Cockcroft’s Folly
A worked example on governance: the filters they laughed at for ten years, and the week in 1957 that settled it. Most good governance is never vindicated — which is the problem.
Read the pieceWhat this is
Governance, risk, compliance and resilience is usually sold as paperwork — a cost, a chore, a box to tick. We think that’s a failure of imagination. Done well, it is the practical craft of evidence: decisions you can stand behind, and the difference between rules that protect people and rules that merely process them.
Accountability is the part you cannot delegate.
The evidence underneath it is.
That is the work here — evidence gathered independently, that you can put your name to and check for yourself.
The Second Opinion is a UK-anchored voice on governance, risk, compliance and resilience — and on the question underneath all of it: who decides? Who holds your data, under whose laws, in service of whose interests?
It is written and made by Duncan McTavish, in Hertfordshire.
How we work
We lead with evidence, not adjectives. We name trajectories, not enemies. We criticise structures and incentives, never tribes. We hold every source to the same standard — including the ones we agree with.
And when we take a position, we show our reasoning and invite you to weigh it. A second opinion is offered, never imposed.
We won’t waste your time, flatter your side, or insult your intelligence.
What there is to read
Governance
Risk
A Large Margin of Safety
A worked example on risk: thirty-nine seconds of Ariane 5 in 1996. The risk was not missed — it was assessed, carefully, for a different rocket. And the backup failed first.
Read the piece
Compliance
No Case to Answer
A worked example on compliance: Bradford, 1858. Around twenty people died of sweets cut with arsenic, three men were arrested, and not one of them had broken a law — because there was no law to break.
Read the piece
Resilience
Adequate to the Last Emergency
A worked example on resilience: one night on the North Sea in 1953, run along the chain from governance to the moment it was tested. Every arrangement existed. The test came at three on a Sunday morning.
Read the pieceWho writes this
Duncan McTavish is the author of Irreplaceable, a book about the craft of working with AI.
That is a different subject to the four pieces above, and it is here for one reason: it is finished. A practice this new has no client list to show you and no letters after its name, so the honest alternative is to point at work you can go and read, and let you judge it.
It comes with a free companion — twenty-two working laws, one per chapter, no email required.
Leanpub lets you choose what you pay above the $19.99 minimum. The guide is plain text, 15 KB, and has a page of its own.
Get in touch
Questions, corrections and disagreements are all welcome — the disagreements most of all.
- hello@thesecondopinion.uk
- linkedin.com/in/duncanmctavish
- Where
- Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
The judgement stays yours. The evidence should be someone else’s.