Gordon Brown should hang his head in shame. At PMQs he effectively tried to blame the Conservatives for what happened to the lost data. Cameron was right. This is not the time for the PM to play party politics. At this time, people want reassurance from their Prime Minister, for him to have the guts to take responsibility and to outline what he intends to do about it. This pathetic posturing by Brown will tell voters all they need to know.
I hope the whole country was watching PMQs, because if they did, I know who which party leader they'd vote for.
108 comments:
More reviews announced - mostly to try and trade on the names of the organisations that the reviewers are from.
He also almost went for the "I'll take not lectures " approach - to Tory cheers - until the speaker rescued him and he took a different line.
I don't think they have any idea how angry people are.
Hold - one its the white heat of environmental technology from Brown just now. Its all to be powered by government spending. ( Very bad news ).
I almost feel sorry for Gordon at the moment. I've never heard his stammer being so bad. He sounded like a skipping CD (probably lost in the post).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/14/it_tyranny/
(above) read about the systemic failure of Government IT projects - this was written over a year ago!
This is why Gordon Brown must resign.
Wasn't Brown telling Porkies to Vince Cable? As far as I am aware anyone with a Mortgage at Northern Rock was never at risk, regardless of Government Funding.
How did he try and smear Cameron? I missed that...
Brown cannot do PMQ's with any flair or gravitas. Major had the same problem. We could see the 'attack the conservatives/cameron defence' spring into action before PMQ's started. I can sense now that GB will hang on, for the full five year term, and -with pent-up hostility -the electorate will do to him what they did to Major. Brown will probably better Michael Foot's defeat in 1983.
Darling said it had nothing to do with the merger of Revenue and Customs!
Does the Left hand know what the Right hand is announcing?
Arrrrgh ...how did he blame the Conservatives ...I `m mystified. Blimey Iain , not all of us can watch you know . Spill the beans old man !
Iain
I was very intrigued by the way the speaker interjected just as Brown was on the point of losing it with another "I'll not take lessons" rant.
Maybe a one-off, maybe the speaker has unilaterally decided to look after his mate by saving him from even more ridicule, or maybe a concerted attempt by Brown's minders to avoid the worst.
Who knows? But let's look out for it happening again at PMQs.
SP
Brown was so pitiful it beggars belief. What a catastrophic shambles.
Having watched PMQs and just listened to Nick Robinson on 'The Daily Politics' I cannot believe we saw the same exchanges. The PM's face was not that of a happy confident man, to say the least. Lots of laughter too, not at the PM's jokes but at him personally. Nobody likes to be laughed at like that and I noticed how careful the PM was to keep the whole of his hands on the box most of the time. This is all 'Caine Mutiny' stuff in very slow motion.
Thought Cameron's slightly less brutal tone worked just as well as the outright aggression of last time.
If it is accepted that the reason for the data loss was that HMRC had too many job posts cut, do you really think people would vote for the man who wrote the manifesto calling for 235,000 civil servants (over and above what was previously planned) to be culled? Because that was what was in the Conservative 2005 manifesto written by David Cameron.
Will Conservatives now admit that manifesto was ludicrous?
There was a question in the Scottish Parliament sooth today during McPMQs, by a seemingly English (how did he get in?) McLabour McBritish MP, he said to General Broon:
"Should the Mcbarnett formula be applied to the English Regions".
And General Broon replies:
"The McBarnett formula should apply for the 'whole of the country'"
http://tinyurl.com/2v7crr
Brown said that the Tories were to blame because "they supported the merger of Revenue and Customs" as if that was the starting point of the whole fiasco.
Brown should take some responsibility for this farce, because it is he who has destroyed the Treasury/Revenue/Customs during his ten years at the helm.
Looks like no election till May 2010.
"I hope the whole country was watching PMQs, because if they did, I know who which party leader they'd vote for."
Vince Cable?
So a very senior partner at PWCS doing the review? Probably the usual outcome then tell the government what they want to hear whilst charging a fortune for the privilege.
Tony Blair could carry off the "party opposite did/did not support" line with ease, with Brown it just comes across as a drowning man clutching at straws.
