The NHS has a unique resource - data. David Edmonds asks whether a combination of data and Artificial Intelligence will transform the future of the NHS. The programme features among others Sir John Bell, who leads the government’s life-sciences industrial strategy and Matthew Gould chief executive of NHSx, the unit set up to lead the NHS's digital transformation. As the NHS tries to make use of its data, the programme raises the danger that data may be flogged off to the private sector at bargain basement prices.
13 February 2020
Stephen Fry's 7 Deadly Sins: Envy
I confess. I’ve been guilty of envy. It’s not a pretty vice. And now I envy YOU - all the pleasure of this fresh new podcast ahead of you. You lucky lucky people...
The Atlantic: The 53-State Solution
Two of the past three presidents received fewer votes than their opponent. In 2017, most legislation passed by the Senate was supported by senators representing only a minority of the population. And after the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, all five of the conservative Supreme Court justices—a majority of the Court—have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, supported by a group of senators who received fewer votes than the opposing senators, or both. [...]
None of these arrangements are necessarily partisan, and for much of the nation’s history, they did not consistently favor either political party. But today, the system is in tension with the bedrock principle of democracy: majority rule. Due to an advantageous distribution of voters in the right states, the Republican Party has repeatedly been able to control the federal government despite a lack of popular support. In 2016, for example, Republicans failed to win a majority of votes cast for the House, Senate, or the presidency, yet nonetheless secured control of all three. [...]
A better solution to the problem of minority rule would address it directly. Democrats—if and when they regain control of Congress—should add new states whose congressional representatives would likely be Democrats. In areas that are not currently states, like Washington, D.C., or territories like Puerto Rico, this could be done with a simple congressional majority. But Democrats should also consider breaking up populous Democratic states and “un-gerrymandering” the Senate. Perhaps there could be a North and South California, or an East and West Massachusetts. A new state of Long Island, an area that is geographically larger than Rhode Island, would be more populous than most of the presently existing states. [...]
However, small and large states are now divided politically in a way they haven’t usually been. As Matthew Yglesias notes, one important factor is race. Nonwhite voters represent a growing share of the country, but they are unevenly distributed, often clustered in large states. Another factor is higher education. White voters are more divided on lines of educational attainment, and smaller states are more likely to have a less educated population than larger states. As these sorts of demographic divides have come to coincide with the rural-urban divide, one party—the Republicans—has benefited tremendously, and is now the favorite for the majority of states, but not the majority of people.
TLDR Explains: What Does the House of Lords Really Do?
The House of Lords has been discussed a lot in recent days with them annoying the Tories and Labour talking about scrapping the House. So in this video we explain what the House of Lords actually does and who the Lords are. In the coming days we will talk about if the HoL has a place in modern Britain and if it could really be scrapped.
Vox: Ruth Bader Ginsburg probably just dealt a fatal blow to the Equal Rights Amendment
Three-fourths of the states, or 38 total, are required to amend the Constitution. Last month, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA and one of only three states to do so since 1977 — but there’s a catch. Congress imposed a 1982 deadline on states hoping to ratify the ERA, though there’s doubt about whether this deadline is binding.[...]
Ginsburg’s comments are likely to be the death knell for the ERA. Without Ginsburg’s vote, it’s tough to imagine that five members of the Supreme Court would agree the ERA was properly ratified. And while Congress could, in theory, start the ratification process over again, it’s also hard to imagine two-thirds of the House and Senate agreeing to do so in an age when Congress often struggles to perform basic functions like funding the government. [...]
That suggests that if Congress were to decide that the ERA was properly ratified, the courts would be bound by that decision. But Congress has not done so, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he is “personally not a supporter” of the ERA, so he may simply refuse to call a vote on whether the ERA is part of the Constitution.
Politico: Bernie crashes the gates, Buttigieg cuts the line
The winner in New Hampshire, Senator Bernie Sanders, is, like the man he wants to overthrow, U.S. President Donald Trump, a gate-crasher who knows the only way he will be accepted by establishment power in the party or elsewhere in American life is not by persuasion or reassurance but by beating them head-on with the votes of people who share his grievances.
The runner-up, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, is a line-cutter just like the last Democratic president, Barack Obama — perfectly comfortable with establishment power, just not willing to wait his turn and indifferent to those who say he’s promising but needs more experience. [...]
The former New York mayor’s unorthodox strategy, skipping the early states and blasting his way into the race with hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising, gives him elements of both line-cutter and gate-crasher. At a minimum, his $50-billion-plus fortune, combined with zero restraint about spending it, allows him to not care much about whatever old rules he is bending or breaking.
This leaves Klobuchar — newly ascendant just as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former vice president Joe Biden are losing altitude with two weak performances in a row — as the only conventional candidate to emerge from New Hampshire with enhanced momentum. Neither gate-crasher nor line-cutter, she is the student who didn’t necessarily dazzle with charisma but turned her homework in on time and asked the teacher if she could have some more for extra credit.
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