131–140 of 210 posts
OK so the British HNers commenting seem to be unimpressed. :) Leaving this specific agency/project aside, what would be the right way to do this? How do we do public investment in high risk projects well?
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For those doubting the above, here is an example from the recent past of corruption from the Prime Minister, paying his lover with public funds: https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/31/10000-grant-given-boris-johns...
The problem with this line of argument is that it applies to anything and everything done under the current conservative banner. IE, Torrie/Boris corruption is the only topic. Whether it's a British DARPA, new sewage plant, or change to the tax code, the only thing to say is " They're corrupt. This is just another pilfering. " I'm sympathetic to the focus on corruption. Corruption is bad. That said, I don't think the…
Only because he's so enthusiastic and shameless about it. Open corruption is corrosive in a democracy, they deserve to be hit on the head with it until they stop.
And there's no point lamenting these poor (!) tories. If you were around when a bunch of ministers and high-ranking politicians were sacked, some of them thrown in jail, for using public funds for their benefits, you know they did not get away with it. Both media and public opinion were relentless, and that was under New Labour. And the sums were much, much smaller than these phony contracts to old mates.
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It's a good point, Labour did a bunch of PPI deals that didn't seem to benefit the public as much as the private collaborators. So it's not exclusive to one party, but the Conversatives have been in power for a fairly long time now. Long term we need transparency from whoever is in charge.
Sure, corruption and insiderism is an important topic in its own right. Up and down this thread though, it seems that British HNers are insisting that it's the only topic. IE, they're against this agency (and presumably everything else that spends money in any way) because corruption. Is this true for roads? No new schools, parks or research agencies until corruption is gone? It seems over the top to me. The " Boris'…
I'm guessing you're not living in Britain? The last few years have been on a different scale entirely. We've had to get used to a government that delivers contracts free of tender to shell companies owned by friends and donors that fail to deliver and don't even pretend to be legit (have you heard the one about the "ferry company" that thinks it's a takeaway restaurant?), while on the other hand openly jeering and mocking such causes as health worker pay.
In such light, tell me how you would expect "New project, £X hundred million initial fund, will use novel legislation to remove public oversight" to be received. It's not rocket science to work out that if you want people to be grateful instead of angry and you're a cabinet with a documented history of lying and corruption, just remove the last clause.
I appreciate the faith in progress, but in honesty, our legs are being peed on from a high height while you're in here nobly suggesting it could be raining.
The USA's DARPA program funded important research into - The internet - GPS - Graphical user interface and mouse - Onion routing - Voice assistant Hopefully this program executes well. There is clearly a big social payoff to betting big on credible people doing risky research with high potential impact. https://www.itpro.co.uk/technology/34730/10-amazing-darpa-in...
DARPA gets used as an example a lot, so let's take it as a our type specimen. What makes an (D)ARPA? What (besides funding) made it work? Is secrecy and/or low accountability important? Defense/weapons focus? Was the cold war a necessary condition? Do they have an investment philosophy that could be copied? Managerial philosophy? Is high level stuff even relevant or is it details like 5 year PM appointments and selec…
A couple things I'd pull out:
Program managers sit limited terms to prevent empire building
Program managers have a great deal of autonomy once funding is initially allocated
DARPA has a high appetite for risk. They're ok with 90% of projects failing to hit their goal.
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I think the problem people have is the FOI exception. There is no good reason for this, save corruption and wasting public funds. Other agencies are subject to FOI requests and public oversight, why should this one be different? So the objection is to that specific clause and based on very real facts about recent and ongoing corruption. Priti Patel is another example and there is a very long list if you want one of a…
"There is no good reason for this, " No, there are a ton of things the US et. al. do in secret, it's normal. There needs to be oversight, public is better, but an independent council can work. But yes, there's going to be a problem with graft.
I mean, if you FOI the MoD, they say no, but they don't have a blank cheque to avoid any scrutiny either.
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The comment is making fun of a proposal Boris Johnson once made about building a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland, which is considered borderline physically impossible as far as I understand.
Bridge, yes. Tunnel, no. It’s very feasible and practical from a civil-engineering perspective, but the economic value of a road connection between NI and Scotland has not been demonstrated to outweigh the economic cost of its construction.
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The current UK government has a blacklist of left wing journalists who they won’t respond to freedom of information act requests and they are fighting a culture war about bullshit while Dominic Cummings has the gall to claim his friends happen to be the only marketing company in the UK who are trustworthy!
