Harry Metcalfe

open.substack.comOn making the deeply personal publicYep, I'm gonna do it here, strap in

17 July

The #EMFurby embarks. Can you find it? #emfcamp

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Lana Harper

@lanawrites.co.uk

12 July

Published my first Substack post in six months - it's about losing and regaining momentum with your writing and, as the title suggests, telling people the difficult life shit that gets in the way #amwriting #writingcommunity #writerssky open.substack.com/pub/lanaharp...

bbc.co.ukUK saves 'millions' of pounds by ditching Palantir for refugee systemThe government said its in-house IT system was

15 May

More of this please! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

owenboswarva.comOwen Boswarva's blogThis is Owen Boswarva's blog.

13 May

When will this totally mad nonsense end? I mean _really_. www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad...

8 May

Amusing Claude Code phrase number 761: "permissive footgun". Indeed Claude, indeed. Naughty robot.

7 May

[boomer-esque rant warning] There really is something about people outsourcing their responsibility to insurance companies "because of insurance reasons" that grinds my gears very loudly Don't blame the insurance monster, just own your decision

9 Apr

Just watched two founders on a panel, both who sell services to the NHS, both just answered a question about how to sell into the NHS by saying that it's too hard, and they shouldn't try. "Choose another vertical", one said. This makes me sad. If worked in the NHS it would be make me very sad.

blog.harrym.comThe spectator at the deskOn the troubling emptiness of extraordinary productivity

6 Mar

New writing! On finding meaning in work, and the effect AI will have on that, and what to do about it. blog.harrym.com/p/the-specta...

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Jason Kitcat

@jasonkitcat.bsky.social

2 Mar

More pondering on AI as I wrangle with what it means for public servants... Here's where I've got to so far: There is a useful path to take between hype and doom. It's time to keep experimenting and learning as nobody knows what the future will bring. jasonkitcat.com/2026/03/02/s...

jasonkitcat.comSome thoughts on AI“Anyone who tries to tell us they know the future is simply trying to own it.” — Margaret Heffernan in her introduction to Uncharted Take a deep breath. Nobody knows what is going to happen with AI…

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Lana Harper

@lanawrites.co.uk

23 Feb

A new post on something I've been wanting to talk about for a longgg time #writing open.substack.com/pub/lanaharp...

open.substack.comReason 4: Why haven’t you written that novel yet?Virginia Woolf knew it: money, money, money

bennett.ox.ac.ukOpenSAFELY news: you can apply to do non-COVID research, from today! | Bennett Institute for Applied Data ScienceWe are delighted to announce that - from today - you can submit applications to the OpenSAFELY service for non-COVID-19 studies.

26 Feb

Cannot tell if satire

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Tom Loosemore

@tomski.com

23 Feb

Brilliant, geeky, healthy news... well done to @bengoldacre.bsky.social et al.

Ben Goldacre@bengoldacre.bsky.social

OpenSAFELY is open from today! Huge thanks to all who supported this vast collaboration: whole population GP data; in a productive platform; innovative privacy protections; unprecedented support from professions, privacy campaigners; &c Now it's over to users! www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/02...

21 Feb

How can it possibly be the case that a fresh Ubuntu install, in 2026, still doesn't understand what monitors I have and what resolutions they support? This was annoying and weird ten years ago

thedoctor.bma.org.ukDoctors cleared of criminal damageSix healthcare workers, including four doctors, say their climate activism has been vindicated after being found not guilty of criminal damage for breaking glass windows at the offices of JP Morgan th...

17 Feb

The lack of coverage on this story is surprising, but ho hum. TL;DR: the medics who broke windows at JP Morgan as part of a climate protest, and who suffered a mistrial two years ago, have just been retried and found unanimously not guilty. thedoctor.bma.org.uk/articles/hea...

This feels like a case were the law doesn't really fit the situation to me: or at least one where professional obligations, legal obligations, realpolitik and personal principles all collided in a way that precludes there being an obvious ethical answer.

southbankcentre.co.ukIn Case of Emergency | Southbank Centre

17 Feb

I'm not generally pro people wrecking shit to make political points, but I'm glad this lot got found not guilty. They seem like a good bunch. And they make a pretty compelling case that JP Morgan aren't, and that breaking a few windows was, in this context, fine. So good for them 👍

I went to see a play based on transcripts from the first trial, it was extremely good and (although clearly curated) the transcripts made a pretty powerful case for the idea that these medics did in fact have a "lawful excuse" for their actions www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/in-...

Harry Metcalfe reposted

peterkwells

@peterkwells.com

15 Feb

"The Ministry of Justice will deploy machine learning to identify at-risk children for early intervention and to help prevent them falling into a life of crime" <- focus on structures and causes, not individuals, and look deeper than just "data" [repeat forever] www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

thetimes.comThe machines that will predict the criminals of the futureThe Ministry of Justice will deploy machine learning to identify at-risk children for early intervention and to help prevent them falling into a life of crime

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Alex Hern

@hern.bsky.social

15 Feb

I’m pretty confident in calling this fake. The user who posted it seems to be part of a substantial network of accounts with similar usernames all posting and commenting on each other’s content. Ironically it’s a great example of an AI agent making stuff up to tell you what you want to hear

blog.harrym.comHold the security: a vibe-coding storyVibe-coded doesn't mean vibe-secure, so we should try and stop the internet being full of even more broken things

14 Feb

A certain campaign website launched last week was a bit security-broken, in a way that has wider lessons for AI-coded stuff. Writing 👇 blog.harrym.com/p/hold-the-s...

