Examining the transformation of the Arabian Gulf's monarchical petro-states into digital economies.

In-depth coverage of telecoms, fintech and cybersecurity in the Middle East.

Policy and legal analysis on EU effort to create a world-leading AI industry.

Science journalism and in-depth business policy analysis on Europe's bid to become a world leader in quantum technology.

Analysis of infrastructure deals and initiatives that comprise the Nordic ambition to create a world-leading AI industry.

News analysis of technology policy and infrastructure in the Nordics.

Original news and analysis of EU effort to establish a digital single market and shape international policy on cross-border data flows in its own image.

Definitive daily news reports on bigtech regulation, written to order while working shifts on Computing's rapid-turnaround daily news service.

Quick deep-dives on AI business and regulatory affairs, written to order while working shifts on Computing's rapid-turnaround daily news service.

Deep-dives on breaking news on cybersecurity, written to order while working shifts on Computing's rapid-turnaround daily news service.

News on varied technology business and affairs with a political flavour, with diligent attention to detail and the broader context, written to order while working shifts on Computing's rapid-turnaround daily news service.

Got to the real story behind accusations that a sluggish UK financial regulator and onerous rules had made it so hard for innovative fintech firms to get approval to operate that it enfeebled UK start-ups, deterred foreign investors, and diminished diminished the UK's place as a leading financial centre.

Exclusive first reports about the battle for control of internet infrastructure in Ukraine.

Demonstrated how electricity operators and regulators grossly overstated the power demands of datacenters in Ireland, blaming the tech industry for shortages caused by their own under-investment and poor management of the electricity grid.

Result of extensive investigation that arose from my initial effort to report at face value the claims of Irish operators/regulators that the tech industry was growing so fast that they had to take emergency measures to stop it, before Ireland ran out of electricity.

Asking simple questions from out the outset, I found instead that Ireland's tech industry was using a fraction of the electricity that officials claimed it did. Rather, their own poor planning, poor management and under-investment had left the country's electricity grid short of power. Ireland's datacenter industry - the engine of its extraordinary economic growth, was blamed.

My story was based on extensive interviews with executives and experts in tech and energy; deep analysis of energy and tech industry datasets; and research of government, regulatory, parliamentary, and private sector reports and records.

Exposed how environmentalists and political parties were using fake news and biased data to justify a political campaign against datacenters.

My starting point was reports about water shortages caused by greedy datacenters in North Holland. That is what my story was going to be about. But I found the facts didn't add up. This had been a national scandal in Holland. It was based on fake news.

I got the real story through extensive interviews with officials, experts and executives, combined with deep analysis of engineering data, and extensive research of official and private records.

Characteristically investigative news reporting. Passionately curious desire to understand and enlighten motivated me to seek answers by developing contacts in government and industry; and doing background research on official and corporate, foreign-language documents addressing: democratic decisions and proceedings; industrial, policy and strategy on environment, energy and industry; national and local press reports; planning records; legal affairs.

Developed software tools to help translate foreign-language documents.

Exclusive reports charting deliberations over environmental regulation of datacenters.

Revealed how windpower's threat to biodiversity in the crowded North Sea was forcing EU countries to make compromises as they hurried to construct more offshore wind to meet tough decarbonisation targets, counter rising energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine, and cease Europe's continued purchases of Russian oil.

Analysis of systemic failures impeding the development of internet infrastructure in Africa.

News and analysis showing how capital, states and markets shape internet infrastructure in Asia.

Financial news and analysis on data infrastructure business.

News writing and editing for tech trade magazine.

Tech news editing and writing.

Charted industry response to pandemic pressures.

Contracted to conduct investigations that would bring Engineering & Technology Magazine to wider public attention, my scoops were followed up numerously by local and national newspapers, the wider tech press, and the television news.

This work demonstrated my modus operandi: the patient and diligent accumulation of facts, through widespread conversations with public and private officials, and extensive investigation of democratic proceedings, company records, regulation, law and data.

Investigation into finances behind radical public programme.

Ambitious investigation. Exposed compromised policy-making.

Further investigation of the phone kiosk drug crime story. Revealed how money and power had skewed the issues.

Involved analysing records of more than 1,000 planning decisions across 50 public authorities, as well as public procurement records, court records, written law, elected council proceedings and committee papers. Also, wide consultation with local government officials, councillors, community workers, police, consultants, academics, regulators, and technology firms. Also a field investigation, a wide review of press reports and official statements across the UK and overseas; and analysis of corporate financial reports going back 25 years.

Analysed controversy over technology policy at the bleeding edge of radio science.

Reported on international telecoms business trends.

Exposed fake government astroturfing campaign.

Scoop exposed unusual steps taken to obscure public records.

Demonstrated government failure to fulfil international obligations on transparency.

