Getting the Message Across

A spokesbeing for the Ministry of Splitting in Two has quashed all qualms about the Surveillance Makes You Free project with characteristic New Labour pith: "The national identity scheme will be a crucial part of key national infrastructure, allowing individuals, business, and the state to prove identity more securely, conveniently and efficiently," he said. "Quite simply, failing to begin implementation now will put the UK at a serious disadvantage in the future." So who cares what it costs?

Meanwhile, the Independent notes a few more announcements which the Government appears to have saved for days on which the public would be able to keep an appropriate perspective on them. The Insolvency Service released figures showing a record number of bankruptcies for the first quarter of the year; but it released them on the morning of Friday 4 May, when local election results helped to prevent the possibility of excessive and potentially harmful public attention.

The Government's response to the possibility of a debt crisis was characteristically decisive, sincere and shoulder to shoulder: namely to close three debt centres in Leeds, Edinburgh and Greater Manchester with the loss of nearly four hundred jobs. Like the good news about ID cards, this information was released yesterday.

Also released yesterday, while the Vicar of Downing Street was paying humble homage to the greatest country in the world and reminding us all of his achievements regarding the NHS and his genuine personal belief in his personal beliefs, was the announcement by Patsy Hackitt, the Nurses' Friend, that the Government has failed to honour its 1997 manifesto commitment to eliminate mixed-sex wards. Hackitt claimed last year that 99% of trusts provided single-sex accommodation in general wards, but apparently this was based on a "misunderstanding, in some trusts, of the definition of single-sex accommodation".

Also, the Minister of Unfitness for Purpose announced that the number of children whose genetic information has been added to the national DNA database now exceeds half a million. The database is described by the Ministry of Splitting in Two as "a key police intelligence tool that helps to quickly identify offenders, make earlier arrests, secure more convictions" and "provide critical investigative leads for police investigations". Yet, once more, the news was announced yesterday, when the front pages were predictably occupied with the Vicar of Downing Street's farewell sermon.

Let's hope the Prince in Waiting can manage his press releases better than this. Anyone would think the Ministry had something to be ashamed of.