So. The US has blocked export of @AnthropicAI's Fable 5 and Mythos 5, and the noise around it is mostly grift. I keep coming back to this because the reality is orders more boring than the outrage, and I probably won't get the views or impressions for saying it. But truth is truth. I tested Fable earlier this week. Got it to render a poetic translation of the opening stanzas of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, and it did an absolutely cracking job. The slightly unnerving bit is that it's super capable across domains - think of it as a research scientist who also happens to be a multi-instrumentalist. The thing can probably do biological research capable of creating biological weapons, or developing other AI models. I'm not saying that's what it's for. And Anthropic tuned it conservatively, so it rejects tasks that smell like foul play. But that raw capability is probably there. Here's the but. For Britain to prosper economically using AI, we simply don't need models like Fable. We don't. We're stuck in such a deep productivity rut, mostly in SMEs outside London, that flipping out because Fable is suddenly unavailable is like someone who can't ride a bicycle creating vitriol because they were denied a license to pilot a space shuttle to Alpha Centauri. There are metric tons of other models - proprietary ones from Anthropic themselves, @OpenAI, @GoogleDeepMind in London, the French lab @MistralAI, open weight and open source options - all capable of running 99.9% of business automation tasks, at a fraction of the cost of Fable or even Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8, which wasn't affected anyway. Look, if we step back from the sensationalism, the actual problem is elsewhere. We have two of them, really. First: we don't have enough capacity to run AI inference at scale inside Britain. That means moving electrons for every token that comes out of a model, and moving electrons requires energy that needs to be cheap. Britain's industrial electricity prices are almost 50% higher than France and Germany, about four times higher than the US and Canada. We're lagging behind even the EU. Data centres need to run 24/7, and for a country that doesn't produce a lot of fossil fuels, the most surefire way to enable AI inference growth is nuclear - cheap, abundant, ideally co-located with the data centres. We're hopelessly behind on that. Building reactors here requires bespoke design due to an inordinate amount of regulations. Standard reactors, not even small modular ones, are absolutely ridiculously expensive because of it. Just fixing that would uncork the supply of AI data centres and inference capacity, and yes, that would give us actual AI sovereignty - running models here, serving customers here - in case the rest of the world decides to shut off access, which they haven't done. The second problem is where research actually gets applied. British universities crank out decent fundamental AI research. The IP just doesn't stick around. Partly policy - our spin-out equity structures discourage researchers and investors compared to the US. Partly because there's nowhere to run it at scale. You need abundant data centres and cheap, consistent backbone energy. We have neither. I'll be straight. There's a kernel of truth in what Alex Armstrong is writing. AI sovereignty matters - we need our own steelmaking, our own food security, our own ability to make weapons without relying on external supply chains. We also need to build and run our own data centres for AI, no question. But in the short term, the opportunity for prosperity in Britain is applying existing models that have been developed elsewhere. And for that, we absolutely do not need super capable models like Fable 5.

We need to get away from this war mindset. Avoiding wars - as when we correctly refused to join the Iran War - is better than fighting them.

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…

There are some brutal briefings about Keir Starmer in the wake of John Healey’s resignation today This one - from a Treasury official - stands out in our splash “As always with the prime minister, he is unable to make sound political and timely decisions “Funding the defence investment plan requires cuts to elements of government spending vital to growth - a key issue obviously this country needs to work on “This was flagged to No 10 in May and as usual he is a rabbit in the headlights and does not make a decision “Prioritise growth funding or defence spending - take a decision” thetimes.com/article/ed817bc…

Let’s put income tax up by a penny to fund defence. And then we will see who truly cares about our country.

Ranvir Singh: "My first instinct yesterday when I saw the news pop up, has John Healey been speaking to Andy Burnham..?" Caroline Flint: "He's laid the challenge for Andy Burnham as well" And who amongst us thinks Andy Burnham can/will withstand this clamour?

The Ukrainians want Ireland to close a Russian plant, providing jobs and welfare to Irish workers. Ireland is a Neutral, Non NATO Republic. We owe nothing to the British led war machine. Irish workers and their families come first. Despite what Zelenskys paid clowns tell you

UK AI Minister @KanishkaNarayan breaks down the Best Designed Data Centre Prize and why the AI opportunity should feel aesthetic as well as economic: "Think about the last set of industrial transitions, people built amazing bridges... that was a functional thing, but the really important thing is those bridges were beautiful as well." "I want to make sure that in this AI transition we're building things that aren't just expanding opportunity in terms of jobs and pay, but building a new aesthetic as well". "I want that opportunity not just to feel economic but to feel aesthetic."

Al Carns has now resigned as Armed Forces Minister x.com/alistaircarns/status/2…

We owe those who serve the UK the kit to do the job and the loyalty to stand by them when it's done. We are failing on both. I’ve spent my whole time in government making that case. Number 10 will not listen, so I am resigning as Minister for the Armed Forces. Letter to the PM below.🫡🫡🫡⬇️⬇️

TREASURY source hits back to say Chancellor "will always do what is right and needed to keep this country safe... Let's be clear on what John is asking for: cuts to schools and hospitals."

🚨 NEW: A Treasury source attacks John Healey for resigning as Defence Secretary "Let's be clear on what John is asking for: cuts to schools and hospitals" h/t @e_casalicchio

HMT official: Reeves "will always do what is right and needed to keep this country safe" ... notes that she has been working with Starmer to make cuts across govt to fund DIP. Adds: "Let's be clear on what John is asking for: cuts to schools and hospitals."

My letter to the Prime Minister

Whatever the public talk is of the Kemi bounce, it says all you need to know about lack of confidence in the Tory party that not a single Conservative MP is on the order paper for today’s PMQs.