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Does anyone understand this problem?

"AI risks triggering ‘catastrophic’ phone network blackouts
Ofcom raises alarm over risks linked to use of automation technology for monitoring networks" (£)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/21/ai-risks-triggering-catastrophic-phone-network-failure/

There are two main concerns with AI. One is that it can be used to find bugs in the code that can be exploited by hostile states, terrorists or criminals. Last week, the US Government blocked the export (or any use by foreigners) of Anthropic's latest models on these grounds. Effectively, the US Government is treating these AI models as weapons and regulating them accordingly.

The other concern is about cock-ups rather than conspiracies. If AI is used in routine maintenance of networks and spots a fault, it might take actions to rectify the situation faster than any human could react, and thus keep the network up so no-one notices the problem. The fear is that AI might apply the wrong fix and crash the whole network. You may recall seeing examples from other industries where production databases have been deleted or millions of dollars of trading losses.

Today's hot offering from Rawnsley, obviously on topic:

It would be unwise to leap to the assumption that the King In The North will now sweep southwards to effortlessly seize the crown jewels of Downing Street.

For his devotees, this was a “proof-of-concept” byelection. Get on with it and put the messiah of Manchester in Downing Street. That will be the siren song of the Burnhamites. [But] Bar superglueing the front door of Number 10, the incumbent has done everything he can to indicate that he will only be dragged out of the building by his fingernails.

Sir Keir has already suggested that, if there is to be a contest for the top job, the battle should not be joined before the people of Greater Manchester have decided who will be their next mayor in the byelection for the vacancy which will now ensue. That can’t be resolved before the very end of July, which is surely one of the reasons for making this suggestion. Sir Keir buys himself more time at Number 10 while increasing the chance that some of the shine will come off his rival as Mr Burnham is subject to elevated scrutiny.

This presents Team Andy with a dilemma. Press on with a near-immediate challenge for Number 10 and his enemies will portray him as a man who is entirely self-centred and too consumed by personal ambition to care what happens to the city he was running five minutes ago.

Camp Burnham would much prefer Sir Keir to agree to set a departure date. It is widely believed that Mr Burnham will urge the prime minister to take this course when they have what will surely be an excruciatingly awkward conversation with each other. Quite a lot of the cabinet favour this way forward. If he continues to spurn that advice, the test...will be whether they are prepared to resign from the government, with all the chaos that would entail, to attempt to bend him to their will. Others in the cabinet fume in opposition to the idea that Mr Burnham should be simply gifted the top job without a proper contest.

[Makerfield voters] have propelled Andy Burnham in the direction of Number 10, but that is not in itself enough to get him over the threshold. What happens next will depend on the feverish calculations made down in Westminster by the most senior politicians in the land.

If Labour want to win the Mayoral election - they can't have SKS leading the campaign - they need Burnham sat in No 10..

The Manchester by election for Mayor is on Thursday 30th July.

So I stick with my forecast that Burnham will become PM on Thursday 17th July, the day before recess.

This allows Burnham to campaign in the Manchester by election as PM with no parliamentary business to distract him. The only date in his diary will be the EU Summit in Brussels on 22nd July.

It took six weeks for Brown to replace Blair in 2007, how do we think the party can truncate the process down to less than four weeks now?

If Burnham can get 330 nominations by Friday then nobody else can stand.

Brown was the same. There were five weeks between Brown having all of the nominations and him being formally elected leader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Brown
On 11 May 2007, after months of speculation, Brown formally announced his bid for the Labour leadership. He launched his campaign website the same day as formally announcing his bid for leadership, titled "Gordon Brown for Britain".[86] On 16 May, Channel 4 News announced that Andrew MacKinlay had nominated Brown, giving him 308 nominations—enough to avoid a leadership contest. A BBC report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point.[87] Brown replaced Blair as Leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007.

Because Blair set himself a fairly long resignation timetable, not because it needs to be that long.

Starmer will take matters into his own hands to avoid the challenge by resigning tomorrow and give himself long enough to hit his second anniversary, which Burnham will be OK with as it avoids any unpleasantness, but there's no need for it to take as long Blair/Brown took.

