The Conservatives want to brand Burnham’s administration as a ‘traditional tax and spend socialist government’

In a news release issued ahead of his speech this morning, Andrew Griffith, the new shadow chancellor, gave details of some of the questions he wants the experts he has asked to review small business regulation to address. (See 8.58am.) He said:

[Craig Mackinlay and Robert Colvile] will produce a report taking evidence from small business and self-employed organisations. While they will have a wide remit, they will consider in particular these key questions, and report in December:

-Why have past attempts to reduce the regulatory and compliance burden on small business and the self-employed failed, and what specifically should be done to reduce the burden successfully?

This is staggering. Our socialist Chancellor has dished out a big Bank of England finance job to a socialist union boss who knows nothing about finance.

Clearly, trade union donations not only buy your way into government policymaking, but also onto the Bank of England’s board. This is cronyism in plain sight.

Safety crisis makes it more likely that governments will be spurred into action, says Yoshua Bengio

Concerns over AI safety are reaching a point where governments realise they must act to protect the public, similarly to in the Covid pandemic, according to one of the “godfathers” of the technology.

Yoshua Bengio said recent events, including a “swarm” of OpenAI agents hacking a startup and tech insider warnings of an existential threat, were cutting through – making government action more likely.

Doorbell firm aims to replace WhatsApp or Facebook groups with platform where people can post about safety or lost pets

Amazon’s doorbell camera maker Ring is to launch its Neighbours community app in the UK in an attempt to supplant neighbourhood WhatsApp or Facebook groups.

The service is intended as a modern equivalent of a community message board, where neighbours can post about safety, community matters or lost pets.