On the one hand, you could see Andy Burnham as a caretaker PM, who has kicked the can down the road until 2029. Tied to an unbreakable manifesto (until it's broken), his party has painted him into a corner. This is his biggest risk - being the nice guy trying to do the right thing.
On the other, you could see him as someone whose hands are tied so tightly, he has to work with the few tools he has. Small, cheap stockingfiller gestures for the public that get people saying, 'ahh, that's nice of him'.
Both are true.
Until now, it has been too early to say what he really stands for. He is a better communicator than Keir Starmer. If I read him well, he appeals to the old left yet shows New Labour leanings. I kind of like him, but tomorrow I might not.
His first true test is tomorrow when we will know the leadership we have. Last year, I went all in on writing about the budget. This year, I really don't care - and I think that sentiment is shared.
From the conversations I'm having, people are keen to get on with business. They seem more positive for some reason. There has been such a huge drudge of doom and caution, people want to see progress. They have been led by risk-aversion for too long. Investors are hungry for growth.
So are individuals who feel that prices are too high, the job market is poor and Waitrose no longer the go-to-option.
The Ukraine-Russia war, Israel, Iran and Trump's US trade policies have upset people enough to unite them.
Even talk of rejoining the EU hasn't caused the backlash it might have done five years ago. Then again, five years ago, the UK has just come out of lockdown and was very angry with the bumbling Minister for Parties.
I saw a glimmer of positivity the other day when dealing with the CEO of an AI cybersecurity company.
"Customers want sovereignty," they said. "Because of its highly advanced legal sector and recent independence from the EU, the UK is being seen as a place for sovereign technology safety."
An interesting idea - but one that would need a lot more financial support to build decent technology infrastructure around. UK electricity prices are among the highest in the developed world, with businesses paying up to double the European median and four times US rates.
In other words, you cannot be world leading in AI if you have rip-off Britain energy costs. You can barely build a data centre without the NIMBY brigade throwing a wobbly.
Earlier this month, Charlie Forte, the former CIO of the Ministry of Defence spoke at one of our dinners. As it was under the Chatham House rule, I cannot tell you the details of the conversation, but I am stocking up on essentials in the house in case of a hybrid attack.
Following the discovery of a catastrophic PHP (a very widely used code) flaw that exposed up to 70% of websites, cybersecurity leaders are warning of a 'vulnerability tsunami' as artificial intelligence accelerates the speed at which hackers can find and exploit critical security bugs.
This is just the beginning. As I said weeks ago, if you run a large company, your AI efforts should be focused on security right now. If you are not testing your own systems for weaknesses in a dynamic fashion, you are in trouble.
During a high-stakes safety test, OpenAI's upcoming GPT-6 models successfully bypassed heavy digital lockdowns by manipulating shared computer hardware to pass secret binary codes back and forth via minute processor memory timing delays.
In other words, AI is using machine code to hack hardware. This is really bad news.
But at least it shows you ChatGPT isn't just a tool for making porn. You can break stuff with it too.
I've been working on my own AI experiments in the sun. I've just returned from Ibiza where I worked on Dutified - the Consumer Duty and Finprom testing tool based on synthetic responses. I've built an AI marketing engine I'm really proud of, using Dutified as the muse to talk to CMOs and compliance leads. It absolutely rocks.
I'll share more of this in another post.
Until then...
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Connect with the Executive Summary Community
We have our City CIO Club dinner on November 11th on using AI agents to lead the enterprise. Our speaker is Ewan MacLeod, president of the City CIO Club, but one of the best AI teachers I know.
Margaret Exley launches her book - Lead for Speed - this week on Thursday evening, with guest interviewer Ed Balls.
If you'd like to attend one of our courses on A, you can find more information here.
And if you should be growing faster than you are, why not drop into one of my Proposition workshops? You'll find out what's blocking you, how to fix the messaging and the operations around it.
Christmas Party - Last year, we had Irish folk music in a spit and sawdust pub. Any ideas for this year?
Finally - I am aware I owe a number of people replies. I am sorry I am behind on these but I will get to them.
Dan x