But there’s a process involving constituency parties and trade union affiliates.

https://labourlist.org/2026/05/labour-leadership-election-rules-keir-starmer-challenger/

I don’t see how the party can get what was a six-week process down to less than four weeks, with the added complication that Starmer has a right be included if he wishes to be, which triggers a full contest expected to take three months.

If Starmer decides to step down he's hardly likely to contest the election; if he contests the election he's clearly not 'stepping down'.

And if Starmer steps down I can't see anyone else reaching the required 81 MP nominations. Thus there is only one candidate.

Even the Labour Party can't make a contest out of a one-horse race

They can, and did for Brown.

Which satisfied the egos of both Brown and Blair, so it worked.

They don't need to though.

Not really:

On 10 May, Blair announced to the Sedgefield Labour Party that he would stand down as prime minister on 27 June 2007, and that he would be requesting Labour's NEC to seek a new party leader.

Only Gordon Brown attained over 45 nominations and was thus elected unopposed.

Tony Blair tendered his resignation as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after ten years, to Queen Elizabeth II on 27 June 2007 and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown was asked by The Queen to form a new government.

Precisely my point, you've not quoted the entire text there.

Nominations closed on 17 May, with Brown as the only candidate.

Labour then proceeded to hold hustings, which Brown attended as the sole candidate.

After a campaign including hustings with Brown as sole candidate, he became leader on 24 June, over a month after close of nominations.

The campaign and hustings for Brown were entirely unnecessary, but it satisfied both Brown and Blair's egos.

Today's hot offering from Rawnsley, obviously on topic:

It would be unwise to leap to the assumption that the King In The North will now sweep southwards to effortlessly seize the crown jewels of Downing Street.

For his devotees, this was a “proof-of-concept” byelection. Get on with it and put the messiah of Manchester in Downing Street. That will be the siren song of the Burnhamites. [But] Bar superglueing the front door of Number 10, the incumbent has done everything he can to indicate that he will only be dragged out of the building by his fingernails.

Sir Keir has already suggested that, if there is to be a contest for the top job, the battle should not be joined before the people of Greater Manchester have decided who will be their next mayor in the byelection for the vacancy which will now ensue. That can’t be resolved before the very end of July, which is surely one of the reasons for making this suggestion. Sir Keir buys himself more time at Number 10 while increasing the chance that some of the shine will come off his rival as Mr Burnham is subject to elevated scrutiny.

This presents Team Andy with a dilemma. Press on with a near-immediate challenge for Number 10 and his enemies will portray him as a man who is entirely self-centred and too consumed by personal ambition to care what happens to the city he was running five minutes ago.

Camp Burnham would much prefer Sir Keir to agree to set a departure date. It is widely believed that Mr Burnham will urge the prime minister to take this course when they have what will surely be an excruciatingly awkward conversation with each other. Quite a lot of the cabinet favour this way forward. If he continues to spurn that advice, the test...will be whether they are prepared to resign from the government, with all the chaos that would entail, to attempt to bend him to their will. Others in the cabinet fume in opposition to the idea that Mr Burnham should be simply gifted the top job without a proper contest.

[Makerfield voters] have propelled Andy Burnham in the direction of Number 10, but that is not in itself enough to get him over the threshold. What happens next will depend on the feverish calculations made down in Westminster by the most senior politicians in the land.

If Labour want to win the Mayoral election - they can't have SKS leading the campaign - they need Burnham sat in No 10..

The Manchester by election for Mayor is on Thursday 30th July.

So I stick with my forecast that Burnham will become PM on Thursday 17th July, the day before recess.

This allows Burnham to campaign in the Manchester by election as PM with no parliamentary business to distract him. The only date in his diary will be the EU Summit in Brussels on 22nd July.

It took six weeks for Brown to replace Blair in 2007, how do we think the party can truncate the process down to less than four weeks now?

If Burnham can get 330 nominations by Friday then nobody else can stand.

Brown was the same. There were five weeks between Brown having all of the nominations and him being formally elected leader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Brown
On 11 May 2007, after months of speculation, Brown formally announced his bid for the Labour leadership. He launched his campaign website the same day as formally announcing his bid for leadership, titled "Gordon Brown for Britain".[86] On 16 May, Channel 4 News announced that Andrew MacKinlay had nominated Brown, giving him 308 nominations—enough to avoid a leadership contest. A BBC report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point.[87] Brown replaced Blair as Leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007.

