplash-w750-cropped-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> While posting my notes on my reference back for Labour Conference I fell back on the OBR statistic that Brexit had cost the UK 4% of GDP. I thought a chart would have been helpful and so went looking for one. The NIESR published an article, Revisiting the effects of Brexit, which now they’ve archived it, no longer has the chart they made from the model, but google search can still find it today. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1018" height="673" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Brexit-and-GDP-NIESR.png" alt="" class="wp-image-13575" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Brexit-and-GDP-NIESR.png 1018w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Brexit-and-GDP-NIESR-300x198.png 300w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Brexit-and-GDP-NIESR-768x508.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1018px) 100vw, 1018px" /> Their model tries to disentangle the effects of the COVID slump, and the article, dated 2023, says, These estimates suggest that Brexit had already reduced UK real GDP relative to the baseline by just under one per cent in 2020 as consumers and businesses adapted their expectations even before the TCA came into force. Our estimates further suggest that three years after the transition period, UK real GDP is some 2-3 per cent lower due to Brexit, compared to a scenario where the United Kingdom retained EU membership.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Portraits, Powell and Phillipson" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> Labour is holding an election for the position of Deputy Leader, I have five questions I want to ask them. Use the "Read More" button to see what they were ...
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Portraits, Powell and Phillipson" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/PowellPhillipson-OGL-w750-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> Labour is holding an election for the position of Deputy Leader, I have five questions I want to ask them. Where do you stand on immigration and the fact that copying Reform legitimises and emboldens them? Where do you stand on closer relations with the EU on defence, trade and economic co-operation? Where do you stand on rejoining the single-market? Where do you stand on fiscal/monetary policy? How can we end austerity and make people feel better off and what will you do? Where do you stand on Welfare reform? Why are we increasing poverty? What do you think the Government should do about Gaza and Palestine? I believe a Deputy Leader, in fact all MPs, should represent the Party membership to the PLP and its leadership, will you start to do this? What measures will you take to turn the Party’s democracy back on? Now how to put these questions to them.
#Lab25 will get to debate rejoining the EU
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> At the General Committee of Lewisham North last night we agreed to send a motion calling for the abolition of the two child benefit cap, and also proposed a reference back of the NPF report. I intiallly proposed the words in a blog article posted last week. This article repeats some of the text of the reference back and my notes for my moving speech, and right of reply, as it was opposed by both those who think that being outside the EU is a good thing, and those who fear Farage and think the time is wrong. For those details, read overleaf ...
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/lab19-votes-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> At the General Committee of Lewisham North last night we agreed to send a motion calling for the abolition of the two child benefit cap, and also proposed a reference back of the NPF report. I intiallly proposed the words in a blog article posted last week. This article repeats some of the text of the reference back and my notes for my moving speech, and right of reply, as it was opposed by both those who think that being outside the EU is a good thing, and those who fear Farage and think the time is wrong. The crux of the reference back is, Conference calls on the NPF to look beyond the ’24 manifesto commitments with respect to the EU relationship and to press for faster re-alignment with the EU single market within this parliament and to examine the possibility of rejoining the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election. Here are my notes, in moving the proposal, The NPF report talks of much progress but draws little conclusions. It makes much of the UK-EU summit in May, which itself was inconclusive. No agreements were made. Not even on the softest of targets, Defence. This reference back calls for the NPF to consider looking beyond the ’24 manifesto commitments with respect to the EU relationship and to press for faster re-alignment with the EU single market, within this parliament, and to examine the possibility of rejoining the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election. In addition to its lack of ambition, the report fails to mention the reset meetings requirements that the UK must fully implement its commitments under the “withdrawal agreement”, the Windsor framework and the “Trade and cooperation agreement” and that, as said, it failed to conclude any improvement in the formal relationships between the United Kingdom and the European Union, including on youth mobility. The OBR estimates that exit from the single market has cost the economy 4% of its value, this is not something that a growth mission driven government should leave on the table. The fundamental reason for the UK’s poor economic performance is a lack of investment. Rejoining the single market would ease the entry of European capital into the UK investment market, and help to remediate the unpatriotic and global nature of the shrinking London capital markets which leaves the primary source of domestic investment to retained profits. It would also make the housing market goals easier to achieve as in order to build more houses the UK needs skills, effort and bricks from