Incidentally how nice of Jacqui Smith and Alan Johnson to sit there laughing whilst Brown answered a question about the soldiers who died this week. Not an ounce of class, respect or dignity on that front bench.
Iain,
It's not worth worrying about Browns attempted smearing of Cameron. In fact their performances at PMQ's today are largely irrelevant in the minds of the men, women and children who's personal details are now 'out in the wild', on a pair of unencrypted CDs.
Shame on all the Labour MPs who chose to nod in support - are their constituents not affected by this as well? I'd love to be fly on the wall in their surgeries this weekend...
Millions of voters are spitting mad about this - Brown will not be forgiven.
I watched PMQs and Brown certainly didn't try and blame the Conservatives for the lost data. He merely pointed out that their 2005 manifesto called for a reduction in civil service staff. Cameron chose to interpret that as an accusation of blame.
Brown gave another execrable , disconnected and at times downright weird performance. Nick Robinson has clearly forgotten how to perceive correctly! Disastrously, cataclysmically wretched!
The skids are under this Government. Brown was appalling and his behaviour offensive. Make no mistake, this PMQ's was a complete and utter disaster. Brown was appalling. Labour MP's should probably be put on suicide watch tonight.
Probably the worst ever performance by a Prime Minister at PMQ's. Yes, that bad!
Is Nick Robinson a friend of Gordon or something?
Admittedly Cameron wasn't as good as he could have been but Brown's performance was dire.
Robinson seems to have been watching a different PMQ's than the rest of us.
Let's be honest ... considering the gaping open goal, Dave's strikes were pretty tame.
Unfortunatley he blows hot & cold and on an issue perfect for roasting Brown's nuts, he blew luke warm.
The cabinet sat there smirking and giggling in their usual "we don't care" attitude and are apparently so out of touch they can't grasp how inappropriate their behaviour is.
And with the government beset by so many colossal problems backbenchers' attempts to change the subject by asking trivial sucking-up-to Gordon questions was was hopelessly ill-judged.
And let's not forget previous catastophes at the Inland Revenue. There was the sale of IR property undervalued at £220million to the off-shore tax avoidance company owned by George Soros - one property was Somerset House which an avaricious Israeli scumbag is proposing to develop. And there Gordon's current plans to sell of £36billion worth of more government property in another knock-down garage sale.
The first planted question by Labour took the wind out of Cameron's sails somewhat, he still managed to wind the humourless PM up several times (though admittedly not as much as the Labour member over the Barnett formula). Shame that useless speaker butted in just when Brown really started to lose it after Cameron's last "question" though, perhaps he will be getting his full pension after all.
"I watched PMQs and Brown certainly didn't try and blame the Conservatives for the lost data. He merely pointed out that their 2005 manifesto called for a reduction in civil service staff. Cameron chose to interpret that as an accusation of blame."
EXACTLY. Whilst this whole mess is indefensible, Cameron's reaction to that particular comment was engineered to make people think Brown was blaming them. Whatever you may think of him Iain, Brown isn't *that* stupid enough to play politics at this time like you are suggesting.
What bad news was GB really trying to bury by announcing this loss of data yesterday?
Tuned in eagerly to BBC World TV to watch the live performances (even BBC World have been forced to lead with this scandal) but the expatriate and world community were denied as the broadcast was cut off after the first statement from Brown and first reply from Cameron thus denying us any of the meat of the exchanges. We were then treated to a BBC newsreader hopelessly out of her depth asking exceptionally pro Nulab questions to a data security expert - who rightly and aggressively rebutted every single one of her pro-Chancellor questions. Still, I suppose I expected not much else. CNN usually has better coverage of live UK events than the so-called national broadcaster. I am glad I no longer have to fork out for the licence fee.
What Nick Robinson says on his blog is this:
"that given the the public's real anger about this, David Cameron chose to be seen not playing party politics by linking this fiasco with other recent ones. There was never enough ammunition today to deliver a killer blow. Time will tell whether the impact of this story is a long-term corrosion in the belief in the government's competence."
As Ed Vaizey just said on BBC News 24 - Gordon Brown always takes refuge in 'reviews'.
I say - Brown is a coward and he SHOULD resign.
Having watched PMQs and just listened to Nick Robinson on 'The Daily Politics' I cannot believe we saw the same exchanges.
