Dafydd Vaughan

In the last 48hrs the UK Office of National Statistics removed 878 repositories from their public github account. Feels bad. github.com/uk-gov-mirro...

I have many many MANY thoughts about the Capita/Cabinet Office Civil Service Pensions disaster. But Mark summarises them better than I could. Yes Capita were/are bad. But this fundamentally is a failure of Government.

“the minister tried to shovel all of the blame onto Capita, ignoring the significant failure of governance by the Cabinet Office that allowed Capita to wreak havoc.”

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

🔥🔥 In a blog post about the process that led up to the disclosure of the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities, the PHP Foundation slams Chainguard for "unilaterally [breaking] the embargo." "This disregarded weeks of work by many parties toward a coordinated disclosure." thephp.foundation/blog/2026/10...

"Cyber correspondent Joe Tidy says he didn't know PHP existed until yesterday morning"

OpenAI, whose model helped researchers discover the vulnerabilities: "Given the severity of these flaws and PHP’s widespread use, we consider this one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory." openai.com/index/coordi...

Oh damn it's as bad as expected: If you are running anything on PHP turn it the hell off RIGHT NOW until you can patch it. Yes this means every single Wordpress, Drupal, and Wikimedia install. www.wiz.io/blog/php2she...

"how bad could it possibly be"

"The NCSC is encouraging UK organisations to prepare for immediate updating of systems using PHP. Where immediate remediation is not feasible, organisations should consider taking the system offline until it can be fully mitigated." www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/critica...

Well that’s one way of emphasising the severity of PHP2Shell from the Dutch Government… www.ncsc.nl/index-en.html

While today marks 60 years since a coal tip landslide claimed the lives of 116 schoolchildren and 28 adults in Aberfan, the disaster lives on not just in public memory, but through the very real risk of landslides in south Wales ✍️Deb Luxton

If you've not heard this previously, listen. It captures the horror of what happened 60 years ago today in Aberfan and eloquently reflects on how the community had to face their grief and the enormous tragedy in public, and above ground. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-w... "But Aberfan is different..."

Contrast this with The Guardian’s reporting… “The authors did not find that overdiagnosis was occurring at scale” www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

🚨 TONIGHT 🚨 Join us for Transform Gov Talks Cymru from @transformgovtalks.bsky.social & @transform.wales! We'll hear from: - Welsh Revenue Authority (a user-centred approach to the visitor accommodation register) - Shared Resource Service (giving council tax a C21 facelift) - Transform Wales

My latest on the AI and cyber stuff www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-pac...

Always good to know the emergency alerts have been sent. Of course, those of us who live in rural areas don’t get them because we have poor/no mobile signal.

I always suspected a UK government would eventually reverse course on "coding in public". So I've been backing up all government code. For six years. Today I finally generated a report on what has been deleted. Its much worse than I realised. github.com/uk-gov-mirro...

More than 24 hours into my journey home from an in-person work day in Liverpool. At least 2 more hours to go. Sometimes public transport is great. Sometimes it's absolute 💩. Power failure, displaced crew, train fault, points failure, damaged from a fire. All separate incidents, all in one journey.

This is absolutely the stuff of nightmares

There's a definite comparison with how Commercial Service is now an executive agency and trading fund and GDS just being PVAd onto the side of a few too many different departments.

❤️

Busy Saturday. Rabble rousing with our neighbours over a big local planning issue at 9am. Then off to Abergavenny Pride. Walked in the parade, bought some badges, had a drink. Melted.

This past 48 hours has been horrific. Out of nowhere, Dilys’s back went again. This was her 4th or 5th round of IVDD. We’ve lost count by now. But this one was different, no warning. So much pain. And she wouldn’t or couldn’t let us help her. We’ve been at the vets 3 times since Thursday night

Full blown rage before 7.30 trying to report (another) water leak to Dŵr Cymru. That was FAR harder than it needed to be. (We’ve had next to no water for more than 24 hours from another leak. Now there is one at the end of the road that has already been “fixed” 3 times this year)

Learning to pronounce someone's name correctly is a fundamental matter of respect. But the recent reaction to our new First Minister, Rhun ap Iorwerth, shows how quickly that basic boundary breaks down when it comes to Welsh identity and language.

Diolch @daivaughan.uk for writing this. The number of swimming certificates and many other such things that were spelt wrong. “can i call you Helen?” Amazing we now have a Heledd as MS! I may invite her up to “Heledd Fest* on Ynysoedd Heledd (Hebredies) one day *does not really exist (yet…)

As the new First Minister and Cabinet set to work, a timely post from us at @transform.wales today on how 100 days is enough to prove a different way of governing. transform.wales/blog/2026/10...

Results of the First Minister roll call: Rhun ap Iorwerth 44 Dan Thomas 34 Daran Millar 7 Rhun ap Iorwerth will now be formally nominated for appointment as First Minister. He will be the seventh individual, first Plaid member, and the first North Wales MS, to hold the post #Senedd #Devolution

60% of the new Plaid Cymru Members of the Senedd are women. 🥰

🚨 | First Senedd Results: First 6 seats: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 PC: 2 (+2) ➡️ Reform: 2 (+2) 🌹 Labour: 1 (-2) 🌳 Conservative: 1 (-1)

Democratic duty done ✅. Dilys voted for more treats, belly rubs & naps. #DogsAtPollingStations #Senedd #Cymru

Heddiw, mae Cymru’n pleidleisio. Beth bynnag eich gwleidyddiaeth, ewch allan i bleidleisio yn etholiad y Senedd heddiw. Bydd y penderfyniadau sy’n cael eu gwneud dros y 5 mlynedd nesaf yn siapio ein GIG, ein cynghorau, ein heconomi a’n gwasanaethau cyhoeddus am genhedlaeth.