Lovely piece about how the government sought to misuse FoI law, and how the government was defeated. Enjoy the story. - ThreadSky

davidallengreen.bsky.social • 5 days ago

Lovely piece about how the government sought to misuse FoI law, and how the government was defeated.

Enjoy the story.

🔴 Remember Aria, the “moonshot" research agency dreamed up by Dominic Cummings?

It's funded by £800m in public money but exempt from FOI laws

We decided to fight for transparency... and we won 🎉

New on Democracy for Sale w/ @lucasamin.bsky.social

democracyforsale.substack.com/p/dominic-cu...

Comments

mazdachris.bsky.social•5 days ago

Is there any reason why the incoming Labour government couldn't have fixed this (and presumably other) sketchy loopholes designed to prevent transparency and oversight? It seems like it would be an easy win for them to expose the dodgy practices of the previous administration.

davidpaintstuff.bsky.social•5 days ago

They've inherited countless issues from the previous government.

I think it's more reasonable to assume it's simply not been a priority rather than assign malicious intent.

"Can't you just..." is something I hear a lot of work and usually fails to account for other demands on my teams time.

mazdachris.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yeah, that's fair - and something I can definitely identify with. I wasn't implying any malicious intent, just curious as to whether it was within their power to change, rather than speculating on why they might not choose to.

davidpaintstuff.bsky.social•5 days ago

As far as I could tell from the article, the only action required was to add it to the schedule of the FOI act, which the previous government didn't do to frustrate attempts to get information.

After that, the main issue seems to have been the Conservative government itself being obstructive.

vinnygrey.bsky.social•5 days ago

The chair of the dodgy company is now Starmer's AI advisor:
"Aria is charged with funding ‘high-risk, high-reward’ scientific projects, from artificial intelligence to engineering plants to feed the world. Its chair, Matt Clifford, is Keir Starmer’s AI advisor (and a Democracy for Sale regular)."