Henry Rogers - I had exactly the same experience. The gloss Nick Robinson put on PMQs seemed to bear no relationship to reality. While Margaret Jay seems to be living in a parallel universe altogether. (like so many labour people she has some brass neck). I thought Cameron was terrific - substance and tone exactly right. But Nick Robinson wanted it all ways. Before PMQs he was saying how DC had to be careful not to be too aggressive and get the tone right. Afterwards they were complaining he didn't land any knock out blows. Grayling was quite right to say the situation was too serious for parliamentary knockabout. If DC had gone for that, you wouldn't be able to move for 'punch and judy' jibes.
Whatever you may think of him Iain, Brown isn't *that* stupid enough to play politics at this time like you are suggesting
Then why did he say it ?
Probably the same way the witch Hewitt set up the "vote for the reform treaty is a vote for climate change" question, i.e. as well as being stupid they are totally arrogant and don't give a damn.
Anonymous said...
Is Nick Robinson a friend of Gordon or something?
Goodness sakes HE works for the B B C..nuff said!
Also will someone PLEASE keep that David Boothroyd in his kindergarten until at least 4pm..what an absolute wally!
The only thing to consider is what one astute letter writer to the Telegraph today poses.
Would the government had acted in a similar manner IF it had been called SOUTHERN ROCK ?
Strapworld, the day you actually engage with arguments that are made and stop making asinine ad hominem remarks, will be a brighter one in so many ways. Do you dispute any part of what I wrote? If you do, please say so.
I did laugh though when somone asked
"When will Blackadder sack Baldrick?" and Gordon, without batting an eyelid, went on to talk about the Chancellor...
p.s. Desperate Dan...WHAAAAT!!! Somerset House flogged off for thre'punce ha'penny? Bloody Socialists!
If they bugger up sending out a couple of CDs not even by registered post, imagine what they are going to do to the Olympic Games.
If they lose the election in 2010, the Tories must cancel them forthwith because the planning, if any, will be too far gone to unpick.
Can you honestly, without breaking into tears of helpless laughter, imagine an Olympic Games run by Gordon Brown, Tosser Jowell, Jack Straw, Alastair Darliing and Harriet Harmon? The upside, though, is, it would finish off the Olympics forever.
The Olympic Mare's Nest.
I love it when people say now isn't a time for party politics and in the next breath play party politics.
Swings and roundabouts Iain, swings and roundabouts.
Review spelt 'long grass'!!!
By the time any of them report this lot will have given the fraudsters everyone else's bank details and more besides. An old teapot under the mattress suddenly feels a safer option that a bank account about which Gordo's bunch of incompetents have any knowledge...
David Boothroyd said...
If it is accepted that the reason for the data loss was that HMRC had too many job posts cut,do you really think people would vote for the man who wrote the manifesto calling for 235,000 civil servants (over and above what was previously planned) to be culled? Because that was what was in the Conservative 2005 manifesto written by David Cameron.
Will Conservatives now admit that manifesto was ludicrous?
November 21, 2007 12:43 PM
Boothroyd. Your people are the one's in government. They made the decisions and the result is the present unprecedented mess!
The Conservatives manifesto was a promise to reduce the numbers BUT I am certain that they would, and will, ensure that such reductions are made with far more thought and consideration than your awful, incapable lot have done!
Let us face it there is now a very strong case to privatise the whole civil service. This administartion have politicised the once impartial civil service to such an extent that the Conservatives would be dealing, forever, with the enemy within!
When you lie down to rest, this evening, Master Boothroyd. Consider just what a mess your lot have created. A breakup of the Union. A botched and unfinished job on The House of Lords.The Military in a situation where the Top Soldier raises a major problem with numbers and morale. Your lot have disbanded many historic regiments etc. The Police Service is politicised and they no longer police the streets, The NHS is a disgrace. Education is a shambles with so many of our young people UNABLE to read or write! I could go on but I do want you to get some sleep.
Labour have been a total disaster and when the books are opened we will see just how effective Bottler Brown was!
Now. go to bed like a good boy.
No, I don't accept that the reason for the data loss is the staff cutback at HMRC.