👇Just an hour left to go on this! Go on and pop a quick response in before bed. Every little helps.

Harry Metcalfe@harrym.com

I've just responded to the Earned Settlement consultation. It closes tonight. The whole idea is dreadful but what stuck with me most is the gross arrogance of the whole exercise. A (cross) thread 🧵

Here's a word I don't use often: shameful. But this policy is shameful. I'm ashamed that my government has proposed it. It's arrogant, it's cruel, it won't work in any meaningful way, but it will make our country a worse place. Please respond (before midnight). It's so, so bad gov.uk/government/c...

ETA: I forgot to mention one of the worst things - that it's retrospective, and will apply to people already here, already working towards settlement but not there yet. People who've moved here, put down roots - only to have this government yank them out. An extraordinary breach of faith. Awful.

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Caroline Jarrett

@cjforms.bsky.social

gov.ukEarned settlementThe government is consulting on how the current settlement system should be reformed and how those reforms should be implemented.

If you haven’t quite yet found the time to do this, please scrape together a few minutes this evening - the consultation closes just before midnight UK time. If time is tight, skip the 200-word open answers. Your votes on closed answers matter. www.gov.uk/government/c...

Harry Metcalfe@harrym.com

Like @bmwelby.bsky.social said: this should mostly be a policy about how to help people to feel at home and build a good life here, with a bit of sensible protection to help us to avoid letting in too many murderers. bm.wel.by/2026/01/14/w...

bm.wel.byWhat ‘earned settlement’ tells us about belonging, character, and the country we are becoming - bmwelby's blogOver the weekend I spent some time responding to the Home Office consultation (it closes in mid-February) on proposed changes to settlement and what it calls “earned residence”. Please engage with it....

Instead we have one that starts from suspicion. Settlement should be a sensible process of integration that recognises a migrant's future as being here: but under this policy it's a hostile, exclusionary, decade-long++ trial. It presumes that a bureaucracy can judge who deserves to belong. It can't.

Across the whole thing, they mistake measurability for meaning. A person who's raised kids here, made friends, participated in local life is integrated whether or not they can pass a (fatuous) multiple choice exam. Real integration is lived and worked, but lived things don't fit on forms. Don't try!

And then there are the children. A child brought here at 3 whose parents face a 15-year wait could grow up entirely in this country and still face years of uncertainty about whether they can stay. Children don't choose to migrate. Treating such a child's belonging as provisional is terribly cruel.

The first pillar is "Character". But what the policy actually measures is criminal records, English, and earnings. Those are things you can observe: character is not. Character is morals, resilience, humaniness, the capacity for growth. The state cannot assess it and shouldn't pretend to try.

@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org

The word is revealing and it matters. If you tell people this is about "character" you're saying those who fail it are deficient as human beings. Not that they didn't meet a practical requirement: that they weren't a good enough person. Who do they think they are, to presume to say such a thing?

We begin with the Home Secretary's foreword, which is something else. She opens with her own family's migration story, declares herself a patriot, then lays out a system designed to keep people like her parents in constant limbo for a decade or more. The lack of self-awareness is kinda mindblowing.

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Simon Evans

NEW ANALYSIS: China's CO2 has now been 'flat or falling' for 21 months * Down in 2025 * Still below Mar 2024 * Clean energy wave a key factor If this is China's peak (TBC) it's the climate story of the century so far… www.carbonbrief.org/...

6 Feb

@garycp.bsky.social Hello, I notice that you were the first person to post about holdtheline.org.uk on here and Twitter, is it yours? If so please could you follow back for a DM?

31 Jan

Fun new problems for 2026: Claude Code puts API keys in its plan, and then puts its plan on Github/Gist

24 Jan

Rather gratifying, mid-debug on an annoying problem and having asked Claude Code "Is this just stupid Windows bollocks" when it replied "Yes, this is just stupid Windows bollocks" (I have learned my lesson and moved to Ubuntu)

16 Jan

I hope all the UKGC26 folks have a great time tomorrow! I'll be looking out for the highlights

16 Jan

Quietly amused that the Substack article reader pronounces Badenoch "Baddy-knock"

Harry Metcalfe reposted

open.substack.comRealism, antirealism and the middle wayI'm calling it Demirealism, but that's mostly an in-joke

13 Jan

New writing! On realism and antirealism and their mutual unhelpfulness open.substack.com/pub/harrymet...

15 Jan

Sorry to hear of Mark's passing 😔

mySociety@mysociety.org

In tribute to Mark Longair: www.mysociety.org/2026/01/15/a...

13 Jan

I don't think any TV people follow me except James, but if you're a TV person who isn't James, you should hire James and also watch his shows. He's rather good.

This post is unavailable.

open.substack.comRealism, antirealism and the middle wayI'm calling it Demirealism, but that's mostly an in-joke

13 Jan

New writing! On realism and antirealism and their mutual unhelpfulness open.substack.com/pub/harrymet...

8 Jan

AI code reviewer just told the other AI code reviewer, which is itself in another tab, that it was bikeshedding. Quietly amused

6 Jan

Snow in N19! Which of course now means snowy hens 🐔🥰

Harry Metcalfe reposted

Russell Garner

@rgarner.bsky.social

4 Dec 2025

Life is just one endless round of saying "both of those things can be true at once" and sobbing quietly into a beverage