May Bulman

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SMALL BOATS CRISIS by @milesellingham and @jackjeffery50 What Nigel Farage won’t tell you A decade ago, an area of 1.5 square miles north of Calais’s N216 motorway housed almost 10,000 people. It was called the jungle. There were radio stations, churches, mosques, a market street, even a nightclub. But in the end government consensus couldn’t abide the jungle – it became too unstable, unsanitary and unsafe. Demolition crews arrived in 2016. It was decided nothing like the jungle should ever grow back. But world events kept pushing more people towards France. A new, deadly route opened: boats began to arrive in Kent. These boats unearthed a buried fear in Britain. The migrants metamorphosed from unwitting fragments forced into motion by humanitarian crisis to an invasive force of criminals and sexual predators. Politicians and agitators insist they are a threat to British school girls. In our reporting, we have been deep into the camps across northern France and spoken at length to the migrants who passed through. We’ve approached aid workers, politicians, locals, policemen and town planners. What emerges pertains not just to a failure of policy, but a failure of humanity. The living conditions are appalling. The border has taught the children a new game: they check each other’s passports. Nearly every story begins with an escape. Of everyone we spoke to, only one stated that he had left because of the job market. The rest recalled genocidal militias, airstrikes, repressive regimes, religious persecution, torture, mutilation and death. The Labour government has tried a new approach, announcing its “one in, one out” policy. Only two of the migrants we spoke to were aware of it. Yet one of those two could explain the legal intricacies of the Dublin Regulation and why the UK’s withdrawal was to his advantage. ‘‘The main reason I am coming to Britain is because of protection from deportation, because of Dublin.” It’s possible Nigel Farage will win the next election, and turn Britain into a country of mass detention and deportation – a place where asylum is banned. Perhaps then migrants will think about the UK differently. Perhaps we all will.

INSIDE THE TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE with @LHreports, @PeterKGeoghegan and @maybulman Since 2021, Larry Ellison’s personal foundation – the Larry Ellison Foundation – has donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute, making it a think tank like no other in the UK. Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries. Speak to anyone close to Tony Blair and they will confirm his conviction in the revolutionary potential of AI. The former prime minister believes it will completely reshape the global economy in ways that political leaders the world over are only just starting to realise. But it is also the case that Ellison’s Oracle has major commercial interests at stake in the question of which companies get access to Britain’s most valuable data. In the course of our investigation into the TBI, we spoke to 29 current and former staff, most on condition of anonymity. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister. Some TBI staff – including a number who left in recent years because of Ellison’s influence – say the cash injection has produced a culture that is dominated by a form of AI boosterism, and which, as they see it, amounts to lobbying for Oracle. The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies. In an August 2024 paper on “preparing the NHS for the AI era”, TBI found “good reasons” for building new digital health records with an existing system run by Oracle.

Digital ID cards will stop illegal migrants 'slipping into the shadow economy,' Starmer to insist lbc.co.uk/article/digita…

INSIDE THE TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE with @LHreports, @PeterKGeoghegan and @maybulman Since 2021, Larry Ellison’s personal foundation – the Larry Ellison Foundation – has donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute, making it a think tank like no other in the UK. Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries. Speak to anyone close to Tony Blair and they will confirm his conviction in the revolutionary potential of AI. The former prime minister believes it will completely reshape the global economy in ways that political leaders the world over are only just starting to realise. But it is also the case that Ellison’s Oracle has major commercial interests at stake in the question of which companies get access to Britain’s most valuable data. In the course of our investigation into the TBI, we spoke to 29 current and former staff, most on condition of anonymity. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister. Some TBI staff – including a number who left in recent years because of Ellison’s influence – say the cash injection has produced a culture that is dominated by a form of AI boosterism, and which, as they see it, amounts to lobbying for Oracle. The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies. In an August 2024 paper on “preparing the NHS for the AI era”, TBI found “good reasons” for building new digital health records with an existing system run by Oracle.

INSIDE THE TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE with @LHreports, @PeterKGeoghegan and @maybulman Since 2021, Larry Ellison’s personal foundation – the Larry Ellison Foundation – has donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute, making it a think tank like no other in the UK. Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries. Speak to anyone close to Tony Blair and they will confirm his conviction in the revolutionary potential of AI. The former prime minister believes it will completely reshape the global economy in ways that political leaders the world over are only just starting to realise. But it is also the case that Ellison’s Oracle has major commercial interests at stake in the question of which companies get access to Britain’s most valuable data. In the course of our investigation into the TBI, we spoke to 29 current and former staff, most on condition of anonymity. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister. Some TBI staff – including a number who left in recent years because of Ellison’s influence – say the cash injection has produced a culture that is dominated by a form of AI boosterism, and which, as they see it, amounts to lobbying for Oracle. The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies. In an August 2024 paper on “preparing the NHS for the AI era”, TBI found “good reasons” for building new digital health records with an existing system run by Oracle.

INSIDE THE TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE with @LHreports, @PeterKGeoghegan and @maybulman Since 2021, Larry Ellison’s personal foundation – the Larry Ellison Foundation – has donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute, making it a think tank like no other in the UK. Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries. Speak to anyone close to Tony Blair and they will confirm his conviction in the revolutionary potential of AI. The former prime minister believes it will completely reshape the global economy in ways that political leaders the world over are only just starting to realise. But it is also the case that Ellison’s Oracle has major commercial interests at stake in the question of which companies get access to Britain’s most valuable data. In the course of our investigation into the TBI, we spoke to 29 current and former staff, most on condition of anonymity. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister. Some TBI staff – including a number who left in recent years because of Ellison’s influence – say the cash injection has produced a culture that is dominated by a form of AI boosterism, and which, as they see it, amounts to lobbying for Oracle. The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies. In an August 2024 paper on “preparing the NHS for the AI era”, TBI found “good reasons” for building new digital health records with an existing system run by Oracle.