The Inland Revenue has been a law unto itself for decades, which MPs have been strangely reluctant to investigate - it has been an increasing shambles for the last 20 years, as any small business owner could testify.
Add to that the fact that in the last 10 years, taxation has become
ever more gruesomely complex, then the Dept was merged with Customs&Excise, then it was asked to implement Child Benefit, which it was patently incapable of doing.
Then add to this foul brew the obsession that this Govt has with using poor quality IT providers whilst at the same time introducing massive IT projects against which it has been advised by experts in the field.
The fact is, Mr Boothroyd, Governments of all ilks are historically inept (to put it mildly) at running almost anything, with a few exceptions that no doubt other posters will draw to our attention. And that is why I prefer a Party which is less attached (though not going as far as I would prefer) to the idea of the all-encompassing, paternalistic, anything-to-buy-your-votes, Labour Party.
Sorry, interrupted by a phone call, my last post and final lines should have read:
less attached to the idea of an all-encompassing State than paternalistic, anything-to-buy-your-votes Labour Party.
Charlie Root,
We can play party politics whenever we like, the point is today's PMQ's shouldn't have been the time for the PM to do so.
Does this make sense to you?
Obviously the whole country does not watch PMQs. Some will see a couple of 20 second snips. Many will not even see that.
Brilliant that you've decided now that this is NOT a matter for party politics.
Meanwhile I am defending one of your PPCs from what may be a rather unfair attack by The Mirror and by Lib Dems here.
Verity: The Olympics is being delivered by Tories like Seb Coe you muppet.
Strapworld: The idea that the civil service are in Labour's pocket in some way is absolutely craziness. While the mass of public service workers might be seen to have an interest in keeping a government that isn't going to cut them to shreds there are plenty of Trots and Tories and Fibs and worse in jobs.
Clearly this is where leaks come from, not from loyal Labour supporters as you imply.
I'm really sorry I missed PMQs. I believed someone who briefed that GB was not going to be there.
Chris Paul - Do you believe that the socialists are not pulling every string and arranging every detail? Seb Coe, who is unqualified to tie his own shoes, is the figurehead.
If you think he is really in charge of anything other than simple tasts that have been assigned to him, you are mistaken.
This Olympics will be designed to hark back to the Soviet and Hitleresque showcases of yore.
I've been mulling over Darling's statement that "banks were monitoring all 7.25 million bank accounts whose details were on the discs, which contained the personal details of all child benefit recipients in the UK."
I'm surprised that nobody challenged him on this one. This afternoon I was talking with the district manager of one of our banks in London who stated quite categorically that his bank had received no such request from the government, neither was it technically, or physically, possible to arrange blanket monitoring of so many accounts. His opinion for what its worth is that if any fraud involving the list takes place, then it will be down to the individual account holder to complain. Ultimately it will be the government (taxpayer) to underwrite any losses.
I see another Northern Rock coming!
Stand by for another uncontrolled panic in ALL the high street banks when customers who think they are about to be defrauded empty their bank accounts before the fraudsters do.
This one will run, and run, and run.
Every time someone loses money through banking fraud from now on, they'll blame Nu Labor.
Brown & Co have hit the tipping point - they've lost the next election over this.
The Olympics is/are being delivered by one useless former Tory (Coe) and lots more useless Labourites (Jowell, Livingstone et al).
Of course, I use the term 'delivered' in the loosest possible sense.
Hi, Verity!
Smear?
Gordon. He may have been embattled but didn't get knocked out which under the circs is amazing. Imagine how good he'll be when the going is good. Whereas Dave has never had a crisis to face in politics.
Dear Iain
Sorry for the delay, I've been out in a friend's helicopter since PMQs.
Once again though, many thanks from George and I for your continued championing of whatever we do.
Just don't know how you get away with it though, presenting yourself as a rational and independent commentator - you really do read those papers well on SkyNews.
Still, we're so looking forward to joining us full time though. We'll even move a third desk into our office just for you.
But no football memorabilia now. It is West Brom you support isn't it? Come on the Haggies? The Bammers? Not my game, I'm afraid.
Yours in PR heaven.
'Big Man' Dave
strapworld said...
Anonymous said...
Is Nick Robinson a friend of Gordon or something?
Goodness sakes HE works for the B B C..nuff said!
