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For those of you not closely following UK politics: the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) mistakenly published their Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) docu

For those of you not closely following UK politics: the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) mistakenly published their Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) document 40 minutes early, pre-empting the announcements by the Chancellor. This is being treated as an incredibly big deal here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd74v35p77jo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd74v35p77jo

hdgvhicv 11mo ago
In the popular press it’s been sidelined because it would distract from the continuous attacks on the chancellor
- louthy 11mo ago
  Yes, it’s getting quite ridiculous now. Labour, for sure, have not done themselves any favours in their first 18 months in charge, but the level of attack and vitriol is exceptional and beyond any reasonable level. It makes me wonder what exactly is driving this.
  - dboreham 11mo ago
    Money.
  - mytailorisrich 11mo ago
    This is politics so attacks will always follow blunders on either side. In this case this is an extremely unpopular government to start with that increases taxes across the board while handing out more benefits and claiming that they had no choice because of the state of the public finances, and we learn that they possibly misled the public on that latter point. So, yes, in politics and especially British politics this means a riot against the Chancellor (who was also caught recently having let her house without the required legal licence, btw, after the [now former] Deputy PM was caught dodging taxes on the purchase of a second home...) because everyone "smells blood" but that's the game and it's not completely undeserved, either.
  - physicsguy 11mo ago
    The fact that they were elected as a 'change' government and have barely done anything that really faces up to the scale of the challenge the country faces? If you're below the age of about 55, then the budget did absolutely nothing for you except put taxes up, and not even to improve services. I appreciate things time but so far the government have enormously walked back their planning reform proposals, which was one of their few pro-growth policies, and haven't really made any dent in anything else substantive. It's been pretty clear since even before the election that they didn't really have a plan, and they got a fairly light scrutiny through the campaign because the Tories were so appalling. Then since they got in they're just scrambling around looking fairly incompetent and the dearth of talent on the cabinet has been pretty plain to see as well. Largely I want Labour to succeed but they're not making it easy to like them.
    - louthy 11mo ago
      I don’t disagree with any of that, but the vitriol doesn’t match the disappointment imho. Especially as they’ve done pretty well in other areas. I realise “it’s the economy, stupid”, but still it feels like outsized outrage.
      - mytailorisrich 11mo ago
        The public do not see or agree that they have done well in any areas, hence their appallingly low popularity. And that was before this budget announcement. It does not take a crystal ball to understand that the British media, which are vitriolic on a good day, will have an absolute free-for-all. It's nothing new.
      - qcnguy 11mo ago
        Starmer was already the most unpopular PM on record before the budget, and Labour's voting intention is the lowest it's ever been. It's just a really, really unpopular government so of course it gets a lot of attacks.
        dfawcus 11mo ago
        Well even at the GE, his party was less popular than the previous offer by Corbyn. Labour only really got in because of the collapse of the Tory vote. 2019 GE Votes Labour: 10,269,051 22% R 32% T Tory: 13,966,454 29% R 44% T LibDem: 3,696,419 8% R 12% T 2024 GE Votes Labour: 9,708,716 20% R 34% T Tory: 6,828,925 14% R 24% T LibDem: 3,519,143 7% R 12% T Also % Registered, % Turnout So that he got even more unpopular seemed a given, unless he managed to be competent and actually improve things for the people who elected his party.
  - RobotToaster 11mo ago
    They were elected with 33% of the vote thanks to our FPTP system, the lowest in history. They were unpopular when they were elected and have done nothing to change that.
tantalor 11mo ago
> which it blamed on a "technical error" It's not a technical error at all! Technical errors are faults caused by technology, like a software or hardware bug. That's not what happened here. WordPress behaved exactly as it was supposed to. The true cause is revealed later in the article, > staff thought they had applied safeguards to prevent early publication, there were two errors in the way in which they were set up The problem was the staff. It's a human error.
- graemep 11mo ago
  A well designed system would reduce the risk of human error. Given the importance of keeping this information confidential, they really ought to have a custom system for releasing it, not just configuring a third party Wordpress plugin.
- chriswarbo 11mo ago
  I don't think that's a worthwhile distinction. All software bugs are human errors, since the machine is correctly following the human programmer's incorrect instructions; whether that's at the level of assembly instructing the CPU; or a higher level like Wordpress instructing the PHP interpreter; or an even higher level of a document hosting solution instructing Wordpress.
  - diordiderot 11mo ago
    Eh, I think the distinction is broken tool vs improper use of the tool or in this case, the wrong tool all together
- _dain_ 11mo ago
  "Human error" is not the end of an explanation, it's the start of an explanation. As an industry we should know this by now. Defaults matter. https://www.humanfactors.lth.se/fileadmin/lusa/Sidney_Dekker/books/DekkersFieldGuide.pdf https://www.humanfactors.lth.se/fileadmin/lusa/Sidney_Dekker...
jpfromlondon 11mo ago
I like to think they're just looking out for us after the government implied the OBR was untrustworthy.