Because Blair set himself a fairly long resignation timetable, not because it needs to be that long.

Starmer will take matters into his own hands to avoid the challenge by resigning tomorrow and give himself long enough to hit his second anniversary, which Burnham will be OK with as it avoids any unpleasantness, but there's no need for it to take as long Blair/Brown took.

But there’s a process involving constituency parties and trade union affiliates.

https://labourlist.org/2026/05/labour-leadership-election-rules-keir-starmer-challenger/

I don’t see how the party can get what was a six-week process down to less than four weeks, with the added complication that Starmer has a right be included if he wishes to be, which triggers a full contest expected to take three months.

If Starmer decides to step down he's hardly likely to contest the election; if he contests the election he's clearly not 'stepping down'.

And if Starmer steps down I can't see anyone else reaching the required 81 MP nominations. Thus there is only one candidate.

Even the Labour Party can't make a contest out of a one-horse race

Rightly or wrongly the party in parliament want Burnham. Nobody can get 81 to stand against him. Starmer won't stand. So it will be Burnham unopposed. No contest. Timing and transition logistics to be agreed between Burnham and Starmer. Could be quick or less quick. Backstop, must be done by party conference in Sept.

Today's hot offering from Rawnsley, obviously on topic:

It would be unwise to leap to the assumption that the King In The North will now sweep southwards to effortlessly seize the crown jewels of Downing Street.

For his devotees, this was a “proof-of-concept” byelection. Get on with it and put the messiah of Manchester in Downing Street. That will be the siren song of the Burnhamites. [But] Bar superglueing the front door of Number 10, the incumbent has done everything he can to indicate that he will only be dragged out of the building by his fingernails.

Sir Keir has already suggested that, if there is to be a contest for the top job, the battle should not be joined before the people of Greater Manchester have decided who will be their next mayor in the byelection for the vacancy which will now ensue. That can’t be resolved before the very end of July, which is surely one of the reasons for making this suggestion. Sir Keir buys himself more time at Number 10 while increasing the chance that some of the shine will come off his rival as Mr Burnham is subject to elevated scrutiny.

This presents Team Andy with a dilemma. Press on with a near-immediate challenge for Number 10 and his enemies will portray him as a man who is entirely self-centred and too consumed by personal ambition to care what happens to the city he was running five minutes ago.

Camp Burnham would much prefer Sir Keir to agree to set a departure date. It is widely believed that Mr Burnham will urge the prime minister to take this course when they have what will surely be an excruciatingly awkward conversation with each other. Quite a lot of the cabinet favour this way forward. If he continues to spurn that advice, the test...will be whether they are prepared to resign from the government, with all the chaos that would entail, to attempt to bend him to their will. Others in the cabinet fume in opposition to the idea that Mr Burnham should be simply gifted the top job without a proper contest.

[Makerfield voters] have propelled Andy Burnham in the direction of Number 10, but that is not in itself enough to get him over the threshold. What happens next will depend on the feverish calculations made down in Westminster by the most senior politicians in the land.

If Labour want to win the Mayoral election - they can't have SKS leading the campaign - they need Burnham sat in No 10..

The Manchester by election for Mayor is on Thursday 30th July.

So I stick with my forecast that Burnham will become PM on Thursday 17th July, the day before recess.

This allows Burnham to campaign in the Manchester by election as PM with no parliamentary business to distract him. The only date in his diary will be the EU Summit in Brussels on 22nd July.

It took six weeks for Brown to replace Blair in 2007, how do we think the party can truncate the process down to less than four weeks now?

If only one candidate meets the MP nomination threshold of 81, or if rival candidates quickly concede to a single undisputed frontrunner, the NEC can cancel the wider membership ballot stage, turning the election into a formality.

It took six weeks for Gordon Brown to officially take over from Tony Blair because Tony Blair chose not to resign immediately, instead using a pre-announced, seven-week transition timeline to manage an orderly exit.

