Paul Flynn MP (Newport West) mockery: Drinking in the Commons & memory stick loss.

My local libel case losing MP uttered a few comments that made me laugh:

First up on the point that our criminal decended cousins in Australia have decided to breath test their MP's(a damn fine idea I will add), anyway Flynn says this:

This evening I was asked to discuss this on the television Politics Show. Australia is planning to breathalyse MPs. 

I have said no. It’s partly because mass drug-testing is no longer proposed as another non-solution to the drug crisis. But mainly because it might feed the persistent myth that there is excessive drinking in Parliament. Once there was. The shortened day has ended that.

Could it be that Flynn - who is known to like a whisky which I understand is his tipple of choice - may be caught out staggering into The Commons? Or would it be that due to his advanced age should he blow into the breathalizer he might find himself out of breath and bring on a mini stroke(again). Newport could be one heart beat away from a by-election....

He loses the point in that this is really nothing about mass drug testing or even resolving the drug crisis, rather that Australians would like their elected MP's to turn to work not pissed as rats and pass badly thought out laws like this on the planned internet censorship bill.

Next up the doddery one has a bit to say on data loss - one subject that our leaking government is very good at - Mr Flynn gave forth this pile of ass gas:

I reminded him this morning that one of those leaks involved 25 million people. Probably every person in the country has had personal information lost on a stick or a disc. Waving a memory stick at him, I suggested that the only people who have never lost a memory stick are those people who have never had one.

I asked him for an up-date on how many people have been harmed by the losses. The answer remains the same. It’s zero, no one, zilch.

Losing data is inevitable. The chance of it being found by a person with criminal intent is low. Remarkably it  has not happened. But that does not make a newspaper headline.

Next time data is lost, please media, cut down on the hysteria

Just so not true, losing data is not inevitable. That attitude lowers the bar and says that well if it gets lost it is just one of those things. Although state employees I have noted are rather more protected from fallout over such matters than those in the private sector.

I have 4 memory sticks and in many years of use have never, repeat never lost one of them.(I have had them fail and Sony cards are the sodding worst for that but I digress somewhat here) 

Now the fact I unlike HM Govt have not lost any memory cards might be due to being able to remember where I have put them and actually caring about my information getting lost, something that state employees seem not bothered about. Although there is the point that as people get older their memory starts to go which might be why Mr Flynn has lost his memory, sorry memory stick.

Although the main point is that of "duty of care", I don't really give a fuck about the loss of memory sticks etc, its the lack of sackings over losses that annoys me. £100 quid says that if it were made clear that lose a memory stick/disc(s)/hard drive and you will be sacked on the spot then I am sure the number of losses will drop overnight. Oh add to that the fact that time after time said lost data turns out to be unprotected by any form of password or encryption.

Maybe if there was a higher "duty of care" then we would not have top secret documents left on the train!

.