hdgvhicv 11mo ago

In the popular press it’s been sidelined because it would distract from the continuous attacks on the chancellor

louthy 11mo ago
Yes, it’s getting quite ridiculous now. Labour, for sure, have not done themselves any favours in their first 18 months in charge, but the level of attack and vitriol is exceptional and beyond any reasonable level. It makes me wonder what exactly is driving this.
- dboreham 11mo ago
  Money.
- mytailorisrich 11mo ago
  This is politics so attacks will always follow blunders on either side. In this case this is an extremely unpopular government to start with that increases taxes across the board while handing out more benefits and claiming that they had no choice because of the state of the public finances, and we learn that they possibly misled the public on that latter point. So, yes, in politics and especially British politics this means a riot against the Chancellor (who was also caught recently having let her house without the required legal licence, btw, after the [now former] Deputy PM was caught dodging taxes on the purchase of a second home...) because everyone "smells blood" but that's the game and it's not completely undeserved, either.
- physicsguy 11mo ago
  The fact that they were elected as a 'change' government and have barely done anything that really faces up to the scale of the challenge the country faces? If you're below the age of about 55, then the budget did absolutely nothing for you except put taxes up, and not even to improve services. I appreciate things time but so far the government have enormously walked back their planning reform proposals, which was one of their few pro-growth policies, and haven't really made any dent in anything else substantive. It's been pretty clear since even before the election that they didn't really have a plan, and they got a fairly light scrutiny through the campaign because the Tories were so appalling. Then since they got in they're just scrambling around looking fairly incompetent and the dearth of talent on the cabinet has been pretty plain to see as well. Largely I want Labour to succeed but they're not making it easy to like them.
  - louthy 11mo ago
    I don’t disagree with any of that, but the vitriol doesn’t match the disappointment imho. Especially as they’ve done pretty well in other areas. I realise “it’s the economy, stupid”, but still it feels like outsized outrage.
    - mytailorisrich 11mo ago
      The public do not see or agree that they have done well in any areas, hence their appallingly low popularity. And that was before this budget announcement. It does not take a crystal ball to understand that the British media, which are vitriolic on a good day, will have an absolute free-for-all. It's nothing new.
    - qcnguy 11mo ago
      Starmer was already the most unpopular PM on record before the budget, and Labour's voting intention is the lowest it's ever been. It's just a really, really unpopular government so of course it gets a lot of attacks.
      - dfawcus 11mo ago
        Well even at the GE, his party was less popular than the previous offer by Corbyn. Labour only really got in because of the collapse of the Tory vote. 2019 GE Votes Labour: 10,269,051 22% R 32% T Tory: 13,966,454 29% R 44% T LibDem: 3,696,419 8% R 12% T 2024 GE Votes Labour: 9,708,716 20% R 34% T Tory: 6,828,925 14% R 24% T LibDem: 3,519,143 7% R 12% T Also % Registered, % Turnout So that he got even more unpopular seemed a given, unless he managed to be competent and actually improve things for the people who elected his party.
- RobotToaster 11mo ago
  They were elected with 33% of the vote thanks to our FPTP system, the lowest in history. They were unpopular when they were elected and have done nothing to change that.

tantalor 11mo ago

> which it blamed on a "technical error" It's not a technical error at all! Technical errors are faults caused by technology, like a software or hardware bug. That's not what happened here. WordPress behaved exactly as it was supposed to. The true cause is revealed later in the article, > staff thought they had applied safeguards to prevent early publication, there were two errors in the way in which they were set up The problem was the staff. It's a human error.

graemep 11mo ago
A well designed system would reduce the risk of human error. Given the importance of keeping this information confidential, they really ought to have a custom system for releasing it, not just configuring a third party Wordpress plugin.
chriswarbo 11mo ago
I don't think that's a worthwhile distinction. All software bugs are human errors, since the machine is correctly following the human programmer's incorrect instructions; whether that's at the level of assembly instructing the CPU; or a higher level like Wordpress instructing the PHP interpreter; or an even higher level of a document hosting solution instructing Wordpress.
- diordiderot 11mo ago
  Eh, I think the distinction is broken tool vs improper use of the tool or in this case, the wrong tool all together
_dain_ 11mo ago
"Human error" is not the end of an explanation, it's the start of an explanation. As an industry we should know this by now. Defaults matter. https://www.humanfactors.lth.se/fileadmin/lusa/Sidney_Dekker/books/DekkersFieldGuide.pdf https://www.humanfactors.lth.se/fileadmin/lusa/Sidney_Dekker...

jpfromlondon 11mo ago

I like to think they're just looking out for us after the government implied the OBR was untrustworthy.