Puzzlepolitics

So it happened. London's Met police announced that the city will get its first permanent camera equipped with facial recognition. The first one will be deployed in Croydon, with the Met police saying they could extend the surveillance to other areas. This is another step towards the UK's recent ambition to become a surveillance state -- some of you might have noticed that the government is also trying to gain access to Apple users' end-to-end encrypted data. This isn't fine, and it doesn't matter how lofty the intentions behind these attacks on people's privacy are. "We're fighting crime" isn't a good enough excuse, not when crime in the city is going through the roof and the police is doing nothing about the amount of stabbings, thefts, and phone snatching that is going on in the capital. There are many ways to fight crime, but the Met seems to be more interested in merely logging crime and producing nice charts at the end of the week, somethi...

We've all heard about CANZUK. Or have we? There has been some recent interest in the concept of CANZUK - an alliance between Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The reason for this recent uptick in interest (which can interestingly be verified on Google Trends) is, considering the unprovoked trade war started by the US against Canada, not accidental. The world order is changing, and so the Anglosphere needs to adapt, too. The US has not only become an unreliable partner -- Americans have shown the world that they are willing to put in charge a dangerous man freelancing as a clown, twice. It is clear that the pax americana is coming to an end, and western democracies need to realign and decouple from America - fast. This isn't to say that America has become an enemy, not at all. It is still a strong Western ally, but its support for NATO, freedom, democracy and the West in general cannot be taken for granted anymore. And so the countries that still care about western valu...

Rachel Reeves is out there looking for growth. And rumours have it that she's been looking at either abolishing the cash ISA, or reducing it in size. For those who are not familiar with ISAs, they are accounts for UK resident where you can save up to £20,000 a year, and not pay any tax on the interests - ever. There are multiple types of ISA, but mostly it boils down to: cash ISAs, and stocks and shares ISAs. A cash ISA is essentially like a deposit account that is tax free. Every year you can add £20k to it, and never pay tax on it. Stocks and shares ISAs allow you to invest your money in the stock market and not pay tax on capital gains. Pretty neat, especially considering the tax burden in the UK is at the highest level in decades. Now, back to Rachel Reeves and her mission to grow the UK economy. Many investment firms have complained to Reeves that too many people stash their money in cash ISAs, depriving the markets of some £290 billion of potential investment (data from FY22/...

A tweet published by  Trump himself  on his social media platform makes it sound like the US president is at least considering stopping funding for education institutions that allow "illegal protests". The definition of  "illegal protest" isn't clear at all. Presumably Trump is referring to the recent protests in support of Ukraine, or the ones against Israel, or the ones against him. But the definition doesn't matter as much as the intention behind this tweet: Trump is trying to intimidate schools and universities across the country into silencing dissent. Is this what America looks like now? A country where freedom of speech isn't enshrined, but openly threatened? I am not saying that I agree with the protests. After all, I don't even know exactly what protests he is talking about. But that is besides the point: we should all, at all times, defend everyone's freedom of speech. It doesn't matter that we agree or disagree with them: for a dem...

The USA's position on the world's stage has taken a dramatic, shocking turn away from the rest of the liberal democracies. Consumers are reacting with boycotts. It is one thing to say that Europe must spend more on defence, that it must be able to carry its own weight in NATO, and that it has not been doing enough. I have said so myself . I get it, and I fully agree with the US on this. Another thing is to shamefully attack a man, a victim , representing a country at war, who is desperate for help to save his nation, when he is willing to sign away his countries' resources to stop Putin from coming back for more of his country every few years. Zelensky is the victim here. Let us be crystal clear: Putin is a dictator who doesn't deserve a shred of our sympathy. Whatever you think of Zelensky, his country has been invaded by Russia. These are the facts: if you cannot handle them, you are in denial. Calling Zelensky a dictator, inviting him to the oval office for a humilia...