Best Of

@Cyclefree had it right yesterday.

Just scrap the spend on digital ID and put it into the Justice Dept.

Uncharacteristically simplistic for you? What has one thing to do with the other?

The justice system is massively underfunded, thanks to spending cuts over the last decade and a half.

Rather than completely changing the basis of how we administer criminal justice (with minimal public debate, and significant implications for individual liberty) in order to cut costs, there is a very strong case for simply funding it better to do its job.

The money has to come from somewhere, and the digital ID scheme (also controversial, and quite likely useless) seems as good a place as any.

OBR calls in cyber expert over botched release of Budget analysis
...
Even though the document was not listed on the OBR website, journalists - including those at the BBC - were able to access by guessing its URL, which was very similar to one used in a previous official document.
...
The BBC was able to access the PDF version of the OBR's key report at 11:45 on Wednesday by replacing the word 'March' with 'November' in the web address of a previous edition.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgmn991pz9jo

Dunno what's left for the OBR's expert to discover, except how much the OBR will pay external consultants in order to protect their bosses' jobs.

I often follow that approach so I am ready to download the document as soon as it is ready. I am very glad I didn't do that this time and end up seeing the document before the media reported the leak, or I would currently be having a serious compliance conversation around insider information!
Sounds like the OBR screwed this up.

Aren't there ANY PB'ers apart me thinking, There but for the grace of God....

If the use of a jury rather than specialists really is the best way to go about things, perhaps we should introduce them in other fields too. For example, doctors could be required to persuade a jury of the suitability or otherwise of a particular treatment regime, and the dimensioning of bridges could also be determined by random folk, with engineers taking an advisory role.

Who are the specialists in truth telling, lie detecting, deciding between experts who disagree, or applying the 'satisfied so that you are sure' test if it is not ordinary people?

AIUI, the job of a court is to determine whether or not defendants are guilty of breaking laws. I'd have thought the best people to decide on this would be those who are experts in law. That's how it works in every other field. The use of juries seems completely anachronistic to me.

I think there's a bit more to it than that. Having juries is a defence against 'but this is the process'. The fewer actual humans you involve, the greater the risk of the processing winning against common sense.
Personally I thought the Colston statue rioters were a bunch of smug pricks. But I absolutely want to live in a country where a jury can decide their fate rather than a judge. Because one day I might do something legally wrong but morally right and be reliant on a jury.