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by nonrandomstring 1467 days ago
> In my experience, any time the tech folks were in-house, the "doer class" (i.e. the boots-on-the-ground engineers) were some of the smartest, most motivated individuals I've worked with

Lions led by donkeys as they used to say.

> I suspect we lack the political will/vision, and the requisite > leadership/management abilities

I'll differ a little here. I think we can have capable people at all levels and I am generally confident in the UK to come through in the end. We can do good leadership too. The reason the donkeys won't carry their load is that they're corrupt, undisciplined and disloyal. They're there to serve us but we forget who holds the stick.

> manner that doesn't just result in the next round of useless bungs > to politically connected mates.

Precisely. My guess is Nick Clegg and Priti Patel are the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. We're becoming a vassal state to the third richest "nation state" on Earth [1], because they have our politicians in their pockets.

[1] The combined wealth of Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Facebook now places them collectively above Russia as the number three "superpower". https://www.wired.co.uk/article/big-tech-geopolitics

> P.S.: Entirely off-topic -- do you compose your replies in Emacs or something like that? Or at least resort to using semantic line breaks? (https://sembr.org/) I ask because your comment looks fine on the website, but shows line breaks after sentences in an HN reader

Yes, Emacs, Well spotted. Yet another fingerprint to watch for! :)