The most important political story on the internet is nothing written by a journalist, but the reaction being posted to on the lost data catastrophe. From the BBC to our own Coffee House, people are pledging to shut down bank accounts and vote Labour out. They seem utterly unmoved by assurances that all is well, and no one is really at risk. En route to PMQs, I bumped into a minister and we got talking about this. “Who on earth are these people?” he asked.
The answer: the British public. People who live miles away from the Westminster village, who switch off when politics comes on television, the type who queued outside Northern Rock to withdraw savings because they did not trust a syllable of the reassurances uttered by this government. They are the people who celebrated the Queen’s golden jubilee to the bafflement of the media and political class; the people who Tony Blair understood instinctively and spoke for so eloquently on the death of Diana ten years ago.
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