Quis Custodiet?

There is some sign of progress at the Ministry of Incarceration, Deportation and Snoopery: when it comes to losing personal data, they have upgraded from disks to memory sticks. Memory sticks, of course, are smaller, more compact and hence easier to lose. In this case, the data included the names, dates of birth and addresses of over thirty thousand people. Fortunately, they are all offenders, so Agent Smith may be able to defend herself a bit better than if they had been people with human rights. Nevertheless, Keith Vaz said that, following previous data losses, ministers had given "absolute assurances" that "lessons had been learned". He believed them, so naturally he is "deeply disappointed". David Davies, a Welsh Conservative, blathered happily on the Today programme that "Once you get into the government civil service, you're virtually unsackable no matter how incompetent you actually are"; the fact that this particular piece of incompetence was achieved by an external malefactor disposal contractor being inadmissible to members of the Other Privatisation Party.