Senior London Conservatives have called for a “conversation” about scrapping Sadiq Khan’s free school meal programme if the party wins the mayoral election in 2028 "Nothing’s free – those are taxpayer-funded meals," Emma Best, deputy leader of City Hall Tories, said at the party's conference

Kemi Badenoch pledged to scrap inheritance tax on homes in her keynote conference speech She also launched a scathing attack on Farage's party, saying Reform MPs were “openly questioning people's identity” based on their race The Tory leader said "we must not let these people take us backwards”

"It effectively meant that all of us in politics, instead of just the Labour Party HQ and No 10 being able to use focus grouping, were able to effectively challenge ourselves in our thinking by being able to do that." Read the full interview here:

Narayan said AI focus groups are less effective for capturing the public’s real-time views on fast-moving news "But segmentation and views don't change that much, so on broad-brush questions like how should I think about AI, doing static focus groups with that is very useful."

The AI minister has used AI-generated synthetic focus groups provided by a private company to test public opinion on AI and other issues The model is trained on data from real-life focus groups

I've spent the last couple of months looking into how Green-run councils are exploring safer drug consumption facilities/rooms and other harm reduction spaces Campaigners and experts argue they could be introduced without a change in the law if arrangements were made with local police forces👇

Read the full interview here 👇 9/9

The AI minister said Burnham has repeatedly asked him to prioritise linking regional population health data with genetic data to improve NHS services & attract investment Burnham is reportedly searching for a UK alternative to Palantir for NHS and MOD data system contracts 8/9

Now a member of Andy Burnham's Cabinet, Narayan said he spends “most of my time convincing the Cabinet, my parliamentary colleagues and the bubble that technology is the way that we can achieve our primary political growth.” 7/9

After recent hacking incidents involving OpenAI, Narayan identified Britain's reliance on the US for access to frontier AI models as his “biggest concern” for security His proposed focus is across “testing, defending, and building”, alongside a major uplift in cybersecurity 6/9

Narayan believes building public consent is crucial but is “not wedded to a singular way of driving that through central diktat” But he stressed: “We are not trying to build a ton of data centres in every postcode. That is not the plan.” 5/9

On UK AI infrastructure and data centres, he acknowledged that progress on the five AI Growth Zones hasn't moved as quickly as he wants. “The pace with which I would like that to happen has not been the pace in practice.” 4/9

The minister wants to bring the British public with him in the bid to accelerate AI sovereignty and adoption But he believes "technology as an industry has not engaged sufficiently with politics and the British public" 3/9

But Narayan said he is "sceptical" about putting his own private data into chatbots and mostly limits his own use of AI to professional settings He never uses it to write speeches and does not want to limit his own capacity to think for himself 2/9

I hosted an in-conversation with AI minister Kanishka Narayan at Labour conference We covered a lot of ground... He said there was too much AI “doomerism” in Westminster And revealed he has used synthetic AI focus groups to gauge public opinion on a range of topics 1/9

Finally arriving at Labour conference after a (very) long journey up from Cornwall I’m chairing two events this year 🤖 Tuesday: a timely in-conversation w/ AI minister Kanishka Narayan 🧬 Monday: a panel w/ Labour MPs & experts on how life sciences can deliver for patients Come and say hi!

Being able to name MPs is probably the only hard skill I need for my job tbf