Nick Robinson was a former Young Conservative chairman.
General Gordon Broon is STILL the McChancelor!
And the McHome Scretary!
And the McForeign Scretary!
And the McDefence Secretary!
etc etc etc.....
Once a communist control freak, always a communist control freak.
http://tinyurl.com/34w25n
The fact that Chris Paul is "Denying responsibility” for the Olympics tells you just what a train wreck it is. Estimated £9.3 billion small beer by Northern Rock standards of course £5.3 billion for ID cards but both of these sums are underestimates in New Labour fashion. It is , of course, a Labour Project it could hardly be otherwise notwithstanding the Seb Coe doll who is unable to speak at all unless someone pulls the string out from his back in the morning .
Neither David Boothroyd or Chris Paul seem able to distinguish between a large over manned useless waste of public money and an organisation that works when it comes to the public sector .That is the problem with the Clown school, that New labour have become with many rats clearly running off the sinking ship. There is a difference honestly chaps .
Labour’s dysfunctional relationship with the civil service is an ongoing farce
Prison Building
Immigration Control
Iraq
Tax Credits
DEFRA
NHS Computers
Everything the Home Office does
ID cards ...oh sorry still waiting for that one
To name but a few of the catastrophes.
The sheer incompetence is staggering and as Douglas Herd pointed out it cannot be coincidence. Blair , right from the start despised the civil Service and had them upbraided by his court favourites . Brown appears to be even more Blairite in his style than Blair ....but of course it was him really all along
I can't wait for the next round of polls to come out. Can you poll a minus figure?
Hi, Judith!
4:36 - I agree. This is the tipping point.
I think the main question is: will the last month or so finally turn Darling's eyebrows grey as well?
It is all to grim to enjoy watching Brown and Darling totally fail in the management of the country.
For God's sake we have to live in the car crash that they are creating.
Anyone else notice Gordon in his first response inadvertently called the Speaker 'Mr Chairman'? Must have had a flashback to thinking he was addressing the Politburo again....
Apparently the Labour MP for Broxtowe finds the whole ID fiasco and to-day's PMQS based aroundit 'enjoyable'.
'I’ve retired from commenting on the public impact of PMQs as we all see what we want, but the unanimous view on the Labour benches was that it had been a surprisingly enjoyable session. What the public thinks depends on how it’s broadcast.
by Nick Palmer MP November 21st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
It will certainly be enjoyable when Palmer gets his P45 in the not too distant future.
Brown limped through today after getting a stooge to ask the first question, which enabled the Great Leader to drone on for five minutes about how he was in full control of the situation.
I agree with the above poster who was appalled at the behaviour of the ministers on the front bench, who chatted and sniggered throughout the proceedings. Did Jacqui Smith really think it was amusing that we've lost three servicemen in Iraq in the past week?
Edward Leigh is dropping bombshells on Sky News, regarding the information requested by the NAO from HMCE. 'Systemic failure'.
"Because that was what was in the Conservative 2005 manifesto written by David Cameron."
David Boothroyd, do you think he would have written anything against the wishes of his boss at the time, Michael Howard?
Knowing the incompetence of this lot.What's the betting that somebody within a government department somewhere received 2 CDs just before they went on holiday abroad . Thought "What the f*** are these ? I didn't ask for them ?" - then promptly put 'em in a drawer until their return from holiday next week ?
To be quite frank i reckon Gordon has got away with this.
Cameron once again made a real pigs ear of a golden gift at PMQs.
Cameron didn't seem to ram the points home. Perhaps he has decided that the public will take this dimly enough and that jeering overly might seem counter-productive. Cameron has been criticised, unfairly in my view, for being too shrill of late. I suspect that those who have been affected by this scandal (myself included) will not have needed Cameron to have done anything other than state the facts. These speak for themselves.
In addition, Darling is a liability. To have gone for too much blood maight have finished him off and so Cameron may have taken the long term view that a wounded incompetent is better than a corpse and a possibly fresh and better replacement.
The comments section of Nick Robinson's blog has crashed after 369 comments. Anything to do with large numbers of people trying to question his description of the not-so-clunking fist emerging "unscathed" from PMQs?