abroad. A changed mood disguised by Brexit adjacent red-lines are not enough and chasing the dying Brexiteer vote is not a strategy for success. But when making policy, we need to consider what’s right and not just what’s popular. Please send this to Conference so it is at least debated and visible. And my notes of my right of reply, The referendum decision was taken three elections and 9 years ago. It is a dead and failed mandate. For those of you who hang onto your line from the seventies, you were wrong in 79, wrong in 2016 and wrong today; for those that argue it’s a barrier to a socialist government may I remind you of the author of the doctrine of “Socialism in one country”. For those that fear giving Farage space, you can’t fight him by agreeing with him. He’s wrong on Europe and wrong on immigration and we need to say so. For those who fear Reform’s reaction, when making policy and making promises, at least those we mean to keep, we should consider what’s right and not what’s popular with people who will never vote for us. Our Spanish comrade suggested this is premature, he argues the Party needs an agreement about how to rejoin and that will take us time. I say what better way to start the conversation than by taking it to Labour Conference.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="the ECtHR building from the air and at night" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-50x50.png 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-45x45.png 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />On 1st September, 2025, Yvette Cooper made yet another immigration policy announcement, most startlingly, prohibiting, refugees, who enter the country irregularly from bringing their family with them: reported by the Guardian & BBC. We should bear in mind that there
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="the ECtHR building from the air and at night" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-50x50.png 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/ECHR-Building-at-Night-via-ECtHR-w750x256-45x45.png 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> On 1st September, 2025, Yvette Cooper made yet another immigration policy announcement, most startlingly, prohibiting, refugees, who enter the country irregularly from bringing their family with them: reported by the Guardian & BBC. We should bear in mind that there are no legal routes for refugees to enter the country and they have the right to claim asylum here, In addition there’s a growing mood music inside the Government to amend, or leave the ECHR; this demans originates from the Tories and Reform and is entering the Labour Party via the parasitic Blue Labour current. It’s now being repeated by cabinet members. We should all bear in mind that the UK is currently a good citizen as far as the ECtHR is concerned, it only appeared three times last year, and only lost once, and that was to the Daily Mail in a dispute about libel costs. The ECHR and the UK’s Human Rights Act are designed to protect citizens that’s you and me from oppressive governments. If it’s a problem to governments, then they can easily solve their problem by behaving decently. The Labour Campaign for Free Movement is campaigning for a motion on immigration, refugees and asylum to go to Labour Conference 25. I have set up my #lab25 conference. Here is what the Guardian had to say,
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="a robot issuing a parking ticket, generated by deepai.org" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-50x50.png 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-45x45.png 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />I wrote a piece for Chartist on AI & its regulation, which I have signposted on LInkedin. I look at its likely macro-economic effects and the essential defence of Article 22 of the GDPR, where I say, … the most
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="a robot issuing a parking ticket, generated by deepai.org" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-50x50.png 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/robot-parkingticket-deepai_org-45x45.png 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I wrote a piece for Chartist on AI & its regulation, which I have signposted on LInkedin. I look at its likely macro-economic effects and the essential defence of Article 22 of the GDPR, where I say, … the most important defences that we as citizens, workers, and consumers have is the EU’s GDPR, which in Article 22 & Recital 71 establishes what they call a right to “freedom from profiling”. This, through the rulings of the CJEU, has become quite extensive and now prohibits such things as ‘general monitoring’, a legal protection brought forcefully to light by the French supervisory authority fining Amazon €32m for violations of the GDPR within their workforce management regime. In the article, I talk about the problem of Authority vs Popularity, the need for open source, and source citation. I also review the need for some innovators for privacy and competitive advantage and the possible future of regulation of AI to ensure decency and accountability. I also look at the patchy European response and the paradoxical attitude of the US. I conclude. In summary, there are plenty of laws to ensure that AI and its owners behave decently, and in some European countries, the will and resources to enforce them, but it’s not universal. Also, there are important economic countervailing forces opposing the creation of a privately owned “Global Intellect” even if the current technology is capable of such a task.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> This article looks at the development of Labour's Policy as its annual Conference approaches. It looks at the rules commitment to "voting in parts", and reproduces an NPF report reference back motion on the subject of the relationship with the EU that I shall take to my local party. My motion calls to rejoin the single market immediately and to promise to rejoin the EU in the next manifesto. To read the whole article, use the "Read More" button ...
