Moi? Je Regrete Rien

The latest revelation is that, after the introduction of an improperly tested, buggy IT tax credit system, fraudsters ripped off the UK tax system for £55m ($100m) and not £2.7m ($5m) as announced to Parliament on 18th January by Treasury Tart Dawn Primarolo. But, with the trouble in the Middle East occupying the headlines, this has been a good week to bury bad news, hasn't it! ID cards have been quietly dropped too. Presumably, even the Blair government realised the insanity of this particular techno headline snatcher. Open government in the UK?

The same issue of Computer Weekly also points to another aspect of UK government immorality - and one which is much more sinister and will have longer term effects than the odd porky-pie over a few tens of millions handed out to crooks.

The Impressionist was disturbed to read of the Blair government's unrepentance at inflicting a number of failed IT systems on the public. A system called EPA2 to handle on-line passport applications is the latest example of this nasty trend. The Home Office has been forced to admit that this premature introduction was in fact a 'trial'. It was for the thousands of applicants forced to endure ordeal by call centre only to be instructed to reapply on paper - black pen only and don't dare to let your signature stray even a micron outside the box.

The problem, in spite of Blair's protestations to the contrary, is that lessons are not being learned as there are no reviews of these screw-ups. As one vast project comes to grief and is quietly buried, so is the keel laid for another leviathan destined to sink shortly after launch - and usually for pretty much the same reasons.

As Blair and his cronies blunder ever closer towards Stalinism, where lies are truth and truth is determined by the Executive, The Impressionist wonders just where the ideals of the men who built Britain were lost. In the insidious commercialism of Thatcher, or the micro-management mess of New Labour. The Engineers, Scientists, Philanthropists of the 18th and 19th centuries would have seen this and known what to do about it. The problem is that we don't.