Same vibe in Durham.

What were your top 3 recommendations and why do you think they were ignored? Genuinely interested as a retired tech analyst and keen Panatir/Oracle watcher for 20+ years.

Aaah. I see you are that rarest of beasts: an IT lawyer. Which explains why politicos swerve your presence. But which also makes me wonder whether civil servants are not much better given the very long and distinguished history of IT project failure generally and gov IT project insanity (at times.)

It happens behind the scenes but the issue then becomes: how much do they truly understand? How willing are these folk to acknowledging that most need (name your portfolio here) #101 intense training, yet in the near certain knowledge they’ll be doing something else a year or so later. It’s rough.

Voters don’t care about those things.

Nonsense. I mentioned energy because you did but omitted the overall claimed 6% food price increases. Fish is now more expensive (by some margin) to meat which is already expensive. Some basics are x2 what they were just a few years ago. Home insurance up 15-20%. Council tax +10% in my area.

Try selling that to a low income or pensioner family…have you not noticed that our energy prices are based on global wholesale gas prices and not some mythical wind generated figure? Or that our prices are going up 2% in a few days?

Do you live anywhere near a deprived part of the country? There’s a reason this gov is tossing £350 mill over the wall at these places. Better than nothing, maybe too late.

It’s already happened!!

Not so. The key is to get people FEELING better. Facts matter nought when the lived experience of many is so poor.

Check in with Democracy for Sale and Sam Bright

If this is correct then McSweeney is an even bigger fool than I already imagine him to be.

Where? Mega money has hollowed out local news reporting.

Kaboom!!