Greig Baker

Rather than asking the public sector to do "more, for less", perhaps we could be telling it to do "less, better".

Rationally, it might be better for HMG (and other Western Governments) to do the same thing, just writ large. Officials can’t hope to stop someone from trying to use AI to cause a bank run, for example, but they might be able to build measures that make the attempt futile.

Longer term, we also expect other Governments’ responses to AI to reinforce differences between emerging cybergeographic blocs – trade between countries like the USA and China isn’t going to be helped if they take competing approaches to AI use and regulation.

Ministers will struggle to regulate AI. That’s because potential bad actors (states and/ or individuals) who want to abuse AI can operate beyond any regulation that HMG could create.

But that is not on the cards for now – not least because it would lead to Whitehall losing, not gaining, influence.

A better solution could entail giving Local Authorities both more freedom to decide local planning laws and a fiscal incentive to liberalise them (e.g. retaining some of the personal taxes levied on people persuaded to live in an area?).

There is an underestimation of @UKLabour’s ideological preferences – Starmer’s shadow cabinet is not simply Blairism revisited. Blair and his Cabinet prepared for Government during the years of Kinnock and Smith. The current Labour Party evolved under Miliband and Corbyn.

The @OBR_UK prediction for last year's Government debt, which influenced tax policy decisions, was about 10% out.

.@kent_police do an extraordinarily difficult job and I saw them doing it really well today. Just grateful for them. Thanks.

Perhaps people working past pensionable age shouldn't pay any income tax? It would incentivise economic contribution and prolong the health/ social/ community benefits of work.

Good ideas do not need to be sheltered by rewriting old books

Passport staff going on strike got me thinking... Now passports include biometric data, can we just get ones that last for a lifetime and cut the bureaucracy/ cost racket of renewals?

The golden rule of Budgets is that first day headlines are reversed by the weekend.

Always impressed that the OBR has the gumption to make predictions for five years' time.