What shade of blue is your blue sky.
Ignoring the obvious - anything governmental is likely to be a way of channelling money to their mates - there is stuff that they could do for peanuts that would deliver useful stuff quite soon.
Think of the cash that would be saved if simple, secure, modular software was developed for public sector use. No more pissing away zillions to GAFA for stuff that never actually works. You can fork the dullest, most secure Linux OS and run it with minimal updates on absolutely any silicon. All it has to do is work securely. No AI BS, no MS gimmicks. Just bake in file format compatibility.
They could build a framework for distributed software. They could adapt an e-mail client to use rich media in the manner of social media, connecting peer to peer via encrypted e-mails, take it to IPO and bank the cash in public funds. There's loads of other novel stuff you can do that GAFA simply won't.
They really need to work out what will be the UK's new tree coverage with climate change and then plant lots of them. Instead they are planting loads of 'native' species designed for a climate that has passed, that will just wither and die in the future. There are more resilient species out there, and there are outlier communities of trees and crops that have sacks of resilience. Horticulture is science and it doesn't need to involve genetics to do incredible things.
The POTS system that BT is gleefully ripping out to save a few quid, offers a huge opportunity as a nationwide comms network requiring no power to work. So much innovative stuff could have been done with it, but nothing will be. It will be destroyed, as Beeching destroyed the railways.
Ah yes. Light rail. Cheap light rail. No drivers, slow speeds, sensors to avoid issues. Fast and cheap to build, all over the place, powered by green electricity. That would have been a useful project. Instead we get drone taxis for millionaires and rail/bus cuts.
There is so much potential to produce the next useful, cheap thing, that would work for people. But no. Not blue sky enough for them, and not the connections to the right people.
UK universities are good if quite insular. The Tories hammered them. They effectively banned Chinese and other foreign students (ending our chance to purloin the best and brightest from the Middle Kingdom and other lands), which killed UK uni budgets. They also capped fees. Most unis are now sacking staff, closing courses (including STEM, which aren't cheap to run), selling assets and downsizing themselves out of those league tables. There really was very little that the Tories didn't ruin. Maybe MI5 should have taken a closer look at them. Putin would never had managed to do that much damage to the UK.
I suspect Labour are looking at Biden's expensive infrastructure project. Billions of spending that will show no return anytime soon, corporate welfare for tech companies to build All American FABs etc, but zip for American voters today. Didn't work so well in electoral terms. Labour will spend their cash on things that will buy votes in four years time instead.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
