Nuance there is that the legitimacy in the form of line of succession has been governed by law too (and no doubt conquest historically) at least following the glorious revolution of 1688. It has jumped around.
No it doesn't. I am an atheist and I do not believe the King is ordained by any form of deity. I look past that and support the constitutional monarchy settlement on the grounds of tradition/culture, how it provides constitutional checks and balances, how it can be a unifying figure against the negatives of elected head of state populists etc e.g. president Blair or president Farage. I am not saying this is the setup which I would use for any new countries, but it works at least for us. It also works for many countries in Europe.
This feels like a partisan hatchet job. There is a balance. Freedom of protest does not give the right to perpetually block roads and motorways putting protestors and others into danger.
This organisation had no issue with governments imposing multi year lockdowns without any form of criticism.
1Password is E2E encrypted no with decryption/encryption happening only at the edge? If the cloud storage is compromised, that doesn't mean the attacker can read the passwords?
AFAIK Modern Android (>= 8.0) reserves the right to kill your app when running in the background unless there's a foreground toast bound (even then, can still be killed in low memory situations). How does this solution work around that? Is there a need to opt into the legacy "battery saver disabled" mode for the app which more closely mirrors <= 7.0 execution model?
Is another low tech way simply print screening the redacted image + cropping? Naturally you will lose resolution if the OS/app is downsampling the image to render but could be good enough and a good hedge against the image format somehow encoding history. AFAIK, some law firms still redact, print, scan for this reason.
I am not super optimistic in the short/medium term (5+ years) at least. There are clear structural headwinds which anyone would be foolish to deny. This doesn't mean the country is ending. The country will still remain a fantastic place to live in the grand scheme of things. Once inflation settles down, a lot of the current issues will settle down (strikes et al). The inflation while exasperated no doubt by Brexit is primarily caused by energy crisis + lockdowns.
On tribalism, it is tricky. Most of the discourse I find in the Anglosphere is similarly negative and tribalistic. Cutting down on news overall is a good tactic I won't lie + reading comments sections (HN is my vice, clearly). I stay away from Guardian and the Mail who love to wind up their audience.
On thriving outside of the UK, the UK needs to forge strong trade deals and have a visa system which supports skilled immigration (they are making good progress here). More funding/support in place for commercialising the great innovations happening in many of the UK universities (a significant advantage). More competitive taxation rates. Unfortunately, Truss totally messed this up which means we are probably saddled with high taxation without corresponding supply side reforms for a good period.
Domestically, the NHS needs to be reformed and a system found on the continent followed (note: not the awful US model).
UK is NOT trying to emulate North Korea. This is a bad faith statement. Those countries (USA, China, Singapore) you mentioned are not in the EU Common Travel Area either.
Folks have touched upon this already but a real issue is the chattering classes can simply not get over Brexit. Everything is seen through the prism of either supporting remain or leave. Throw in some confirmation bias. The Economist is particularly guilty here. I don't follow this relish in talking your country down and having such click bait doomer titles - "Britain's demise". Such a bore.
Not sure. In the devolved administrations, Scotland in particular, my understanding is they locked down for longer with more restrictions and actually had higher death rates (other factors may be at play here to be fair) or very similar levels:
The vitriol in the position. Possessing such a negative exaggerated view point is not healthy and doesn't help discourse. UK has challenges yes, but it has a lot of good to offer too. It reads like left-wing doomerism.
This is such a total hit piece with all the right bingo hot words and themes: Brexit, "Island mentality", "Not European", "Sun has set on Britannia", "Pirate roots" (?) to name a few. Total poisonous bile.
What are you insinuating would have been the better approach here? It sound like you would have wanted harder lockdowns and/or pursue a zero Covid strategy?
In the Anglosphere, it feels that many of our institutions have been captured by activists. A small minority who push an agenda and are able to silence (consciously or subconsciously) mainstream thinking.
You are coming across here as a terrible elitist. Language is unnecessary. Referring to people as the "unwashed masses" and then a comparison to chimpanzees. In the context, this reads like de-humanization.