The Government's 2 For 1 Deal

Two apologies in one morning ? Is New Labour feeling alright ?

It seems that Jacqui Smith is so keen to stop people talking about her cleavage that she's directed attention to figures of a different kind. Sadly, those figures were wrong. Dramtically so.

Originally we were told that 800,000 foreign workers had come to the UK since 1997. But the real figure (unless that's wrong as well, of course) is 1.1 million. Apparently some groups of workers were "left out of the figures by mistake". Isn't the Home Office wonderful ?

So Wacky Jacqui's apologised for the relentless incompetence of her department, and so too has Peter Hain, who was stupid enough to believe the information he'd been given and put it in a Commons answer.

For players of Fantasy Government, this is most excellent news. We haven't been able to award points to two ministers for the same cock-up before. But we can now.

There are three simple steps to playing Fantasy Government:
Step 1 - read the rules
Step 2 - see all the cock-ups that have earned points so far
Step 3 - pick your team from the list of ministers.