My 58keys YouTube series is expanding from November to have a second weekly episode, this time purely about writing. And as it’s going to begin with a piece about writing news stories, I’ve been particularly self-conscious about headlines I’ve been wring recently. So as I write this to you, my most recent news headline was supposed to read:

“UK reconsiders USB-C mandate like anyone gives a shit”

AppleInsider.com rejected that and I think you can see why.

It’s too long.

But quite separately, I was writing that when it struck me how revealing technology is of people. In this case, the people in government, but maybe others. Maybe also Russell Brand, but I’ll get to him.

That USB-C story is that the new Labour government is reconsidering whether to follow Europe and require smartphone manufacturers to all use this particular charging standard. Just over a year ago, the previous Tory government said no, Britain will not do this.

Now, that was a small example of what the Tories were doing for at least the last few years: they were trying to look as if they were taking action on something, but they were choosing things that didn’t matter so that they wouldn’t actually have to do anything. In this case, I think they went too small because you just unthinkingly charge your phone with the cable that came with it, but it was definitely safe.

It was safe because Europe had already forced the change on manufacturers and as a result of that, they all use USB-C and they all already use it everywhere. Including the UK.

So even as technology nonsense goes, that was small fry for the Tories, that was a casual, throwaway, whatever instead of a Britain Standing Tall kind of thing. It wasn’t like the lies over how no country could make the Google/Apple COVID app technology work, for instance, when at the time Britain could have had the complete source code for that app for the price of clicking a link.

No, this was so small that if you knew or cared what USB-C was, you knew the heads of Samsung, Apple and Google were not punching the air with excitement that they could carry on using their old charging cables in the UK. And it was so small that if you didn’t know or care, you didn’t know and you didn’t care, plus you were never going to be bothered to check.

That was then. That was the Tories. Flash forward to this week and Labour has announced that it is consulting with manufacturers over whether the UK should follow the EU’s move. Nothing has changed, Britain still has no possibility of affecting anything, and there is no question but that if it doesn’t follow Europe, it will only be because all of the manufacturers already have.

But.

I’ve not been particularly on board with the criticisms of Labour since it got into power. I figure that the UK will not be fixed like a light switch, it is going to take time and at least some of that time is going to be rough.

Only, here Labour is putting time and effort into something so completely pointless. The very best, the very most generous thing I can think of is that it’s part of stitching back together the UK and the EU. If so, it’s a fantastically small part.

And consequently, the technology nonsense finally made me dispirited over Labour. It’s not like I want to go back, though.

Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed the UK doing this, maybe I wouldn’t have thought of any of this if it hadn’t happened in the same week that Russell Brand also did some technology bollocks. But it did. Brand has started selling amulets that protect you from Wi-Fi signals.

You’ve perhaps seen this, but whether you have or not, you certainly know instantaneously that this pendant-sized amulet does not protect anything. To actually be shielded from Wi-Fi, if you believe you need to be, you’d basically have to wear a space suit. An amulet is like wearing a badge saying I Buy Crap.

I’m reminded of how you used to see rubber strips hanging off the back of cars, the ones with a lightning symbol on them. It was bollocks that this protected cars and passengers from actual lightning bolts, but surely they can’t have cost more than a couple of pounds at the absolute outside.

Brand’s amulet is £188.

I’m not a fan of Russell Brand, which is not the most surprising thing I’ve ever said, but it was the amulet that made it impossible to conceive of imagining of even the concept of a plan that he has been misrepresented. There is no more possibility that he believes this amulet works than the UK has the slightest influence over USB-C chargers.

So in both cases, technology uncovers pretence. Something that we just use every day — or Brand would hope we would — is revealing of the people talking about it. Technology is a tool that shows us something of its users.

Quite possibly including me.