Even if we ignore/excuse the massive amounts of lost data already by this government as institutional failings of the system and processes of the Civil Service rather than government ministers, these last two cannot be explained away like that.

Cabinet ministers are certainly directly responsible for these last two lapses - luckily it’s not our secrets that they’re letting out this time, but their own.

Both Caroline Flint and Hazel Blears have had their Cabinet briefing notes revealed through being photographed walking to the door of Number 10:

Caroline Flint’s revealed that government experts believed that “given present trends [house prices] will clearly show sizeable falls in prices later this year - at best down 5-10% year-on-year”. Bad news, and directly contradicts Gordon Brown’s rejection of a potential crash.

Hazel Blear’s briefing notes, however, revealed a less important but more interesting fact - that Gordon Brown has been approached to be a TV show judge on a “Junior PM” show aimed at an “Apprentice meets Maria/Strictly Come Dancing audience”, alongside a plea that “please, please let all concerned know that this is not stunt TV.” Seems very much like stunt TV to me. How this idea could even be contemplated is beyond me. Neither the Prime Minister nor his Cabinet should be paying attention to this sort of gimmick. It should have been ruled out from the start. That is a job from “broadcast” former politicians like Michael Portillo, not the people who are supposedly running the country.

What these stories do show is that they haven’t really got the hang of data privacy or understand the capabilities of technology. You would have thought that they’d at least put their notes in a folder! If a random photographer can get copies of Cabinet briefing notes, what could do determined terrorist get hold of?! Probably anything except MP expenses.