Gordon hasn't gotten away with this. This will run for weeks. Cameron knows that the possible ramifications will run for months if not decades. It's a running sore which the government will not escape for a considerable time. Further revelations will come to light and will provide Cameron with further ammunition with which to bait Brown for an age. I think, as I said above, that Cameron has taken the long view on this. The facts speak for themselves and sometimes it's better to let them do so.
Just heard on Channel 4 from one of their political correspondents that Labour MPs are starting to wonder how to replace Brown.
Yep, I heard that too. As I Said above, the damage has been done and there's no point in Cameron doing overkill. Imagine if the great nose-picking, sulking clucking fist left and some shinier Johnson or Milliband (I know, I know, they're crap too - just less offensive) took over...
Brown is a gift to the tories. Let him live, just, and show how crap nulabour is.
The jerk doesn't even need to attend the match in order to jinx it. We will never win anything so long as this accursed regime remains in power.
Gordon Brown should be scaked.
Steve MacLaren should be sacked.
We all know it's true.
What's the matter with this world?!
Gordon Brown should be SACKED too.
Come on Beckham!
No, he should definitely be scaked first. With a spork.
Erst geköpft,
dann gehangen,
dann gespießt
auf heiße Stangen;
dann vebrannt,
dann gebunden,
und getaucht;
zuletzt geschunden.
(Er läuft voll Wut ab)
I hope you are right. But I have thought that at virtually every PMQT I have witnessed for the last 10 years and 6 months.
The big shift will come when the BBC runs out of excuses, or simply gets exhausted by having to make so many so often.
It did to some extent back in 79. But remember back then, not even the BBC could bury its dead or get its rubbish taken away.
David Boothroyd
Thanks very largely to this governments policies I have since 97 cut my manufacturing and management staff from 10 to 3. I can assure you that in spite of this my turnover and profitability has gone up. This because I no longer attempt to train young workers EVER and have invested in new plant and machinery that will take ten years of hard work to fully pay for.
BUT I or any of my staff have never sent anything of any value whatsoever though anything other then the registered post for the entire 29 years I have been in business. Also would never deliver anything of this potential value using anything other then a TRAINED REGISTERED PAIR OF GUARDS.
You simply must be a civil servant to come up with the UTTER CRAP you so often do.
I sack incompetent people not employ more of them. Which is why I am wonderful and self made rich and you are a complete self made c..t, and don't even know why.
How unimaginative and stupid does someone have to be to connect a call for an overall reduction in staff of a vast, varied and overblown organisation with the errors caused by the foolish and unwarranted loss of specific staff? The Conservatives might call for staff cuts, but Brown chose which staff to cut.
Sometimes I wonder whether he is truly an idiot or he assumes we all are.
verity 5.29 tipping point?
when's the tipping out point?
David Boothroyd: "the reason for the data loss was that HMRC had too many job posts cut".
So how many people does it take to send a file from one department to another? Sounds like a simple question of the wrong type of civil servant.
Tapestry - when the news broke. The incompetence was too grotesque. And they tried to cover it up it for a month , meaning people whose details were on those CDs didn't even get a chance to call their banks and put stops on their accounts immediately.
Every one of those benefits recipients, when they have a bank irregularity from now on, will immediately suspect the government CD and get riled up all over again.
The charming part of this saga, though, is, it is the welfare scroungers and benefits recipients (in the main) who are threatened by this carelessness - Labour voters. And if Gordon Brown had not created all these new taxes and then fiddly little ways of claiming money back through "tax credits" that punish the ever-diminishing taxpaying community, there wouldn't have been 25m cock-ups.
Therefore, I think the tipping point was reached when the news broke. Someone over on the Speccie's Coffee House blog said there is now a stench of death about this government, and I think that is true.
A bottled election, various failures that Brown has tried to waffle through, deaths of our servicemen, no good news to announce, and now the personal details of 25m families free-floating around Britain. That's 25m worried voters. What a great Christmas season this is turning out to be!
mmm, this really makes me want to get an ID card, we might as well just put bank details, pin and national insurance number in a bag marked "swag"
nick palmer...what a great chap.
votes for illegal wars, torture flights and loves cats. shameless twat
Alistair Darling has been caught lying to Parliament as bankers deny his claim that he delayed his announcement at their request:
"Last night bankers reacted angrily to a suggestion by Mr Darling that he had delayed his announcement because the financial sector was “adamant” it needed time to prepare. A senior City source said: “By 9.30 on Monday we were ready to run. It is hard to fathom why any suggestion was made that any delay was down to us.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2912937.ece?token=null&offset=24
[11:45] - Who is this curiously interesting Nick Palmer?
