Crack of dawn it was off to Highgate Village to get ALL the Sunday papers ahead of my first paper review on Sky with Adam Boulton and John Kampfner (New Statesman). I wanted the papers in good time to have a decent look through them. The main story I raised was the appalling tale from The Observer about how the Government is trying to hide the true cost of identity cards.
Now, nice Gordon has been trying to convince us all he’ll be a new broom, all open and transparent – and goodbye to the days of New Labour spin. But put to the test – he’s decided he wants to keep the costs of ID cards secret. Not such a new broom after all!
We also roamed over Gordon’s desire to bring back the argument over detention without charge. Show me evidence, real evidence – and I will vote to protect my countrymen with an extension. But last time it was a lot of hot air and bravado – but not a single shred of solid evidence that 90 days is needed.
John Kampfner rather outshone me on the Russian stories I thought – but then he was Moscow correspondent and has written a book on Yeltsin’s Russia – so he should know more than me!
And then there was Joanna Lumley – confronting a man with a gun in a bar! Living up to her pre-Ab Fab role of Purdy in the Avengers – well nearly – apparently the gun fell on the floor and she kept the man talking until the police arrived. Go Joanna!
Lynne Featherstone 
Lynne, while it may well have been a red rag to some young bulls for OGC (Brown, ‘cos OGC is part of Treasury) to appeal against that FOI judgement, the material is not only dated but relates to a ‘clean sheet of paper’ draft scheme design that was rightly criticised from Day 1 (even by other govt depts), had little root in the reality of running the country, and was formally ditched last autumn. There’s a new Identity Management (awful term, but I can’t think of anything better) programme being designed, so why not ask about that?