Richard Pope

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:05:48 +0100

Platformlanding with DEFRA and e-synergy today

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:48:53 +0100

As someone who failed GCSE English (and got a full grant) this is mildly triggering:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jun/17/students-pass-gcse-english-university-loans-proposals

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:22:27 +0100

Published today with @kinship.works NHS Operating Patterns - Ways to do good work together, in a decentralised system

Wed, 27 May 2026 16:09:48 +0100

Elderflower lemonade

Thu, 21 May 2026 10:04:46 +0100

What have drawings of peas got to do with prototyping digital services? www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-d…

Thu, 14 May 2026 13:33:51 +0100

Why it’s important to thinking of public sector super apps from the viewpoint of ‘the system’, not just ‘the citizen’

https://www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-doing/public-sector-super-apps-are-system-facing-products-not-just-citizen-facing-ones/

Wed, 13 May 2026 14:11:48 +0100

Lobster pots, complexity and starting small in the right way

Or the case against use-cases

https://www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-doing/lobster-pots-complexity-and-starting-small-in-the-right-way/

Tue, 12 May 2026 20:31:57 +0100

I can’t tell isn’t was just a late 80s early 90s blip (or age induced nostalgia), but it seemed when I was younger questions of ‘confidence’ played out in the House of Commons, at least initially. Now they play out passively within internal party systems and are worse for it? All a bit ‘use your words’

Why doesn’t Starmer just call a confidence vote, or make Kings speech a confidence vote and have done with it? Or the challengers? The British constitution basically reduces down to who commands the House of Commons (with a few caveats). Short circuit all the ‘how many people have subtweeted?’ stuff

Wed, 06 May 2026 22:13:01 +0100

In 2018 (ish) at Harvard Kennedy School I saw a talk about cyber (my poor filing system means I can’t find the notes) that included the proposition: how you think about cyber depends if you believe vulnerabilities in software are common or sparse.

I wonder if the people panicking about Mythos + open source are experiencing a rapid transition between ‘sparse’ and ‘common’ viewpoints, while those in open source world were already in a mindset of ‘common and that’s why we do open source!’

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 16:08:16 +0100

Popped in to see Larry

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 11:13:29 +0100

Given generative AI is all about predicting next words, when do I get a better spell check!? (I regularly have to Google words because my dyslexia induced misspellings are so bad my computer just shrugs).

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:06:05 +0100

Good thoughts from @edent.tel on closing open-source repos because Mythos:

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/does-mythos-mean-you-need-to-shut-down-your-open-source-repos/

I would strongly recommend reading the UK’s AI Safety Institute’s evaluation of Claude Mythos Preview’s cyber capabilities and the NCSC’s advice. Neither of them recommend closing down Open Source code.

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:56:08 +0100

Keep coming back to this video in the context of AI-based public services: [www.youtube.com/watch

If mentalizing / epistemic trust is the key to learning some things, is it ever OK for machines to fake it, or should machines only be in a supporting role to human relationships.

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:30:46 +0100

The Palintir mini manifesto at least makes it clear that if you buy their software you are buying it to a transnational political, military and economic project. The problem is public procurement officers are not exactly best placed to make that sort of decision. Software is politics!

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:22:11 +0100

This is beginning to feel like an inevitability:

Davey says war bonds would help to speed up UK defence spending

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:37:11 +0100

Kingsdown, Kent

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:34:40 +0100

Stop searching for AI ‘use-cases’. Design AI into services…

https://www.platformland.xyz/ways-of-doing/stop-searching-for-ai-use-cases-design-ai-into-services/

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:20:42 +0100

At the British Academy for a day long policy lab

Noted on the way in: the dedicated Champaign cork recycling box

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 12:43:41 +0100

Positioning AI

https://www.rpp.works/ways-of-doing/positioning-ai/

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:33:00 +0100

Captcha aesthetics are getting weird

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 23:07:17 +0100

More of this ministers showing prototypes please
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62d1ql5w0vo

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:33:20 +0100

In the search for calm things to play while kids are having breakfast, I stumbled across David Bowie doing Peter and the Wolf: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davi… It’s mostly very Jackanory, but with occasional very Bowie pronunciations of things like “the wolf ^jumped^”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie_Narrates_Prokofiev%27s_Peter_and_the_Wolf

https://music.apple.com/us/album/david-bowie-narrates-prokofievs-peter-and-the-wolf/742046759

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:27:23 +0100

I have literally no idea if I have verified my identity with Companies House or how to check. I thought I had done it early on and felt very smug, but it matched on my GOV.UK One Login email address, which was different. Then I thought I did last month. Still getting emails saying it’s not been done.

There’s a 14 day window for an additional step, which falls bang over Easter School holidays which can’t do much for the completion rate. Predicting a blanket extension.

This is something you would hope a digitally savvy minister and board would be all over before it becomes a news story.

<aside>I applied for NED role at Companies House last year, but did not get an interview. If I had, I imagine all I would have been asking about would have been this, given the global failure rate of ID matching projects</aside>

Originally posted on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/feed/upda…

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 23:57:04 +0100

The House of Commons Library on the concept on impeachment*

Impeachment is considered obsolete, as it has been superseded by other forms of accountability, and the rules underpinning the procedure have not been adapted to modern standards of democracy or procedural fairness

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-…

* in English/UK context

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:31:31 +0100

Help National Conversations fill the bookshelves of newly elected members of the Senedd and Scottish Parliament with books on digital government (including Platformland!):