Party, Brewery, Organise...

'Tis the season of goodwill to all, and down in government do they mean all.

Firstly the Chancellor loans £24 billion to Northern Rock, more in hope than expectation of seeing the money returned.

Then, should any of the 25 million names of the 'lost' computer discs be defrauded, the government will reimburse their losses. As usual the long-suffering tax payer will pick up the tab.

Just when we thought they couldn't get any worse, Alistair Darling's statement in the Commons today exposed greater levels of negligence and incompetence than I thought possible. Gordon Brown states that a government's first priority is to protect its citizens and then they manage to lose the personal details of 25 million people, including National Insurance numbers and bank account details - exactly the kind of information of use to terrorists.

As always with 'New Labour' the buck will stop at some poor middle or junior ranking civil servant, and the elected Minister will announce an enquiry and cling to his job.

If you ever defined power for its own sake you would see a picture of the Labour cabinet.

Darling said that the van carrying these discs belongs to TNT, who work for the government carrying internal mail. I've seen these vans displaying a sign which reads 'carrying internal mail only' and have assumed this was TNT's own post; I never realised this internal mail was highly confidential information about you, me and our loved ones.

As Eddie Mair said today on Radio 4, would you trust this 'bunch of incompetents' (his words not mine) to run an identity card scheme.

I've said this before elsewhere, but I'll say it again: this lot no longer have the moral authority to govern us, and it's time they gave all of us the ability to vote whether they stay or are replaced.