Puppet show
Nick Clegg , Issue 1639 AFTER his cosying-up to Donald Trump during the election campaign, Elon Musk was declared a "political puppet master" in an interview with the BBC on 6 December. By whom?

Er, Meta attack dog Nick Clegg – whose own boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has himself been getting closer with the president-elect by visiting Mar-a-Lago and donating $1m to his inauguration fund.

Artificial enhancement
Clegg also claimed that fears that "AI was going to destroy democracy" were over-egged. Who had voiced those fears?

Also Nick Clegg, who had written in the Evening Standard in 2017 that AI development would concentrate wealth and create unemployment which are "a guarantee of more political and social unrest".

Grappling with leaving the EU, he suggested that "how we ensure artificial intelligence will enhance, not hollow out, society is one of the greatest challenges of our time".

One £10m bonus from Zuckerberg later, though, and Clegg has spent his year attacking EU lawmakers for "regulatory uncertainty" on AI. Political puppet master? Trebles all round!