Bruges Group Blog

In my previous article, kindly published on this Bruges Group site, I wrote about and reproduced the letter I sent to Prime minister Starmer with my total opposition to the introduction of digital I.D. cards, which I see as a tool of the police state. I also mentioned that I had not received a reply to my letter, which was sent immediately Starmer ...

The wonderful Spike Milligan titled his book in which he wrote about his time serving in the army during WWII: 'Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall'. As a young man I read this and other books by him, as a lad growing up with the Goon Show on the wireless I loved his irrelevant humour, so in honour to him, I have decided to show the letter I wrot...

Those of my generation may very well remember the hit song 'Three steps to Heaven' by Eddie Cochran, released in 1960. Now however I believe that we face three steps to Hell which, if they are taken by our society, will see the total destruction of the right to privacy, and make it impossible for anyone to live a quiet, anonymous life free of super...

Labour positioned itself as a party of technocrats, but the small boats deal shows they have no clue what they're doing, writes Eliot Wilson  Last week, the Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous Journeys, concluded between the UK and France in July, came into force. It is the government's latest attempt to tackle the number of migrants cros...

In an age where data is often referred to as the "new oil," the conversation around digital privacy and data sovereignty has never been more critical. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, how personal data is collected, stored, and used has profound implications for individuals, businesses, and governments. Let's explore the complex la...

To address the global digital divide, we will first need to have a closer look at what the digital divide is? It basically refers to the gap between those who have access to modern communications and technologies and the ones who don't, which ultimately leads to the disparities to participate in the digital world. With the modern age of AI evolutio...

Not since the assassination attempt of the late US President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C., has there been an attempt on the life of a president or presidential nominee prior to last week. A 20-year-old male with no criminal history borrowed his father's rifle, made his way onto the roof of a warehouse 150 yards from where former President Dona...

Straws in the wind   The NHS The NHS is crumbling and cannot continue for much longer in its current form. Free healthcare for all at the point of need was possible in the late 1940s and early 1950s but with ever more costly and complex interventions this is no longer the case. None of the modern imaging equipment had been invented when t...

By Christine McNulty  Plato believed there exists an inescapable duality, a conflict between mind and body. He viewed human emotion as an enemy and saw reason as a "charioteer commanding horses: the unruly passions" - a view that has echoed down through the centuries.But the history of human achievement is a powerful testimony to the fact...

 AI is a direct threat to formerly trustworthy and secure sources of information, image and data. In a recent open letter, AI-expert signatories of which included Elon Musk urged a pause in AI training to reflect and take stock. "AI research and development should be refocused on making today's powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate,...

 Far from being located in the sky, cloud data centres are very large and earthbound with real effects on energy security There are differing statistics on the amount of electricity drained by data centres globally, but it is substantial and as cloud expands to and within developing nations, it will increase. There were already around 3.6 bill...

Kids can be very cruel, when I was at the start of my teenage years at school in 1961 the banter we used was often quite cutting. If anyone wanted to wind another lad up they would often use an insult using the abbreviation of a word which inferred the other lad's sexual leaning were not quite what was expected from a member of the male species. Th...

The use of artificial intelligence is currently paving the way to unprecedented possibilities in the financial sphere. With AI's growing capability and development, which is the current focus of most major market players, AI is carving itself an invaluable role. With the use of machine learning, natural language processing, and deep learning, finan...

How State Power and Algorithms Can Threaten Humanity Are you ready to dive into an important and current topic? The COVID-19 pandemic has been the perfect pretext for governments around the world to restrict fundamental rights without due process, creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that threatens democracy. Furthermore, a new technologi...