Read later Audio version Summary: The UK government’s rhetoric about data strategy and economic renewal can be compared with what is happening in the real world. (Image by www_slon_pics from Pixabay ) The UK launched its National Data Strategy last September, after more than two years of Brexit-inspired hiatus, bafflement, shoulder-shrugging, and pettifogging. Yet just a few months earlier in March, 2020's Westminster eForum on UK data strategy had presented an alarming picture of rudderless government. At that event, Gaia Marcus, then UK Head of Data Strategy, said: We knew that we had the solution [the data strategy], but we weren't clear on the problem. So, back in the Middle Ages of this project, when the team was focusing on the work, I commissioned a call for evidence to actually understand that, if we've all agreed that the national strategy is the solution to a problem, what actually is the problem?