I think it was something to do with COVID stats during the initial outbreak, but yes, yes it was the UK government and their bizarre love affair with stupid tech choices.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 1 week ago

It was tracking COVID-19 cases and data needed for contact tracing!

https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/05/excel_england_coronavirus_contact_error/

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There was also a Harvard paper that was the main justification for austerity in the UK given its conclusion that past a certain GDP/debt ratio al sorts of bad things happen.

Turned out to be an excel error skipping 1/4 of their data and when re-run with the whole set the effect vanished. Horrible abuses of excel and csv files are by no means limited to any one country.

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 15 points 1 week ago

The only 'transparency' he's shown is screenshots of basic spreadsheets that don't actually clarify anything. His minions are just sending him spreadsheets extracted from systems they don't understand, and he's just making decisions based on whether the title of the program sounds woke or not.

It's going to be fun when he fucks with some Wall Street Equity fund's money.