[ben_w]

As a resident of the UK, I perceive a strong political incentive to persue more laws and stronger enforcement of and punishment for violating those laws.

The UK has until recently been trying to follow a policy of reduced public spending and reduced government borrowing. It is natural to assume that any new technology is only being used on this basis.

That doesn’t mean this perception is correct, and the current state of the UK looks to me like they’re trying to promise all things to all people, failing to do almost anything, and increasing annoying everyone as a result — so there isn’t any reason to assume logical coherence either.

[hathathat]

> The UK has until recently been trying to follow a policy of reduced public spending

Um, what? [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_United_Kingdom

[ben_w]

Trying, not really succeeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_government_aust...

[hathathat]

> deficit reduction programme

Your link just explains that they’re trying to reduce the gap between tax income and expenditure, but the absolute level of expenditure (my link) has gone up every year (in real terms too)!

[jimnotgym]

As a citizen of the UK I can tell you that until Brexit became along the political narrative since Cameron became PM had been all about 'The Cuts'. The fact that, despite widespread cuts to the civil service and the police, spending has increased just goes to show that ideology has become more important than sense in 2018.

Talking about the specifics however, the number of police officers in the UK have been reduced by around 19 thousand. Since that only leaves 126k I hope you will find that significant. I find the continued expenditure on unproven gadgets rather distasteful against this backdrop.

https://fullfact.org/crime/police-officer-numbers-have-falle...