It's always a pleasure to hear from a reader, and in this instance, a few months ago, the reader in question was @joshi. He's the founder and editor of Mill Media, an exciting and innovative enterprise that focuses on deeply reported, long-form journalism in the UK. It's showing us the future of news. Would I be interested in revisiting the Manchester bombing of June 1996, which he'd read about in my book Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh? Specifically, could I complete the story of who ordered, planned, and carried out the bombing? Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I could not resist such a challenge. I didn't know at the time that it would involve returning to South Armagh, visiting the cattle shed where the bomb was mixed, and knocking on the doors of the IRA suspects in the case. The result is two articles (the link to the second one is in the comments) published by The Mill, the Manchester arm of Joshi's empire, this weekend. For the piece, I worked with investigations editor @cameronbarr, formerly of the Washington Post and one of the great editors of our time, and ace Mill reporter @jackdulhanty, riding shotgun with me as we crisscrossed the Irish border. The story is close to my heart because I grew up in Manchester. My father and brother were on their way to the Arndale Centre that sunny Saturday morning. Miraculously, no one was killed by the bomb—the largest detonated in Britain since World War II—but 212 people were injured, 13 of them seriously. No one has ever been prosecuted for the attack, and Manchester police, with exquisite timing the week before the 30th anniversary of the blast, just announced that their investigation has closed. But that doesn't mean that the story of who was behind the bombing cannot be told... manchestermill.co.uk/the-ira…

Ulster Unionist Party Leader Jon Burrows MLA has labelled a Fine Gael plan to develop a blueprint for a unified island as a pet project and says any constitutional change rests solely with the people of Northern Ireland. Jon Burrows MLA commented: “Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and it is increasingly clear that many who aspire to a united Ireland are frustrated that support for constitutional change is no closer today than it was at the time of the Belfast Agreement. “The constitutional future of Northern Ireland rests solely with the people who live here. I am confident in the case for the Union - a Union that strengthens our economic security, underpins our national security, and has helped secure the most peaceful and prosperous period in our history. “Today, terrorism is at an historic low, people are free to identify as British, Irish or both, and citizens move across these islands without restriction. Most people are not preoccupied with constitutional upheaval; they are focused on improving public services, growing the economy, creating opportunity and making Northern Ireland the best possible place to live and raise a family. “Simon Harris is entitled to produce whatever “blueprint” he wishes for Irish unity, but it is entirely reasonable to ask whether this is truly what was envisaged when the 1998 Belfast Agreement was signed - particularly when the Irish State amended its constitution and repealed Articles 2 and 3, removing its territorial claim over Northern Ireland. “There is also a growing disconnect between sections of the political class and ordinary people. Recent polling in the Republic of Ireland showed that Irish unity barely registered as a public priority. At a time of significant pressures on healthcare, housing, infrastructure and the cost of living, politicians should focus on the real and immediate concerns of the people they serve rather than pursuing constitutional pet projects. “My focus remains firmly on making Northern Ireland work better, strengthening our place within the United Kingdom, and unlocking the enormous potential of this part of our country.”

NEW: Trump’s approval rating hits 28%. The lowest for any president in U.S. history.

Update: The scene in Rathcoole tonight where a car has been damaged in an arson attack. The vehicle belongs to a foreign national family who live in the area. Police are now at the property @BelTel

In our Makerfield constituency poll we also asked people how they might vote in a future EU referendum. Despite the fact the constituency voted 65% to Leave in 2016 our poll suggests residents would now be more likely to vote to rejoin.

Excellent summary of the mainstream Labour critique of the blank cheque the military political complex are demanding. As I told the BBC and Sky - a country has to be worth fighting for.

We made five arrests tonight, Saturday 13th June, in Derry/Londonderry after officers responded to reports of spontaneous disorder involving youths. Items including a golf club were seized. We’re treating this report as sectarian-motivated. Full details: orlo.uk/Bhtkq

I've written about Anthropic, the kill switch, and what it means for Britain. Successive Governments have taken AI seriously in the context of 'normal times'. But these are not normal times. We need to respond now to ensure Britain isn't left behind. open.substack.com/pub/startu…

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Claude models is not affected. We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible. Read our full statement: anthropic.com/news/fable-myt…

I wrote for the @FT about how a grotesque attack in Belfast was weaponised using to spread race hate through automated content, including on this platform. The consequence was families with small children being burned out of their homes.

Disabling Fable 5 and other models for foreigners is not a misunderstanding or a mistake, it’s the inevitable result of technology shaping warfare so that sovereignty is more about code than cannons. With high energy costs and the emphasis on safety not opportunity Britain’s response has been to build the brake cutting ourselves off from the future and tied ourselves to the past. We cannot continue like this and remain sovereign.

This is, perversely, good news for Britain, Australia, Japan, Europe, and other countries being cut off that would once have seen themselves as close allies of the United States. It shows us what the future may hold if AI is the strategically and economically decisive technology of the 21st century and is controlled by the US and China. It is good news because *it may be happening early enough to give us time to act.* I think this will be rescinded pretty soon, but it’s a sign of things to come. In a future where frontier models cannot be used outside the US, our industries and economies will fall behind and American businesses may not be able to operate overseas. We won’t be able to defend ourselves militarily with defence systems built on obsolete software. Europe 2031 is a good scenario of what a future like this could mean: europe2031.ai Some of the things we need to do are ‘no regrets’ measures we should do anyway. But some are genuinely costly and risky. We need cheap electricity – powered by gas, coal (this is costly, coal is very bad), deregulated nuclear fission – whatever can provide *cheap, reliable, 24/7* power. This almost certainly excludes wind power, which is enormously expensive and unreliable. We need projects to be able to connect to the grid in days rather than years by paying for fast-track connections. We need to make it incredibly easy to build data centres, with the property taxes retained locally and hypothecated for local tax cuts so there is some direct benefit for locals. This doesn’t need to be nationwide. We need to create new regulatory regimes for innovative businesses that give them the right to hire and fire staff with ease. The difficulty and cost of firing staff is one of the main reasons Europe has fallen behind so badly. We need to create a parallel employment regime that companies and workers can opt in to: worksinprogress.co/issue/why… Even though I think it will probably fail, I think we should probably try to create a good, non-American frontier AI lab. I am quite pessimistic about this – even extremely well-resourced, innovative software companies are struggling to do this. But the stakes are so high that not trying seems foolish. One thing that might work in our favour is the number of brilliant AI engineers who are not US citizens, who under the current export controls do not have access to Mythos/Fable even if they live and work in the US. What happens to Demis Hassabis, Ilya Sutskever, Andrej Karpathy, and the many other Europeans, Canadians, etc who are working on AI models in Britain and America who are affected by this? I do not think we should force our own companies to use model, because this would exacerbate their economic weakness – this lab should have to compete on an even playing field. I am deeply sceptical that this can work, but we cannot rule it out. If we do it, it has to be able to pay US salaries, operate without political constraints. worksinprogress.co/issue/how… It is cope to tell yourself that Trump is an aberration or that these export controls are a one-off. To repeat, I think these specific controls will be lifted quickly and it will be easy to move on and forget it happened. But this is a look into a potential future. Every one of us that is not a US citizen is at risk. The standard political divides do not apply here; the question is whether you grasp the enormity of AI as a technology. We have to act!