Why we're losing the race

Dear lovely people,

Keir Starmer is telling everyone how he won’t take lectures from the Conservative Party and insisting that he’s done a very good job, actually. I believe that his girlfriend goes to another school, so we don’t know them.

Señor Burnham is giving us teaser trailers of what it will be like to wander in an Andy Wonderland.

A Number 10 in the North! What does that mean? Nobody knows.

He’s going to follow all the Labour 2024 manifesto, including the money bits - but there is some room for movement on money things. What does that mean? Nobody knows.

Something about taxing out of town stores more to fund cuts to taxes for pubs. It’s a weirdly specific plan in a world of platitudes. Can we extrapolate from there? Nobody knows.

Then there is loads of online chatter about kicking Palantir out of our NHS. Is this an actual policy? Can we remove one conglomerate out of the NHS in its entirety? Is there any evidence that whoever replaces them will be less shady? Nobody knows.

Parliament has ground to a halt.

Yesterday was filled with debate as to whether or not pubs should be allowed to stay open until 5am on Monday morning. The answer to that is ‘yes’, but also ‘make sure you go to school / work the next day’. Hmmmm.

Please, lovely people, don’t operate heavy machinery after drinking till five watching England lose on penalties, 2,200 meters above sea level. It was in 2001 that *Nsync played their seminal hit ‘Bye bye bye’ at the Azteca Stadium - 25 years later, those chickens are going to come home to roost.

Lucky for us, newspapers have pages to fill. We can enjoy endless, meaningless speculation as to what might happen.

Predictions are a fun game for journalists. Get it right and you look like some kind of modern day prognosticator. Get it wrong and, well, at least you tried.

For now, please remember that nobody knows anything. Not the future PM, not the journalists, not the MPs. Certainly not me.

If this frustrates you, I’ve got some bad news. Our new leader will take the reins the day after Parliament packs up for the summer. He won’t say a single word in the Commons until September.

A long, hot summer of speculative soothsayers awaits.

Peace and love,

Tatton x

I feel sick tonight
Ring the bell, throw in the towel; I ain't fit to fight
I'm in Hell; I don't know how I can hit this height
I've gotta overcome it, keep spitting tight, keep spitting tight

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

If you’re feeling fancy, you can pop yourself onto the internet and order yourself some Meta glasses. They’ll set you back at least £250. Some of the trendier Oakley versions are twice that.

Sure, that’s expensive, but what a treat! You can ask your glasses to give you recipe ideas. Who hasn’t wished that their glasses could help you decide what to have for your tea?

It’s not just for foodies, either. You can send messages, get directions and block UVA rays from your eyes.

Amazingly, none of these are the feature that really sell this technological wizardry.

It’s all about the camera. You can, without anyone knowing, record your surroundings in Ultra HD.

You can now pay £250 and be able to be as much of a creep as you’d like. You can record anyone, anywhere. Voyeurism on the free market. A lecher’s paradise.

Sometimes, the world is too boring. If you’ve splashed the cash to make some banter content, people going about their daily business isn’t going to cut it. You need to spice things up.

Passive degenerate to active provocateur.

Inspirational footage is hard to create. Humiliation, misogyny, assault and all the rest of it - that’s easy. Bullying for likes. All recorded in Ultra High Definition and live streamed for your viewers pleasure.

This week, the shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, warned that their members were being harrassed in order to create content. They aren’t the only ones.

The police have some powers here. Assault is assault whether or not someone is wearing these glasses. We have new rules about harassment.

It is unclear, though, quite what is legal and what isn’t. Where is the line between being a slimeball and breaking the law? What can we expect from law enforcement on this? Especially if the act of filming is inherently secret.

It’s not just these spectacles. E-scooters and e-bikes are in this odd grey area where nobody really knows what is legal and what isn’t.

Crime is committed online, but enforcement is a nightmare.

The problem is this - we can’t keep up. Those who wish to benefit from harms and potential harms of others are finding more and more avenues for their nefarious deeds. Big tech isn’t just facilitating, it’s encouraging.

We’re constantly on the back foot, legislating for yesterday’s problems.

Making a law is a long and complicated process. That’s not a bad thing - good laws need serious scrutiny and debate. Experts need to be consulted. Consequences, intended and unintended, need to be examined. This takes time.

We’re in an arms race with the degenerates. Every time we cut off a head, two more grow.

We’ve been here before with narcotics. 15 years ago, different synthetic drugs were being pumped onto the market. They weren’t specifically described in legislation, so weren’t illegal. Every time one was banned, another would pop up.

To stop it, the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 was put in place. It is a blanket ban on all substances that alter your mental state. There are exemptions for the substances we quite like: booze, coffee, medicine, etc. Nobody has yet been imprisoned for sniffing flowers and being uplifted by their scent.

Job done. Arms race won. Maybe the war on drugs is still ongoing, but the criminality is clear.

There are other examples of flexibility and fast moving legislation. A new law can give the relevant minister the powers to change things in perpetuity. This is secondary legislation or statutory measures. They’re not always popular because they can be made without any scrutiny, but they do allow government to act quickly.

None of which helps with the fast paced technology. Blanket bans aren’t the answer. The genie is too far out the bottle for that.

We haven’t got any plans as to how we’re going to keep under 16s off social media because we don’t know how to keep under 16s off social media.

Can we allow people to have the tech they want, but also stop reprobates using secret cameras for ill?

E-scooters can get people from a to b in a fun and eco friendly way - but if they’re not allowed on the road or the pavement, can they be used at all?

Don’t even start to think about what AI means in this space. It’s terrifying.

The rate of change brought on by technology is too fast. It’s too much. We haven’t got a hope of keeping up. We can’t expect big tech to help. We’re on our own.

Big tech is back in the changing room, glugging champagne, while we’re still doing up our laces. We’re not fit to fight.

This is, surely, a record low in terms of Parliament not doing anything for a week. Nothing is happening. Nothing. Luckily, the country is doing really well and don’t need any change.

Monday - Bits.

Tuesday - A day for Kemi Badenoch and team to set the agenda.

Wednesday - PMQs with David Lammy (maybe the last one!!) as Starmer is off at Nato.

After that we have Backbench debates. We never, ever have these on a Wednesday, but the government are wandering around, kicking tyres until the arrival of Mr B.

Today, it’s: ‘UK Rearmament and War Fighting Readiness’ and ‘Corridor Care in the NHS’

Thursday - As today is the home of the Backbench Debate, we’ve got a couple more. Debates: ‘a ban on trade with illegal Israeli Settlements’ and ‘the impact of strategic lawsuits against public participation’.

I’m off to Wimbledon tomorrow. We were gifted some nice tickets as a wedding present.

The Wonderful Katie has her outfit picked out. It’s been quite the topic of conversation in the year since we got married.

In an uncertain world, tomorrow we’re going to get confirmation of what we’ve all known all along. She will look amazing.

Alas, we will have to wait a little longer for certainty around Señor Burnham’s policies.

Be well x