When will they learn? Today's Data Day at the government, with two extraordinary announcements. One comes from the Home Office, and claims that a majority of British people are in favour of a national ID database. We don't know who they asked, but if it was based on a mailout… read more…

The Government doesn't know. The Daily Mail doesn't know. The Local Government Association doesn't know. Even London's taxi drivers don't know. So what exactly is going on with immigration in Britain? Well, the Barrow Cadbury Trust have had a stab at investigating. The report contains the memorable phrase "Britain's diversity… read more…

BONG! The LibDems have a shiny new leader: all hail CleggHuhneMan! And more importantly these days, they have a shiny new homepage, featuring new leader without a tie. Gasp! Casual inclusiveness! BONG! Government proposes to cut tourist visas to three months from six for non-EU visitors, to prevent people "overstaying… read more…

Iain Dale is outraged at the news that Paul Gray (brief backstory: in charge of HMRC when Datagate hit the headlines the other week, promptly resigned. With us? Good) is to be given a cushy job in the Cabinet Office which pays two hundred thousand beans a year. For ourselves,… read more…

Chris Huhne's posturing over Donorgate looks even more hollow (after we pointed out yesterday that Chrissy's honour-bound to bankrupt the LibDems if he ever becomes leader of them) as it is revealed - again - that the Durham business park had nothing to do with getting the approval of the comrades… read more…

Imagine the scene. You're a Prime Minister who has to leave the country to partake of tea, cucumber sandwiches, and pointless diplomacy with Brenda in Africa for a week. You leave a "to do" list pinned to the fridge, a list of emergency numbers by the phone, and stress to Alan Johnson… read more…

The Sundays are a bit of a mixed bag this morning. Obviously Diskgate continues to get commentary but seeing as everyone's getting a bit fed up with "Killer Disks Still At Large: No Change Here Folks" style headlines, perhaps it would be more interesting to look at the effect the… read more…

As the search for the Disk of Doom continues, the Mail reports on the Lord of the Flies-esque scenes in HM Revenue and Customs: The staff wear tracksuit bottoms, baseball caps and scruffy T shirts, many do not have a GCSE and their training is described as "a joke". Somebody… read more…

Martin Bright's got a post on his blog about the lamentations of the Gord, and it ain't pretty reading: The trouble for Brown is that when the poison starts to eat at the government's reputation it has a retrospective effect, seeping back to corrode even past triumphs. People are beginning… read more…

Apologies for the delay, Westmonster's been battling with sommat nasty this morning. Anyway, the woes of the Gord have been obscured momentarily by the woes of Steve McClaren, who managed to assist the roaringly excellent feel-good factor in Blighty (this is sarcasm) at the moment by leading his team to a… read more…

BONG! The Saga of the Missing CDs continues apace with no real update as to the situation (other than "it still looks pretty damn bad for the Government"), so here's the take from our American cousins for the sake of variety/not repeating ourselves. BONG! Davy Cameron calls for a halt on… read more…

Okay, we got fed up of the endless pictures of Eyebrows and the Gord so we opted for a picture of these lovely ladies instead. The tenuous link? Well, if England lose the football tonight, expect the feel-bad factor (when translated in the opinon polls) to produce some most depressing… read more…

Newsreader: Good afternoon and welcome to Westmonster. Our top story this afternoon: angry scenes in the Commons at Prime Minister's Questions, as David Cameron accuses the Prime Minister of presiding over "systemic failure" within the HMRC following the revelation that the personal and financial data of millions of children and families has been lost.… read more…

Well, it wasn't the unmitigated disaster for the Gord that it could have been: Brown highlighted a review that Would Solve Everyone's Problems, Cameron (who was a little off-form) hammered his questions out all in one go and raised the viability of ID cards in the wake of the fiasco,… read more…

Predictably, the Affair of the Missing Disks is the top story this morning, although the Today Programme seems to be getting unusually excited about a prehistoric crab. Humphrys must be having one of his hot flushes again. Ann Treneman reports on the Parliamentary response to the data-loss news, the Telegraph… read more…

BONG! As part of its mission to establish a record for the largest number of emergency statements in the shortest amount of time (three in the past week, by our reckoning), the Government reveals that Her Maj's Revenue and Customs lost the records of 25 million individuals in the, er,… read more…