Acting Lib Dem leader Vince Cable has today been piling the pressure on Labour, launching a campaign to demand Gordon Brown tells the British taxpayer how much money has been loaned to Northern Rock, and when it will be paid back.

Writing in today’s Guardian, Vince argues the case for temporary nationalization of Northern Rock to protect the public interest:

neither the chancellor nor the prime minister have been able to give me an unequivocal assurance that the taxpayer’s money will be repaid in full, with interest, during this parliament. The likelihood is growing that billions may be lost. …

possibility

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Is there a Richter scale for cock-ups? If so, the Government has just been hit by at least a Factor 9:

Alistair Darling has blamed mistakes by junior officials at HM Revenue and Customs after details of 25 million child benefit recipients were lost. The Chancellor said information, including bank details of 7m families, had been sent on discs to the National Audit office by unrecorded delivery. Mr Darling said it was “an extremely serious failure”.

Of course mistakes happen: you cannot eliminate error, either human or machine. All you can do is minimize it. The Lib Dems have …

That’s the rather shameful story which Lib Dem overseas development spokeswoman Lynne Featherstone has uncovered – and, what’s worse, the Government has hidden this budget cut from view.

You can read Lynne’s blog article in full here, but here’s the nub:

axed around £1 billion from the UK aid budget (official development assistance) – and then tried to keep it secret. … having promised in 2004 that aid levels would be at 0.47% in 2007-8, they’ve now cut that figure to 0.37% – which is equal to around £1 billion.

As it was an international development debate in Parliament today,

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