Fused 60 incompatible government data sources to get a complete picture of major government programmes. Cited by the international ombudsman.

Data analysis used to inform further research: extensive interviews with public officials, data experts and transparency campaigners.

The same work produced a scoop on the true public cost of a major government programme, and informed other reporting.

Insights into public data reforms.

Exposed dodgy public accounting.

Investigative essay into controversial law-making, with associated analyses.

Excerpts from a ground-breaking investigation.

Confirmed speculative reports that the UK operated part of a network controlling infamous drone assassinations in the Middle East.

Became the basis of legal action brought by the charity Reprieve. Subsequently formed a key part of evidence upon which the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones formed its 2018 conclusion that the UK was part of a global US targeting network that had tragically killed hundreds of civilians and challenged the laws of war. It was thus among the evidence from which Parliament formed its opinion that the UK's role must be recognised officially, and remedial action taken. By the same route, it informed an Amnesty International campaign that called for urgent change.

Scoop went viral, was reported and discussed on television and radio, debated in the blogosphere, and resounded internationally - and still resounds - in magazine articles, academic papers and books.

Became an exemplar for historians, national librarians and archivists arguing for the need to preserve web history. It introduced web archives to public discourse, and helped bring changes to archival practices that will help ensure important historic records are preserved regardless of whether website owners or public authorities prefer they are not.

Used data skills to gain further insight into political history-scrubbing, by retrieving and processing 200,000 internet archive records of political party websites to determine what efforts other parties had made to obscure internet records from public view.

Led coverage of public sector transformation and major government projects.

See also coverage of police, NHS, local government, utilities, and central government.

Data journalism scoop. Exposed broken campaign promise.

Filtered one million public spending records against key terms obtained by Freedom of Information requests. This was possible only after taking painstaking steps to write software routines that cleaned the data of numerous errors and inconsistencies that prevented it from being combined and analysed.

Essay and investigative articles on health data.

Data analysis revealed flaws in public inquiry.

Demonstrated how the inquiry had reached misleading conclusions from selective analysis of available data; and that what politicians were saying about patient deaths at Mid-Staffs was not true.

Combined data submitted to the inquiry with other official data sources, and extensive interviews with officials and experts, including those responsible for the death statistics, and officials in relevant parts of the NHS, to be certain the scoop's findings were correct.

The findings were used to train nurses on the use and misuse of health data.

Forensic accounting exposed truth behind scandalous outsourcing deal.

Investigation initially followed fingers that had been pointed, with accusations of corruption, at Southwest One, a public-private outsource venture in Somerset. Forensic analysis of company accounts did find some questionable accounting on the part of the supplier, IBM. But there was no sign of corruption.

What was found instead was dodgy politics on the part of those people pointing the finger. The investigation relied on forensic analysis of public accounts as well private finance records, and extensive interviews with public officials.

Investigation exposed dodgy politics behind public-private deal.

FOI requests and legal research gave insights into public deals.

Analysed military efforts to influence public opinion.

Insights into breakdown of infamous NHS IT programme.

Scoop exposed how industry-engineered a U-turn in government policy.

Charted the politics behind police reforms.

Investigation challenged and changed the official record.

Relied on deep research of public library records, news archives, and financial records going back 50 years, as well as extensive interviews and coverage of current affairs.

Subsequent work revealed the modus operandi of the outsource business model.

Early reporting on treaty-level internet governance, covering Europe's bid to anchor the internet in human-rights law and protect its multi-stakeholder, civil-society stewardship against state control; and a parallel fight at the UN over cybercrime, cross-border evidence and state sovereignty.

Won BT CyberCrime Feature of the Year.

Excerpt from long-running coverage of court case.

Influential investigation into security breaches into database behind controversial plan to make British people carry government identity cards.

Cited in parliamentary inquiry as a source of evidence for the National Identity Scheme's failure. Cited similarly by leading academics as a primary source of evidence supporting their assertion that the ID scheme databases where potentially illegal. Cited also in a text book by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (Essential Public Affairs for Journalists, 2011). Story also picked up by national newspapers and wider tech press.

Story was pursued with FOI requests and interviews with officials at dozens of local authorities. My reports revealed how security issues had caused the ID scheme itself to collapse; and how the entire justice system was suffering the same widespread problem.

Covered development of EU law to govern emerging systems of police data sharing.

Charted EU effort to control US-led development of international police and immigration data flows.

Covered US and EU efforts to create international immigration data systems.

Reports on restructure of NHS National Programme for IT.

Campaigned for gender equality.

Some articles from a series written for The Sunday Times.

Selected articles for business publications: Computing, Retail Week, Financial Times.

Charted changes wrought on corporate sales channels by the internet.

Tracked how industry consolidated to cope with change.

Tackled big business themes on a trade news beat.