If there is a desire to increase public confidence in official figures, it will certainly not happen overnight. They would need to break through the maxim of “lies, damn lies, and statistics” first… Good luck with that.
The problem is in the way we are only given certain bits of information, whichever bit best suits the purposes of the political party making the claim. Whether it be percentages, absolute numbers, comparable numbers, we don’t get all the relevant information so that we can actually draw a proper conclusion.
Before official statistics will …

Do you remember Information Sharing Orders, to allow Ministers to override the Data Protection Act by fiat, smuggled into the “Coroners and Criminal Justice Bill” at the end of last year.

Well, Plan B to circumvent the Data Protection Act may have surfaced: rather than sharing data we will all have an “Integrated Citizen Record”.

The Police are asking people to provide a DNA sample in order to rule them out of an investigation into a rape and murder case.
I would be surprised if many people would be willing to give their DNA to the police, despite the seriousness of the crime. Simply because of the DNA database and the lack of any requirement for DNA of innocent people to be removed.
If I was asked to give my DNA to the police on a voluntary basis, I would refuse. They do not have the right …

Despite the DNA database storing of thousands of samples being declared illegal, the government intends to carry on storing them for years. Six years as standard, rising to 12 years if taken in connection with a serious violent or sexual offence.
But these people are innocent! They have either been cleared by a jury or not even charged with a crime. So why should their DNA be kept on a database for criminals?
There is an “official estimate” that

4,500 fewer offences [will be] detected on average each year – rising to 26,000 …

Sometimes you can’t help but think the government is just making up ways to get hold of our details, with the most recent database they really are taking the mickey:

Anyone who keeps a horse would have to pay to register their animal on a new Government database and take out compulsory insurance against disease, under Whitehall plans.
Ministers have drawn up a scheme for a new “central register” of all farm animals and horses as part of a new regime for preventing outbreaks of disease like foot and mouth and bluetongue.
Under …

- and another for us.
ContactPoint, the database to include the details of all under-18s, will be accessible by more than 330,000 state workers. But the provision to hide all but the bare minimum information will be available only to people such as “celebrities, politicians and other high profile members of the public” – and not you or I.
Why should there be different rules for us than for them? We’re all equal. What reason is there for only politicians and “celebrities” to be able to hide their children’s details? Why shouldn’t …

These aren’t just any old ministerial papers that James Purnell left on a train. These were far worse things to lose: a letter from an MP referring to the presumably personal details of a constituent, with “attached correspondence” which one must assume was from the constituent themselves.
This is a worse breach than any “Top Secret” government paper because it is the personal details of an indiviudal, provided solely for one reason.
Even though they have been returned “within three days”, this is still a serious breach. I can see no problem …

It ain’t exactly democratic, is it?
Why can’t they just leave us to live our lives in peace? Why do they need to know so much about each and every one of us? They certainly don’t need to know about our “internet browsing habits”or what we say in our emails of phone calls.
Short answer is: They don’t. They just want to.
They don’t need databases detailing each and every part of our lives. It’s not their information, but ours.
Yet still they want to monitor everything we do.
Nineteen Eighty Four was a warning, …

For crying out loud:

Analysis shows that beyond the child benefit fiasco, Government departments were last year losing data at the rate of more than 300,000 people’s details a month in the year to April it emerged last night.
Among the losses were the National Insurance numbers of 17,000 people and the theft of a laptop with encrypted details of 17,000 Sats markers… (The Telegraph)

By department:

Foreign Office: 190 people
Department for Transport: 3 million (+)
Ministry of Defence: 1 million (+)
Ministry of Justice: 45,000
Home Office: 3,000

Yes, we can trust the government with our personal …

No decision has yet taken by the government as to whether they will create a huge database containing a record of our phone calls, emails, and internet use.
The Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, said that it could be a “step too far for the British way of life”, and then asked the question:

Do we really want the police, security services and other organs of the state to have access to more and more aspects of our private lives?

The answer to this is, of course, no fucking way.
The government already has a …