If Starmer, on Monday, announces a 25 day transition timeline and there are no other candidates, that would do it.

"I have a few things to wrap up and Andy will need a few days to prepare, I announce I will resign pending result of a party leadership contest.

See you next week. Sorry, Wes. Not".

Today's hot offering from Rawnsley, obviously on topic:

It would be unwise to leap to the assumption that the King In The North will now sweep southwards to effortlessly seize the crown jewels of Downing Street.

For his devotees, this was a “proof-of-concept” byelection. Get on with it and put the messiah of Manchester in Downing Street. That will be the siren song of the Burnhamites. [But] Bar superglueing the front door of Number 10, the incumbent has done everything he can to indicate that he will only be dragged out of the building by his fingernails.

Sir Keir has already suggested that, if there is to be a contest for the top job, the battle should not be joined before the people of Greater Manchester have decided who will be their next mayor in the byelection for the vacancy which will now ensue. That can’t be resolved before the very end of July, which is surely one of the reasons for making this suggestion. Sir Keir buys himself more time at Number 10 while increasing the chance that some of the shine will come off his rival as Mr Burnham is subject to elevated scrutiny.

This presents Team Andy with a dilemma. Press on with a near-immediate challenge for Number 10 and his enemies will portray him as a man who is entirely self-centred and too consumed by personal ambition to care what happens to the city he was running five minutes ago.

Camp Burnham would much prefer Sir Keir to agree to set a departure date. It is widely believed that Mr Burnham will urge the prime minister to take this course when they have what will surely be an excruciatingly awkward conversation with each other. Quite a lot of the cabinet favour this way forward. If he continues to spurn that advice, the test...will be whether they are prepared to resign from the government, with all the chaos that would entail, to attempt to bend him to their will. Others in the cabinet fume in opposition to the idea that Mr Burnham should be simply gifted the top job without a proper contest.

[Makerfield voters] have propelled Andy Burnham in the direction of Number 10, but that is not in itself enough to get him over the threshold. What happens next will depend on the feverish calculations made down in Westminster by the most senior politicians in the land.

If Labour want to win the Mayoral election - they can't have SKS leading the campaign - they need Burnham sat in No 10..

The Manchester by election for Mayor is on Thursday 30th July.

So I stick with my forecast that Burnham will become PM on Thursday 17th July, the day before recess.

This allows Burnham to campaign in the Manchester by election as PM with no parliamentary business to distract him. The only date in his diary will be the EU Summit in Brussels on 22nd July.

It took six weeks for Brown to replace Blair in 2007, how do we think the party can truncate the process down to less than four weeks now?

If Burnham can get 330 nominations by Friday then nobody else can stand.

Brown was the same. There were five weeks between Brown having all of the nominations and him being formally elected leader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Brown
On 11 May 2007, after months of speculation, Brown formally announced his bid for the Labour leadership. He launched his campaign website the same day as formally announcing his bid for leadership, titled "Gordon Brown for Britain".[86] On 16 May, Channel 4 News announced that Andrew MacKinlay had nominated Brown, giving him 308 nominations—enough to avoid a leadership contest. A BBC report states that the decisive nomination was made by Tony Wright with MacKinlay yet to nominate at that point.[87] Brown replaced Blair as Leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007.

Because Blair set himself a fairly long resignation timetable, not because it needs to be that long.

Starmer will take matters into his own hands to avoid the challenge by resigning tomorrow and give himself long enough to hit his second anniversary, which Burnham will be OK with as it avoids any unpleasantness, but there's no need for it to take as long Blair/Brown took.

But there’s a process involving constituency parties and trade union affiliates.

https://labourlist.org/2026/05/labour-leadership-election-rules-keir-starmer-challenger/

I don’t see how the party can get what was a six-week process down to less than four weeks, with the added complication that Starmer has a right be included if he wishes to be, which triggers a full contest expected to take three months.

If Starmer decides to step down he's hardly likely to contest the election; if he contests the election he's clearly not 'stepping down'.

And if Starmer steps down I can't see anyone else reaching the required 81 MP nominations. Thus there is only one candidate.

Even the Labour Party can't make a contest out of a one-horse race