I mean the Child Benefit details fiasco. I won't go into the details which have been well covered elsewhere, but just make the point that this gross lapse of management affects all classes of people. So I hope that a tide of opinion will hold the government well and truly to account, and I also hope that many of those affected, who have been sleepwalking towards ID cards, will realise that they are in more danger of government incompetence than of terrorist attack.
The key issue of management is very well covered in Nick Robinson's blog.
Negative point to the BBC, however, for its reporting of the reaction. The front page of their website this morning says "The government's "basic competence" is questioned by the Conservatives after the loss of 25m people's details." The inside story is only slightly different "The government's "basic competence" has been questioned by the Tories". Er, guys, I think you'll find the LibDems, and indeed all the other parties are doing a fair bit of questioning.
Vince Cable gets one grudging sentence right at the end, no other non Tory does, and Ross Anderson, who was very impressive on Newsnight last night, also gets only a sentence at the end. (The Newsnight website hasn't caught up with last night yet, but Ross Anderson is informatively nutshelled in Wikipedia.)
That's just sloppy reporting, BBC, reinforcing a completely two dimensional view of politics.
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