Letter of the week: Nigel Farage is an embarrassment to himself

Tanit Koch – I make sure never to miss her column. The living pictures of Germany she paints in her Germansplaining articles are second to none.
Penelope Lane

Over the next 500 editions, there is the potential for TNW to have a critical role in developing UK understanding of how the EU can contribute positively to the global order. You would need to talk much more about what the EU is trying to do in its own terms and how it goes about it. This has always been missing from UK debate.
Mike Coyne

Nicely done, Matt, looking forward to the next 500. Have you considered politics as a late career change? 
John Price

Re: “Alastair Campbell’s diary,” TNW #500

Alastair makes a good point about Farage complaining that Burnham’s new initiative is anti-free speech when it would actually prevent Russia spreading misinformation. 
Mike Dowd

Why should Burnham seek to embarrass Farage when he embarrasses himself every time he opens his mouth?
Brian Ronson

First time I’ve heard of the 93% Club for state-educated people only, but this is obviously the root of many of our social and economic issues. It’s notable that Farage, Johnson et al are not members. Just watched Andy Burnham. He and his dad clearly belong to the 93% Club – more power to his elbow, especially on Europe.
John Simpson

I regularly write about the 93% the Times ignores when the paper turns every school story into a gripe about VAT on school fees.
Stephen Baker

Re: “Worried about the AI apocalypse? You’re already living in it,” by Matthew d’Ancona, TNW #500

I agree. AI development is out of control and unacceptably risky. As with all technology, individual views on the subject will inevitably fall into “embrace-the-future” and “luddite” camps. It is, in hindsight, and in view of human intelligence, astonishing how we continue to wildly celebrate our human technological inventiveness, while totally ignoring or downplaying negative effects.
Jonathan Haynes

Fabulous piece, thank you. I was in the supermarket the other day and couldn’t find some product or other. With no staff visible to ask, I got instantly irritated and got my phone out to ask Gemini where it was, which of course it told me (I stopped short of saying thank you!). I recognise everything Matthew is highlighting, especially AI’s insidious methods. Its potential for good is exciting, but it’s naive to think bad actors aren’t going to get the upper hand with it.
John MacLeod

Suggested Reading

Worried about the AI apocalypse? You’re already living in it

Matthew d’Ancona

In 1966 DF Jones wrote a sci-fi novel called Colossus about a computer built for defence that broke out of its programming confines, began to absorb every piece of knowledge in existence and eventually controlled humanity. Sound familiar? I read this book when I was 15, and was genuinely horrified. Yet here we are.
Janet Bayford

Much of the problem comes from the terminology. This isn’t intelligence. It’s a combination of computation and guesswork.
Patrick Reynolds

Don’t panic! The Orange One has announced that AI (rebranded “super intelligence”) will be
self-regulating in his “greatest ever” pact with the tech bros.
David Irwin

Re: “This is how you beat a populist,” by James Ball, TNW #500

The point of a leader is to lead, not confer with polling studies. Get some good ideas and implement them.
Shane Sidlow

Re: “Meet the most terrifying man in Italian politics,” by Silvia Marchetti, TNW #500

There is a sizeable segment of Italian society for whom this chap is the Duce reborn. Many, many more are revolted by him and lots of others will laugh and think it can never happen. But they elected old Bunga-Bunga Berlusconi three times. Desperate people will vote for anything.
John Price

Re: “Sorry Nigel, Reform are done,” by Peter Kellner, TNW #500

Thanks, Peter. Now can you please cheer us up about Marine Le Pen?
Roger Barnes

Suggested Reading

Sorry Nigel, but the polls show you’ve had it

Peter Kellner

Re “Rupert Lowe’s digital hunting ground,” by Holly Thomas, TNW #500

I’m older than Lowe and despite saying on Facebook that I don’t want to see crap from Reform, I still get recommendations for Reform every day. So far I’ve not had any Restore recommendations, but they shall be consigned to the circle of hell they deserve.
David Pollard

All social media is hateful to greater or lesser degrees. I would advise anyone not to bother with any of it. My mood has greatly improved since I closed all of my accounts. Twitter went from being the best platform to the biggest cesspit virtually overnight, and I think we all know why that is.
Richard Price

Re: “Twenty years after the financial crisis, is it happening again?” by Jay Elwes, TNW #500

This is my biggest fear – that the AI bubble will burst, given that its economic survival seems contingent on how many investors believe in it. It’s like a game of poker: take a risk and go all in, or lose the whole lot with no collateral put aside to cover your losses, and no alternative plan in place if it does go pop.
Giselle Jones

BELOW THE LINE

Re: “The dirty secrets of Britain’s 1960s” by Ros Taylor, TNW #500:

I lived through the 60s, having been born in 1952. It was a turbulent decade of massive change. It was a strange and wondrous time when many of us had high hopes of a world that might live in peace and prosperity. If you had shown me a glimpse of the future we have now I would not have believed it. 

Of course it was not all rosy and warm, far from it but they were my formative years. We have progressed in leaps and bounds since then, yet nothing has really changed and the heady optimism of that decade has long since faded.
Adam Primhak

In the “swinging 60s” I was living in Kentish Town and working just off King’s Road Chelsea – then a half-hour bus ride away. The route took me past the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, then the best place to see exciting new work by playwrights like Joe Orton, Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee. You could get tickets to watch dress rehearsals, and I remember going to see one of Waiting for Godot, when there was a long silence at the end, eventually broken by Beckett’s voice saying “But why isn’t it funny?”
Tim Fell