Open newslist

We haven’t done one of these for a while, not least because I haven’t been blogging enough. Here are some ideas The Populist Papers: this will probably be either AFOE or maybe Politico Europe, and it’s an effort to define what the key traits of populism (European meaning, negative LaFollette) are. My thinking is that…

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So I need to write some more stuff for the Pol. Progress so far is here. My self-imposed terms of reference require something that uses data or public documents and that results in a testable prediction. Also, I’m chary of doing something about Greece for fear both that the situation changes dramatically during the editing…

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There has been a disturbing lack of content here lately. Let’s have an open newslist to fix that. Some ideas: That Android vs Symbian post. That #Savileweek post about him as the first postmodern celebrity (will include pictures). A technical look back at the phone-hacking scandal, because I think there is at least one big…

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Things I’d like to include: Phil Lapsley’s book Exploding the Phone and some observations about telecoms billing records and the police that arise. David Wood’s book Smartphones and Beyond about how the future was right here and then it…wasn’t. (“right here” includes Macclesfield and Bury St. Edmunds.) Circling back to Scottish and other devolution. Is…

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It’s a little while since we did one of these. Candidates include: Think Defence has finished their epic series on the disastrous FRES procurement. It has much in common with classic IT project failure, for example, the NHS NPfIT. Also, we wanted to have at Eric Pickles on a related issue and we might yet…

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OK, it’s time for one of these. Books: I’ve recently read Mike Martin’s An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict, Ian Fraser’s Shredded: Inside RBS, the Bank That Broke Britain, Agata Pyzik’s Poor Sexy East, and Phil Lapsley’s Exploding the Phone. I’ve also got the MOD Lessons Learned Compendium on Iraq hanging…

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Looking in my notebook: 1) A substantial piece on JW Mason’s Disgorge the Cash (as requested) and John Seddon’s Freedom from Command and Control, plus Simon Head’s Mindless. You know you want it. 2) Two case studies on this post, and the House of Commons Defence Committee. 3) Steve Levitt, radical scepticism, and responsibility in…

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