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lab23-platform-w750-cropped-cc0-dfl-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> Critically this article makes a call for a contemporary motion to #Lab25 modifying the NPF report conclusions on relationships with the European Union. It also looks at the development of Labour’s Policy as its annual Conference approaches. It looks at the rules commitment to “voting in parts”, and reproduces an NPF report reference back motion on the subject of the relationship with the EU that I shall take to my local party. My motion calls to rejoin the single market immediately and to promise to rejoin the EU in the next manifesto. Each year the Labour Party produce a report from the National Policy Forum which has a major responsibility for developing the manifesto. This year’s report can be found at NPF Report (https) or via my mirror. It has been written in a banal and non-actionable fashion but the party rules permit the report to be voted for in parts, Chapter 3.III.2.G Party conference shall consider policy reports and draft reports as part of the rolling programme, the NPF report, the NEC annual report, NEC statements and development strategy. Conference has the right to refer back part of any document without rejecting the policy document as a whole. I have been advised that each organisation can move one reference back per policy commission up to four commissions. Such reference backs should be submitted to the CAC by 5pm, 11 September by emailing cac@labour.org.uk. I have taken the opportunity to draft a reference back,which will need to be tightened up, on the clauses relating to the relationship with EU. It reads, Conference notes the NPF silence on relationships with the European Union with the exception of comments on submissions. Conference references back paragraphs 3 & 4 of the Britain Re-connected reply to submissions section of the national policy forum report. The report fails to mention the reset meetings requirements that the UK must fully implement its commitments under the withdrawal agreement, the Windsor framework and the Trade and cooperation agreement and that the reset meeting failed to conclude any improvement in the formal relationships between the United Kingdom and the European Union. Conference calls on the NPF to look beyond the ’24 manifesto commitments with respect to the EU relationship and to press for faster re-alignment with the EU single market within this parliament and to examine the possibility of rejoining the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="two men at a transparent wall board" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-150x150.jpg 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-270x270.jpg 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-230x230.jpg 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-50x50.jpg 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-45x45.jpg 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />I have posted an article to my Linkedin blog. I had come across an article on medium, and so probably behind their paywall, called, “The Death of Agile: Why Tech Giants Are Abandoning Scrum and What They Use Instead”. One
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="two men at a transparent wall board" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-150x150.jpg 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-270x270.jpg 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-230x230.jpg 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-50x50.jpg 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diggity-marketing-s8HyIEe7lF0-unsplash-45x45.jpg 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> I have posted an article to my Linkedin blog. I had come across an article on medium, and so probably behind their paywall, called, “The Death of Agile: Why Tech Giants Are Abandoning Scrum and What They Use Instead”. One of the alternatives the author suggests is a zero methodology regime. I extracted what I consider important from the article and argue these are critiques of SCRUM not necessarily of Agile. I made a note in 2021, called SCRUM, where after listing a series of critiques of SCRUM, I highlighted four of the principles from the Agile manifesto, which I think remain relevant, · Individuals and interactions over processes and tools · Working software over comprehensive documentation · Customer collaboration over contract negotiation · Responding to change over following a plan While not a fan of poor documentation, as I don’t consider the product finished without good documentation, these are useful, people centric and optimistic strategies.They rely on empowering talent, not micromanaging it. I first wrote about Theory X/Theory Y in my blog article “Maximising Creativity” (2004), where I acknowledge its authorship by Douglas McGregor. I first heard about it in the ’80’s and McGregor wrote his book , “The Human Side of Enterprise”, in 1960. In my previous article I concluded that while Agile maybe a Theory Y methodology/ideology, SCRUM is not, it is a Theory X methodology and the result of a Theory X methodologies is a Theory X organisation.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Kier Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen in a conference room" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> In an article/podcast in inews, entitled "Starmer's Government sees closer ties with the EU as a key part of plans to ramp up economic growth", the issue of deals with global partners to be a key part of trying to make Britain a more attractive destination for investment is allegedly discussed. See the full article at 'RemovePaywalls.com'. I made some notes inspired or provoked by this article, which was published in late July. Although much of this is extracted quotes, I make some comments. For more, use the 'Read More' button ...
