UK News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

Survey Shows ‘Workplace AI Revolution Isn’t Happening Yet’ in the UK
July 3, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) The UK risks a growing divide between organisations who have invested in new, artificial intelligence-enabled digital technologies and those who haven’t, new research suggests

• Only 36% of UK employers have so far invested in AI and machine-learning technologies
• Just 10% of those who hadn't invested planned to do so in the next two years
• 75% reported finding it difficult to recruit people with the right digital skills
• However, less than 10% of employers expect to make a lot of investment in digital skills training in the coming years

Extracts:

Only 36% of UK employers have invested in AI-enabled technologies like industrial robots, chat bots, smart assistants and cloud computing over the past five years, according to a nationally representative survey from the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre* (Digit). The survey was carried out between November 2021 and June 2022, with a second wave now underway.
…
The new data also points to a growing skills problem. Less than 10% of employers anticipated a need to make an investment in digital skills training in the coming years, despite 75% finding it difficult to recruit people with the right skills. Almost 60% of employers reported that none of their employees had received formal digital skills training in the past year.
…
…Policymakers will need to address both low employer investment in digital technologies and low investment in digital skills, if the UK economy is to realise the potential benefits of digital transformation.”
…
There was little evidence in this survey to suggest that investing in AI-enabled technology leads to job losses. In fact, digital adopters were more likely to have increased their employment in the five-year period before the survey.

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/994170

*Read more of the Digital Futures at Work Research Centre survey here: https://digit-research.org/publication ... indings/

I'm interested in what businesses haven't invested in AI?

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

This is just completely insane.

Ticking time bomb for the UK economy.

[Time_Traveller]

Disposable vapes: Councils call for total ban by 2024

1 day ago

Disposable vapes cause litter problems, are a fire hazard and appeal too strongly to children, according to local councils in England and Wales.

The Local Government Association says 1.3m vapes are thrown away each week and wants them banned by 2024.

Single use varieties have surged in popularity, driven by Chinese brands such as Elfbar and Lost Mary.

The UK Vaping Industry Association says they help smokers quit and can be recycled.

Disposable vapes offer a few hundred puffs of nicotine-containing vapour, often with an added flavour of fruit or sweets, in bright plastic packaging – which are thrown away when empty.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66204853

[Time_Traveller]

[Time_Traveller]

April's UK-wide Emergency Alert could happen again under plans for it to become a regular event

14:01, 18 JUL 2023

April's emergency alert system test was ready for testing at the end of 2021 but Government feared causing a nationwide panic in the lead-up to the Ukraine invasion, The boss of Cobra emergencies committee has revealed.

Millions heard a loud alarm from their mobile phones on April 23 this year, as the alert rang for 10 seconds and displayed a message notifying phone users that no action was needed in response to the test. Some smartphones also read out the message.

But Roger Hargreaves, director of the Cobra emergencies committee unit at the Cabinet Office, said the system was ready for testing at the end of 2021, but Russia’s military build-up on the Ukrainian border, which led to the invasion on February 24, 2022, delayed a trial. “There was a lot of concern in Government that were we to launch a new national emergency alert system which no-one, in the generality of the public, had heard of just after a nuclear power began a European war, there might be alarm,” he added. "Ministers were concerned and wanted to give a bit of space between that event and the launch.”

Mr Hargreaves told MPs more trials would be carried out after the "massively successful" test in April, saying it was international standard practice to do regular test messages. "I think there is a case for doing it every two years, but we haven’t got a ministerial decision on that,” he said. “Every two years is what we would probably advise ministers but we’re yet to get a view on that.

Mr Hargreaves told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that one in 10 mobile phones failed to receive during the first nationwide test in April, blaming network operator Three for millions of devices not receiving the message. “We would have hoped to get higher than that. The big drop off in available phones was because one of the networks - Three - the message didn’t go through to all users, it went to about 10% of their users in England rather than all of them," he said. "That was the main driving factor in the number falling below the 95% plus that we had hoped for.”

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/uk ... t-27345209

[Time_Traveller]

Siân Berry to be Green candidate for Caroline Lucas’s Brighton seat

Wed 19 Jul 2023 19.47 BST



The Green party has selected Siân Berry as its candidate to stand in Brighton Pavilion to replace Caroline Lucas MP.

Berry, Emily O’Brien and Dan Rue were vying to be the Green’s candidate in the Sussex constituency where Lucas, the former leader of the party, has represented in parliament since 2010.

Berry is a former co-leader and principal speaker of the Green party of England and Wales, and has been their candidate for mayor of London three times.

She has been elected to the London assembly since 2016 and has been a councillor for the Highgate ward in Camden since 2014.

O’Brien has worked in Brighton and Hove’s community and voluntary sector for over 20 years, including leading the city’s successful bid to become the first Gold Sustainable Food Place in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ilion-seat

[Time_Traveller]

Siân Berry says Labour shift to right could help Greens hold Brighton

Fri 21 Jul 2023 07.57 BST

Labour’s seeming shift to the right under Keir Starmer will make the Greens’ chances of holding their sole parliamentary seat easier, but is ultimately bad for the country, the party’s chosen successor to Caroline Lucas has said.