> The current UK government has a blacklist of left wing journalists who they won’t respond to freedom of information act requests Source? Also, isn't it illegal to not respond to valid FOI requests? Otherwise wouldn't that defy the whole point of FOI?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those doubting the above, here is an example from the recent past of corruption from the Prime Minister, paying his lover with public funds: https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/31/10000-grant-given-boris-johns...
The problem with this line of argument is that it applies to anything and everything done under the current conservative banner. IE, Torrie/Boris corruption is the only topic. Whether it's a British DARPA, new sewage plant, or change to the tax code, the only thing to say is " They're corrupt. This is just another pilfering. " I'm sympathetic to the focus on corruption. Corruption is bad. That said, I don't think the…
They believe there is massive levels of corruption because, unfortunately, the media is largely composed of neuralgics too and they are quite happy to feed the beast. The past twelve months or so has gone from: Brexit is stupid to there are huge levels of corruption, all these people are evil, and should be in jail. It is alarming, although not surprising, that untruths have been swallowed so eagerly (to be clear, this is 100% about Brexit, not corruption).
So: under Labour the same stuff happened, when anyone asked for polling or consulting (the latest issue de jure) it inevitably came from people connected to Labour (McKinsey's London office in the 2000s was largely composed of people with political connections, they worked closely with Blair), this is normal because (shock) if you are in politics, you have certain ideas and aren't going to hire people who will try to actively sabotage you.
In terms of public contracts, what isn't made clear to the public is that the UK has several bodies who examined all of these contracts. The public believes that because they were fast-tracked, there was no scrutiny. No, the NAO looked at all the contracts, and found no evidence of corruption (there is a substantiali report on this topic). There is a certain publicity hungry lobbying group which has repeatedly claimed there was no corruption...the actual evidence of this has, still, not been found (and they have moved on from their earlier claims to yet more "shocking" new claims of corruption that they will still likely be unable to prove...unsurprisingly, they are raising significant funds to reverse Brexit...which is presumably their angle with all this).
So I would say: this isn't "corruption" in any global sense of the word. Most of the things that people attribute to "corruption" are bad govt. For example, PFI means some companies do very well but the issue was that civil servants and govts signed these deals, and paid no attention to the terms. There is massive scrutiny of govt purchasing in the UK. If you are corrupt, the risks are infinite and the return is zero. What does happen is: people choose to buy things from people they know and who agree with them (the latter being very important in politics), it is someone knowing someone else, this happens in business. Talking about "corruption" in British politics is, however, ludicrous.
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I'm not so positive. There is potential for this to become just another way to channel pork to friends and cronies. Which, considering the track record of the current executive, is probably the most likely scenario. I'm all for DARPA-like initiatives, but when it comes to taxpayers' money we should have decent accountability mechanisms.
The current UK government has a blacklist of left wing journalists who they won’t respond to freedom of information act requests and they are fighting a culture war about bullshit while Dominic Cummings has the gall to claim his friends happen to be the only marketing company in the UK who are trustworthy!
Jornalists FOI clearing house: https://bylinetimes.com/2021/02/01/an-important-victory-in-t...
Culture war: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universities-...
Dominic Cummings claims:
Cummings described Frayne and Wolf as his “friends”, but added: “Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing.” He said he “requested” civil servants hire the firm because, in his experience, it was the only company with the expertise to carry out the required focus groups urgently.
From: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/15/revealed-cummi...
Not sure why I've been down voted?
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The problem with this line of argument is that it applies to anything and everything done under the current conservative banner. IE, Torrie/Boris corruption is the only topic. Whether it's a British DARPA, new sewage plant, or change to the tax code, the only thing to say is " They're corrupt. This is just another pilfering. " I'm sympathetic to the focus on corruption. Corruption is bad. That said, I don't think the…
I think the problem people have is the FOI exception. There is no good reason for this, save corruption and wasting public funds. Other agencies are subject to FOI requests and public oversight, why should this one be different? So the objection is to that specific clause and based on very real facts about recent and ongoing corruption. Priti Patel is another example and there is a very long list if you want one of a…
Also, remember that FOI isn't some magic tool for stopping corruption. Blair brought it in, and has said several times that it needs to be changed. FOI isn't public oversight.
The Conservatives are not proven to be corrupt. This self-evidently not true because no-one has proved it.