Why the Tories’ Californian strategy should be taken seriously

A few months ago, I wrote a story about the “California Tories” and the extent to which Silicon Valley has affected the thinking of the people who will be running our country this time next year. I was teased about it later: what a pile of junk it all is, said a few right-thinking friends; why devote so many words to such a fluffy idea? My response: because the Tories take it so seriously, and because there might just be something in it. In my piece, I dropped in the fact that the Tories were thinking about swapping the NHS supercomputer idea for the free-to-use Google Health – and Sam Coates from the Times has much more on this today. His piece, and the response to it, has made me think of a comment left on my original magazine piece by ndm (not a regular CoffeeHouser, I don’t think) and it’s perhaps worth repeating here:

“I have read few more lunatic suggestions that the idea that Britain replace the NHS computer programme with ‘free-to-use Google Health.’