Disaster far from over

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): There is a very good post over on Political Betting about the discs and Darling. Leaving aside its reports on the growing Tory lead in the polls this story examines the correspondence released by the National Audit Office, which everyone should look at to see how we are governed. It discusses the likelihood that Darling mislead parliament by insisting that what happened was entirely in breach of procedures and no one with responsibility knew. He may have been told this. If so, he should have known better than to believe it. After all, someone senior must have had responsibility for the fact that a junior person COULD (excuse the shout but it is deserved in these circumstances) copy and burn our personal data on this scale. It seems clear if you read this - download as pdf here - that they did. Nick Robinson sees it slightly differently, highlighting the NAO bypassing senior management to ask for the data. But this leaves open the fact that it could do so in writing, ie there was not a pure breach of proceedures but a system laxness. One NAO asks, "ensure that the CDs are delivered to NAO as safely as possible due to their content". Amazing. As safely as "possible" implies that their unsafe delivery is regarded as one of those things instead of being completely out of order. It looks to me that Darling is dead. But if he fights for his life over the next few weeks how can the government start issuing statements of British values, unrolling Brown's vision, have Jack tour the country to talk about our rights, etc starting in January?