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Probably42 News - June 2024
Welcome to our June/July Newsletter!
The election is finally around the corner with voting next week. It would appear that many of us are not inspired by any of the parties and trust and confidence in their abilities and politicians generally is at an all-time low. This may be compounded by the Institute for Fiscal Studies saying that after analysing the main parties manifestos they have ‘hidden and ducked’ their real choices on tax and spending.
Have you looked at any of the party manifestos? We are all guilty of relying on the media to interpret them for us. If you want to take a brief look here are some useful references:
These references may be interesting prior to the election but in particular the manifesto of the winning party or parties will be important input to this discussion.
- Candidates in the 2024 United Kingdom general election - Wikipedia – a long list of the many minor parties contesting some seats in the election.
- How the major political party manifestos compare - Which? News
- Conservative Manifesto 2024 (conservatives.com)
- Change – The Labour Party
- Policies Reform UK - Reform UK (reformparty.uk)
- For a Fair Deal - Liberal Democrats Manifesto 2024 - Liberal Democrats (libdems.org.uk)
- SNP 2024 Manifesto: A Future Made in Scotland — Scottish National Party
- Our 2024 General Election Manifesto - Green Party
We have also been struck by the lack of Vision and Ambition being put forward by any party for the longer term. This is especially true when technology and particularly Artificial Intelligence offer us so many opportunities for increasing quality and reducing costs over the next 20 years. There are of course pitfalls as well, which need to be planned for. Our view is that to make good short-term decisions you have to know where you are trying to get to in the long-term and your strategies to get there. However, AI hasn’t even got a look in during the campaign and the media haven’t tried to include it on the agenda.
As you may know we have developed our own Manifesto for Society in the AI Future which we believe offers genuine Vision and Ambition and a context for taking short-term decisions. It also offers improvements to our democratic system. We’ve also produced a short Summary Version (the sales version if you like). We have previously sent it to all parties as an input to their thinking but with limited success. We will continue to promote it to whoever wins the election. We’d love to know what you think of this Manifesto and any of your own suggestions for inclusion.
Recent Discussions
The outputs of our most recent discussion is Nationalisation and its relevance in the 21st Century. Other discussions since the last newsletter are at:
- Defence - Putting ourselves on a war footing
- Birth Rate - Economic and Social Implications of a Falling Birth Rate
- AI- How can Government prevent AI undermining our society
Forthcoming Discussions
This month's discussion will take place after the election and will look at the outcomes and prospects for the new Government. We did a similar thing after the 2019 election, you might like to take a look at what we had to say at the time at Election Outcomes.
The proposed agenda is at Topic for July - Election Outcomes 2024.
Government Information that may interest you
As usual we highlight more examples of information on Parliament activity and outputs which may interest you. It is an interesting question as to whether these will survive the election:
- The Government's recent commitment on defence spending Defending Britain - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- The actions the government is taking to deliver efficiencies Seizing the Opportunity: Delivering Efficiency for the Public - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- The UK Government's plan to work with developing countries for an inclusive, responsible and sustainable digital future Digital development strategy 2024 to 2030 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Why not join a Group?
If you’d like to join one of the Probably42 discussion groups held via videoconferencing, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you more details. We very much want a diversity of viewpoints, so you can be sure your views will be welcomed. Remember it’s about relaxed discussion and having an enjoyable time, with hopefully some useful ideas identified.
We also want to encourage face-to-face real world discussion groups, as feeders into the main online discussions. If you’d like to find out more about the one in Berkshire, or if you’d like to see one start in your area, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you details.
Feedback
We always welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas or questions about Probably42. Simply reply to this newsletter and you’ll receive a personal reply.
All the best
Tony