Siân Berry, a former Green co-leader who has been selected by local party members to fight the Brighton Pavilion seat held by Lucas since 2010, said Starmer’s decision to maintain the two-child benefit limit provided a powerful argument to keep an alternative perspective in parliament.

“Keir Starmer is abandoning so many pledges so quickly, it’s sending a real message to people on the left – that they are no longer the party for things like improving child benefit policies, things like controlling rents,” said Berry, after it was announced on Wednesday that she had won 71% of first preference votes among Brighton and Hove Green members.

“It will only be Green MPs arguing for these things in the next parliament, standing up for things like repealing the horrendous Public Order Act, which Labour wouldn’t vote against.

“That does make our job easier in terms of getting elected. But it makes our job harder if we haven’t got a decent government – it’s concerning on a good-of-the-country level.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ghton-seat

[wjfox]

Summary of today's by-election results:

Uxbridge and South Ruislip
The former seat of ex-PM Boris Johnson is held by the Conservatives, but with a reduced majority of 495 votes. The proposed ULEZ expansion by Labour's Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, was a factor in the result.

Selby and Ainsty
Labour has taken the formerly safe Conservative seat of Selby and Ainsty. The swing of 23.7% is their largest since 1945.

Somerton and Frome
The Liberal Democrats have taken Somerton and Frome, overturning a Conservative majority of 29.6%.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Dropping green pledges would be ‘political suicide’, Sunak and Starmer warned

Sat 22 Jul 2023 18.11 BST

Britain’s leaders have been warned against a “politically suicidal” lurch away from their green pledges as concerns grow that both major parties may dilute their plans to combat the climate crisis in the wake of a shock byelection result.

Senior figures from business, the scientific community and across the political divide warned that any watering down of climate policies would be deeply unpopular with voters, set back the international fight to reach net zero and damage Britain’s green reputation.

There are fears that both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will loosen their support for such policies after the Conservatives’ surprise win in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection on Thursday. The Tories narrowly won the seat, by just 495 votes, with a campaign that capitalised on opposition to plans by London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan to extend the ultra low emission zone (ULEZ).

Sunak is already being urged by the right of the party and some of his own cabinet to rethink his commitment to green policies in the light of the Uxbridge result. Meanwhile, a senior Labour MP warned that Starmer risked “allowing the Tories to edit the next Labour manifesto” over climate change. The Labour leader had said the Uxbridge result showed the party must not adopt policies that could be featured on Tory election leaflets.

There is a concerted effort this weekend to ensure that the political unity over Britain’s net zero aims remains in place. Alok Sharma, a former Tory cabinet minister and president of Cop26, said it was vital that all parties maintained the political consensus on pursuing net zero.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... yelections

[wjfox]

Zac Goldsmith: Gove a ‘monster’ if he pans green policies while aware of urgency

Wed 26 Jul 2023 14.56 BST

Michael Gove is a “monster” if he continues to rubbish green policies while fully understanding the urgency of the climate crisis, and Grant Shapps, the energy and net zero secretary, is taking “backward steps”, Zac Goldsmith has said in his first major interview since leaving government.

In a surprisingly frank conversation with the Guardian, the former international environment minister also conceded that Brexit – for which he voted – could be detrimental for the environment in the end if ministers continue to abandon climate commitments in the face of a rightwing resurgence in the Tory party.

Goldsmith resigned from his post in June, after serving in government since 2019, claiming that the prime minister was “apathetic” about the environment.

Within a few days, it was revealed by the Guardian that the government would not meet its promised target of delivering £11.6bn to developing countries to tackle the climate crisis. This would have made Goldsmith’s position untenable, as his role was to negotiate with the developing countries expecting the funding.

Talking this week in the exclusive 5 Hertford Street members’ club which is owned by his half-brother Robin Birley, Goldsmith reflected on the changing attitudes to the environment that he has seen in the Tory party. Boris Johnson may have had a mixed approach to the environment but under his leadership Cop26 in Glasgow was accorded full respect. Now there are fears that prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is rowing back on climate measures as he is lobbied by sceptics on the far right.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ate-crisis

[wjfox]

A great win for the environment, science, and Londoners who enjoy clean air.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... ics-latest

[wjfox]

What an absolute shambles.

How far we've fallen since the Victorian era, when Britain's rail network was the envy of the world.

Like, how is it even possible to be this incompetent?

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HS2: Rail link rated 'unachievable' by infrastructure watchdog

4 hours ago

The HS2 rail line has been given an "unachievable" rating by an official watchdog.

It has been granted a "red" warning for its first two phases - from London to Birmingham then onto Crewe - by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

Issues were raised related to budget, schedule and project definition.

The multi-billion pound project aims to connect London with central and northern England but has faced major delays and criticism.

[...]

The London to Birmingham leg of HS2 was due to open in 2026, but is now expected between 2029 and 2033.

The second phase was due to open in 2032-33, but has been pushed back to 2035-2040.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66352286

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

How is drilling more for oil and gas good for the British people, are the Tories deluded?

[wjfox]