Yet another database is wanted. As the always excellent Mr Eugenides says:

Really, what are we to make of this?

• A national ID database
• A national DNA database
• A national children’s database (complete with extra-secure VIP area for Romeo and Brooklyn)
• A national vehicle journey database (linked in to numberplate recognition technology to provide a total record of every car journey in the country)
• And now a national phone, email and text message database, detailing every private communication you have made over the last 12 months.

No doubt I’ve forgotten a few, too. Wouldn’t it just be simpler and swifter to combine all these into one big super-database? Why not? I trust them. Don’t you?

Can we move back to the principles of civil liberties, freedoms like speech and movement, and personal privacy now please? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?