"... votes for illegal wars...". Could you tell us, [11:45], what an "illegal" war is? I believe the war in Iraq was voted for in the House of Commons, which is jam packed with elected representatives of the British people? Am I wrong here?
"... torture flights" ...I don't think I would condemn BA that strongly, although I certainly stopped flying them around six years ago due to an aversion to thought fascist bossy flight attendants ...
"and loves cats." Is he married?
November 21, 2007 11:45 PM
Surely it's a conspiracy to convince us that we all need biometric ID cards now that our bank details are public? Apparently the Yanks are well keen on us all having them and the Germans are pushing ahead. Maybe this is the kick in the butt they think us Brits need?
Or have I just drank too much again?
The story already seems to be slipping down the news agenda this morning. Pathetically, the BBC just rehash the government's lies and Tory statements contradicting them as if the whole thing is just a routine political debate, rather than what it is - blatant lies and misconduct by the government.
We need to know -:
1/ Why was data being routinely trafficked like this by the HMRC and is it still?
2/ Why do lower-level civil servants and assistant-director level civil servants have the apparent right to either deliberately or just in error download vast numbers of bank accounts and send them in the post to other bodies?
3/ Why did the HMRC and the responsible department senior civil servants and minister hang on to the news about this appalling breach for weeks before releasing news of it?
4/ Why do government agencies flagrantly breach data protection rules in this way?
5/ Which civil servants have been sacked that might have been helpful in this situation?
6/ Who exactly approved the data transfer, how many times has it been done before and what other bodies other than the NAO have recieved such data in the past and by what methods?
Well done incidentally to the MI5 operatives and New Labour insiders manipulating the news agenda from within the BBC. A sterling job!
i'd just like to point out that there are far more serious implications than mere bank fraud, with regards to the missing data.
the data is a goldmine for terrorists wanting to create fake ids.
Labour never has and never will have any shame. They were not fit to govern in the 60s and are not fit to govern now. This time however they have done it without the help of the unions.
In an earlier posting I wrote about my district bank manager telling me that they had not been told to monitor any accounts. As this “manager” is a relative, I called him again last evening and learned the following. The central bank HQ’s are monitoring the accounts at a higher level for `unusual activity’ and this is not being seen at branch level except for fast tracking a customer query. What this means is that any transactions on the accounts which are not `standing orders’ will be flagged and payments possibly delayed while an enquiry is made with the customer as to validity. I can imagine that with Christmas shopping in full swing, there are going to be some embarrassing moments for bank customers at the tills. It’s all going to be terribly inconvenient and maddening. Let’s hope those affected remember that this is the government’s fault and not the banks.
On a second point, how is it possible that any personal details can be forwarded from one government department to another? Over here in Austria, the data-protection act does not allow the disclosure of data from the Inland Revenue to the Pensions, Driving Licence Authority etc., or vice-versa. Is this not an EU law?
A computer scientist on Newsnight raised a very key point, that if an individual's biometric data was somehow compromised, or maliciously changed, that individual would not have any access to bank accounts, etc or technically even have an identity.
This all clearly went over John Hutton's head, meanwhile we can expect that this particular science (unlike the MMGW mantra) will be brushed aside by these idiots on a mission.
Travis Bickle is right, this is all way, way above the intelligence level of the average minister. EDS, who are "delivering" (tee hee) the ID card scheme will be applying maximum contractual and commercial pressure not to drop the scheme. NL ministers appear terribly vulnerable to such commercial considerations for unknown reasons, hence the determination at all costs to proceed. Mere facts such as the total inability to administer such a scheme in a robust manner, as proven by the recent conduct of the Revenue, must not be allowed to intrude on the headlong rush to line the pockets of the big IT consultancies.
