A Labour Justice minister has sent a letter to a constituent that AI checkers say is mostly if not all the product of a chatbot. At this point just replace MPs with Claude and be done with it…
Jake Richards wrote to ‘Sally’ in his constituency of Rother Valley over the weekend to congratulate her for running a café. Sally was designated an ‘inspiration local woman’ for International Women’s Day. Unfortunately she was not inspiration enough for Richards to bother coming up with slop-free copy…
Richards’ letter includes such sentences as: “Your café has become a welcoming space at the heart of the community, somewhere people know they can call in for a friendly face, a warm drink and a sense of belonging. Small independent businesses like yours play a vital role in bringing communities together, and your dedication to Dinnington truly shines through.” Guido has run it through five high-standard AI copy checkers which return results from 80% to 100% AI-generated – co-conspirators can try it themselves…
Good to see Richards implementing the MoJ’s “AI Action Plan” in his own free time. And if he did write this all with his own brain then Guido would suggest that is even worse…
Read the full letter below…
Continue reading “Justice Minister’s Letter to Constituent is “80-100% AI-Generated””
The Reform vs Restore battle is becoming more than an avatar of the personal dispute between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe. As both ambitions in both camps soar, the troops are getting involved, as anyone on X will have noticed this week…
Much of the tension revolves around the Tory past of Reform Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick. Former Tories are not always finding the brave new world to be smooth sailing…
In an example of one hot tempered post, Restore influencer Charlie Downes fired at Reform’s Jack Anderton:
I hope they’re paying you good money for this, Jack.
Jenrick is a traitor and you know it. pic.twitter.com/GZWDdO9qAY
— Charlie Downes (@cfdownes_) February 19, 2026
Now sources have shown Guido evidence that Downes himself once applied to join Jenrick’s team, keen to assist the man that many in Restore now accuse of high immigration politics. He also applied to join the press team last year, and was rejected. The outbreak of hostilities includes further claims that Restore staffers are “using Rupert Lowe’s money to throw a tantrum”. For Lowe’s part, he continues to make his scepticism of Farage’s path very clear…
There is intrigue on the Tory side too. Party sources point wearily at Restore Britain’s policy paper on ‘mass deportations,’ whose acknowledgements section includes a thank you to one of Katie Lam’s current staffers formerly shared with Team Jenrick. The same sources say Bidwell’s positions on the ECHR are closely reflected in Rupert Lowe’s policy as written there.
The question is whether all the online chatter will have any real-world electoral effects. Reform remain fully confident that Restore are simply not on the pitch…
Yesterday was the 58th anniversary of independence in Mauritius. A tough day for Starmer, whose government had been making private promises to the Mauritians that the Chagos sellout would be complete by that milestone, which had been driving the UK parliamentary timetable…
As the Mauritian press puts it, PM Ramgoolam – in his independence day speech – addressed the “economic situation, which he considers worrying. He attributed the current difficulties to the “catastrophic management of the economy” between 2014 and 2024, exacerbated by the war in the Middle East and delays in implementing the Chagos Treaty… Moody’s is now closely monitoring the country… stressing the need to avoid a downgrade of the sovereign credit rating.”
Guido was the first to point out that Starmer’s Chagos deal would avoid such a downgrade and Mauritius saw the deal as a way to swerve its economy being junked in international league tables. A shame, but it was never the job of British taxpayers to fix Mauritius’s problems…
UPDATE: The meeting is now back on. Shambles…
The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) has pulled out of a scheduled meeting with Rachel Reeves in Number 11 today over “inflammatory language by Government Ministers“, which it claims has led members of the public to verbally ‘abuse’ its staff. That helpful language being “price gouging” and “profiteering”…
Gordon Balmer, executive director of the PRA, said he wrote to Reeves this morning asking for the meeting to be being closed doors without the media glare “to allow a conversation to explain how the fuel market works”. Ouch…
“Recently I have heard of incidents from some of our members of retail staff being abused by members of the public, who may have been provoked by the incorrect and inflammatory language emanating from some commentators for example use of the terms ‘rip offs’ and ‘profiteering’.
“Our members are working hard in difficult circumstances making sure that motorists and businesses are getting the fuel they need, at prices that are very competitive, on razor thin or in some cases negative margins which means they are losing money. Our job is to serve the public keeping motorists and businesses on the road”.
“Petrol retailers have been working closely and productively with the CMA and DESNZ to put in place the “Fuel Finder scheme” which will help motorists find the best value petrol and diesel. There is clearly still a lot of work to do to help politicians and commentators to understand how the fuel market works and our door is always open for constructive dialogue.”
Pumping the brakes…
The long-running battle between Sharon Graham, General Secretary of the Unite union and Starmer continues. With Rayner and other union allies out in the cold, the deep-pocketed socialists over at Unite are pulling the plug…
Unite voted this week cut its party affiliation fee by £580,000, which usually goes straight into Labour HQ coffers. As the union says, although it has been threatened before, it has not actually happened, so this is a new departure. “This is unprecedented”, a union press release claimed…
Graham had repeatedly threatened to cut Labour funding. The move will cause anxiety among union-backed MPs who will rely on Unite donations for any plausible attempt at re-election in 2029. Don’t be surprised if it feeds through to even more leadership unrest…
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”