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Kier Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen in a conference room" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/starmer-vdl-flickr-CC-2024-BY-NC-ND-w750-50x50.png 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> In an article/podcast in inews, entitled “Starmer’s Government sees closer ties with the EU as a key part of plans to ramp up economic growth”, the issue of deals with global partners to be a key part of trying to make Britain a more attractive destination for investment is allegedly discussed. See the full article at ‘RemovePaywalls.com’ I made some notes inspired or provoked by this article, which was published in late July. Although much of this is extracted quotes, I make some comments. She [Reeves] has promised to make this country’s economy the fastest-growing in the EU, but has been hit with zero growth since taking power a year ago, prompting accusations her tax policies have put businesses off. A report by the think tank UK in a Changing Europe found that work to bring Britain and the continent closer together is already well advanced, with the two jurisdictions aligning in 21 different areas – including climate and global dispute resolution – up from just four last year. However, the Government has decided to keep diverging from the EU on a number of strategic policies, including financial services and the regulation of AI. A government spokesman said: “We are not interested in divergence for divergence’s sake, or a race to the bottom in standards. If shared high standards with the EU will cut barriers to trade, we will consider them as long as they’re in our national interest and don’t cross our red lines.” Sir Keir Starmer has promised that the UK will not rejoin the EU’s single market or customs union, or accept the free movement of European citizens. The fights ahead The “Brexit reset” deal agreed by Starmer and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen at a summit in May was hard fought, with the UK forced to give in to the EU’s demands for a long-term fisheries settlement in exchange for an agreement on food and agriculture trade. But much of the hardest work is still to come, with ministers facing potential difficulties on two fronts. The British negotiating team, led by Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, now needs to turn the in-principle agreement into a reality. It is understood to have given up on the idea of striking further deals with the EU for now, in favour of fleshing out the details on what has already been agreed. While both sides are signed up to progress on all areas, they have starkly different priorities. The UK has food and agriculture, defence and border security at the top of its list; for the EU, a youth mobility deal which would allow under-thirties from Britain and the continent to live and work abroad for a set period of time. Brussels is expected to push for the largest possible cap on numbers in the youth mobility scheme in return for giving the UK what it wants on the other issues. Meanwhile, ministers will also have to battle with MPs to push legislation enabling “dynamic alignment” of regulations through Parliament, a process they want to complete within a year at the most. While the large Labour majority in the House of Commons means there is little prospect of the bill being blocked altogether, the Conservatives and Reform UK will use the debates to accuse the Government of seeking to reverse Brexit. For me, this critically states that the UK-EU summit failed to complete anything, even defence & security. Mood is not enough. The UK needs the single market for food, and freedom of movement of capital and labour. The balence of payments with Europe is worsening, inward investment is declining (and has rarely been enough) and without skilled EU workers, GDP is adversly impacted. Furthermore, the UK would benefit from the shield of the Digital Services Act. I commented on what I though the impact of the May UK-EU summit meeting was as an addition to my first impressionson this blog. The inews article was published in July, and I have backdated this to near the date of occurrence. Image Credit: Starmer & VDL from flickr CC 2024 BY-NC-ND w750 & cropped, this blog is non-commercial.