Verity wrote :
"now the personal details of 25m families free-floating around Britain. That's 25m worried voters."
Now I know for a fact what I've long suspected. Verity has no brain, no insight, no reading comprehension skills.
7.25 million families. 25m individuals.
If babies have been given the vote in Very Twee's flea-ridden parallel universe, then fine, but when is Iain going to start moderating out lies about the real world?
Furthermore, :
"The charming part of this saga, though, is, it is the welfare scroungers and benefits recipients (in the main) who are threatened by this carelessness - Labour voters"
Leaving aside the fact that Verity thinks Labour has 25m votes in the bag, perhaps the correct number of eligible voters here is around 10million. Assuming there are childless scrounging Labour voters to add o that figure, then it looks like Verity's money would be on another Labour landslide in 2010!
Idiot.
If you want to stitch Brown up right back take a look here:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?storyID=9591
Richard Brooks (The First Post) has figured out how to blame Brown for England's defeat last night.
propertory, please don't encourage her. she's too boring. at least it wasn't her usual cut and paste job and she didn't use quaint foreign expressions like calling labour 'socialists'.
Anonymous -
I stand rightly chastised!
The leak of John Arne Riise's payslip last monthy revealed that he at least pays PAYe - I though that was the same for all footballers, non-dom's or not.
I have a feeling non-dom status re income can apply to non-CLUB playing related income (ie international fees and bonuses), and non-football related income.
Still, I firmly believe the deffeat was Brown's fault, and that Carson was distrated by the fact that he's a child-benefit scrounger himself!
Looking forward to a World Cup triumph just AFTER the May 2010 election!
Brown did say "sorry", that means a lot in Politics, but in this case he would be a fool not to openly apologise.
Which makes it rather strange for him to be accused of "blaming" the Conservatives, and even stranger for so-called centre-right bloggers to characterise that as a "pathetic smear". Sounds a bit pre-rehearsed to me.
verity said - "The charming part of this saga, though, is, it is the welfare scroungers and benefits recipients (in the main) who are threatened by this carelessness - Labour voters."
Wrong Verity, it is ALL families with children. The database is for the Child Benefit Agency. Child Benefit is equivalent to the old Family Allowance and the take-up is almost 100%, i.e. including almost all Tory families.
Brown spluttered that if the Tories had voted differently over something or other, and if Cameron had not himself considered a spot of financial housekeeping at the Inland Revenue, then the whole fiasco would have been avoided. He implied that the Tories in general and Cameron in particular were personally responsible for the disastrous results of Labour policy.
desperate dan said
"He implied that the Tories in general and Cameron in particular were personally responsible for the disastrous results of Labour policy."
No. He implied that the situation would have been even worse under a Tory government. That is not the same as blaming Cameron or the Tories generally for the current data fiasco.
How did he imply that it would be worse under the Tories? As I understood it he quoted from some sort of 4 year old Tory proposal paper that mulled over the possibilities of making unspecified economies.
Brown sought to give the impression that this proved Cameron had concrete plans to make identical staffing/economic cuts as Labour - thereby admitting that staffing cuts had contributed to the problem - and that the same disaster would have ensued.
While the sight of the wheels coming off this fascist abomination of a government is delightful to behold, the fact that the population seem to think a Cameron-led government will free us from their imperialist police state Bilderberg agenda is so depressing as to make emigration the only viable option.
"The Tories will save us!"
We're fucked.
Desperate Dan said...
"Brown sought to give the impression that this proved Cameron had concrete plans to make identical staffing/economic cuts as Labour - thereby admitting that staffing cuts had contributed to the problem - and that the same disaster would have ensued."
Yes, but how does that amount to blaming Cameron for the data loss?
It's ironic that all this is happening around the 40th anniversary of the devaluation of the pound.
First thing this morning I checked the news headlines on Teletext, as I do before I go to work.
ITV was showing as their top story; "Tories renew missing records attack."
BBC's interpretation was "Government challenges data claims (by the Tories)"
Hmm... The Beebs up to its old tricks again.
Anonymous said...
"Stand by for another uncontrolled panic in ALL the high street banks when customers who think they are about to be defrauded empty their bank accounts before the fraudsters do."
ALL the banks? Where are people going to put their money? Under the matress?
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