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Week on the web
Daniel Forman
Perhaps it's not the most impartial of sources, but Conservativehome's "The week it all went wrong for Gordon Brown" has a ring of truth about it. The Tory Diary lists Northern Rock and foot and mouth as among his many failings (both things he was widely praised for handling well in the summer), but the big story this week has been the Revenue and Customs data loss.
As well as asking the immediate questions such as "when was the prime minister told?", "what if it was more than just a rogue junior?" and just "how 'junior' was the envelope stuffer?", the bloggers have been making broader points about who was ultimately responsible.
At Commentisfree, John McDonnell blames the man "who pushed through bullying reforms of the civil service: Chancellor Brown".
But taking a rare step off the fence, the BBC's Nick Robinson said the solutions were quite simple. "I fail to see the relevance of job cuts or unopened post or low morale at HMRC to this," he argued. "Employees should know that data protection is sacred and if they don't there should be systems in place that ensure they alone cannot make serious errors."
Even before today's Populus poll in the Times, Martin Kettle concluded that "maybe the real loser here is confidence in government more generally".
It was a point echoed by Fraser Nelson at Coffee House, who felt that "Westminster insiders" ambivalent about the disaster just don't "understand Britain".
But fear not, for the Liberal Democrats have launched an inquiry and John Hemming has been put in charge.
One early conclusion from the calamity was that ID cards would be the main victim. On the contrary, some supporters have actually argued that they are more necessary than ever, prompting Dizzy to think that "David Blunkett should shut up".
Elsewhere, Recess Monkey appears to have reached a resolution with Nadine Dorries over a recent dispute. Bloggerheads has been providing a commentary.
Another spat came on the BBC's Politics Show at the weekend as Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg's leadership election contest got dirtier.
Paul Linford thought Huhne came off worst. But Politicalbetting thought his response might "make Clegg look a bit precious".
Meanwhile Lib Dem blogger of the year James Graham came out for the home affairs spokesman.
Finally, for those with nothing better to do this weekend, Adam Boulton and Ben Brogan are live blogging from the Commonwealth heads of government summit in Kampala.
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Published: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:51:36 GMT+00
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