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="a chocolate birthday cake" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-50x50.png 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-45x45.png 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />Today, is the 21st anniversary of starting this blog. The first article called “Online at last” is still available. Back then I promised or hoped that some of what I put here, about IT issues, business and Computer Games (including
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-150x150.png" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="a chocolate birthday cake" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-150x150.png 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-270x270.png 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-230x230.png 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-50x50.png 50w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/happybirthday-w750-viaunsplash-cropped-45x45.png 45w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> Today, is the 21st anniversary of starting this blog. The first article called “Online at last” is still available. Back then I promised or hoped that some of what I put here, about IT issues, business and Computer Games (including Baldur’s Gate 2) will be interesting, innovative and useful. I also expect to just put some simple stuff up; stuff that does not warrant a web page, maybe I’ll x-ref my amazon book reviews and put up some that I don’t expect to publish elsewhere. I doubt I’ll be writing about either cooking or DIY. [It took a while but for various reasons I took up both although usually publish my thoughts and research on these topics a separate subsite. ] I am still writing about games too. I catalogue the history of the site on my History & Aims page. It’s gone through phases, and today is mainly about politics and technology and technology regulation. The more personal stuff is currently posted to the wiki, and the technical stuff is often previewed on my linkedin blog. I usually cross post to Medium, where I can be followed, if you are a member and would like to follow me there. Random
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="image of the alaskan highway" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-150x150.jpg 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-270x270.jpg 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-230x230.jpg 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-50x50.jpg 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />Last night I watched a video about Canada raising a large toll on lorries travelling from the Lower 48 to Alaska, and it documents and forecast the impact on the fragile Alaskan economy. It reminded me of the trade barriers
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-150x150.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="image of the alaskan highway" decoding="async" loading="lazy" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-150x150.jpg 150w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-270x270.jpg 270w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-230x230.jpg 230w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/alaska-sarahsheedy-unsplash-w750-50x50.jpg 50w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" /> Last night I watched a video about Canada raising a large toll on lorries travelling from the Lower 48 to Alaska, and it documents and forecast the impact on the fragile Alaskan economy. It reminded me of the trade barriers that the UK has put in place due to Brexit. This is potentially disastrous for Alaska, and is clearly so for the UK where today the FT reports that according to the ONS, the UK economy shrank for the second quarter in a row. The trade to GDP rate in the UK is 63%, which seems enormous to me, but it seems to be merely above average and yet it illustrates the UK’s dependency on the rest of the world to feed itself and keep itself warm and sheltered. The US rate is 25% which is low by international comparison and may be one of the reasons that Trump can afford to be as foolish as he is with his tariff policies, noting that it’s the US consumers who ultimately pay his tariffs. Source: World Bank. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="750" height="256" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/euflag-bobflickr-cc-2011-by-w750-cropped.png" alt="The EU flag, before castor and pollux, " class="wp-image-12816" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/euflag-bobflickr-cc-2011-by-w750-cropped.png 750w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/euflag-bobflickr-cc-2011-by-w750-cropped-300x102.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /> But for the UK, this is another piece of evidence that the UK needs to rejoin the EU’s single market, but even if this common sense actually strikes this Labour government, I doubt that the Eire/Holland/France traffic will return to the UK. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="976" height="838" src="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/117310452_ireland_eu_shipping_routes_x2_640-nc.png.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-13459" srcset="https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/117310452_ireland_eu_shipping_routes_x2_640-nc.png.webp 976w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/117310452_ireland_eu_shipping_routes_x2_640-nc.png-300x258.webp 300w, https://davelevy.info/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/117310452_ireland_eu_shipping_routes_x2_640-nc.png-768x659.webp 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 976px) 100vw, 976px" />