I ONCE lost the receipt for our dry-cleaning and all attempts to persuade a rather formal gentleman behind the counter that my sense of loss was genuine fell on deaf ears.

After much pleading he reluctantly agreed to let me describe some of the items to help identify my cleaning. Alas that did not help at all! As the majority of items were my wife's - he was not impressed!

I recall this story as it reminded me of the difficulty Alistair Darling had on Tuesday to explain how 25 million individual financial records held by HM Customs and Revenues has 'gone missing'!

Indeed, as the day before the Chancellor had tried to explain why he had loaned £25billions to Northern Rock to cover depositors' savings - only to find 25 hours later the share price dropped by 25 per cent - he has not had the best of weeks. And '25' is certainly not the Chancellor's favourite number!

To lose a dry cleaning ticket was admittedly careless but to lose 25 million personal records was staggering incompetence.

The explanation it seems was that someone in HMRC had not followed procedures! Given that the Government is determined to build a series of new nuclear power stations perhaps we should be relieved that Alistair Darling is actually the Chancellor - because until the Government reshuffle in June he was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and yes - in charge of our energy policy including nuclear.

The issue of lost data which puts millions of personal banking details at risk is clearly a very serious and for many individuals will mean anxiety wondering whether their accounts might be targeted.

No doubt a call to local banks and building societies will help allay fears but there is a far bigger issue at stake here - the whole question of the security of personal data.

The Government has placed great store in developing huge data bases of electronically stored personal information to manage its services. The Revenue and Customs office store all our tax and tax - credit details; the Department for Work and Pensions has yet more information on benefits claims and pension payments; an even larger data base is being created to store all our Health records for the NHS; and of course in preparation is the biggest data base yet - the new ID data base which will underpin the proposed Identity Card system, passports, visas etc.

These dwarf the many other government held electronic record stores including DNA and Criminal Records.

In short, no other government on the planet has more information about its citizens than ours - which probably does not worry many people until something goes wrong!

We do not know of course just how many other breaches of data security there have been or their consequences but now the cat is out of the bag we must surely question whether we should put so much trust in a system that can be undone by a 23 year old clerk who simply fails to follow procedures?

By the way, what a pity we could not have lost the records of the England Football team at the same time! I am sure if either Harrogate Railway FC or Harrogate Town FC had turned out at Wembley on Wednesday they would have performed with greater passion and commitment - without the promise of an obscene £250,000 win bonus.

We can't blame the Prime Minister or Alistair Darling for the demise of English soccer but as neither supported my Early Day Motion praising the heroics of Harrogate Railway - perhaps I should?

This has been a bad week - but as the song goes 'Things can only get better!'

Harrogate Advertiser
October 2008