RSS feedsIt's unusual enough for the broadsheets to agree on any issue, let alone have a consensus among themselves - and the red-tops as well.
But the loss of 25 million individuals' records by HM Revenue & Customs has certainly proved to be an issue on which they can all agree, albeit with their own take on the matter.
The Daily Mail said that if ministers thought HMRC chairman Paul Gray's resignation was enough action after the data loss then they 'must think again'. Echoing shadow chancellor George Osborne's line, they call for government to 'get a grip'.
The Mirror's 'man in the corridors of power' Kevin Maguire said Labour MPs were openly speculating about who would succeed chancellor Alistair Darling if he survived to next summer's cabinet reshuffle. He called for Ed Balls, who topped the Accountancy Age Top 50 Financial Power List for 2007, to salvage 'Labour's valuable record for economic competence'.
'Mr Darling is undoubtedly in trouble,' proclaimed The Sun, but then backed him by saying that he had inherited a system 'already plagued by catastrophic failures of management'. They flagged up that Gray had presided as chair during the £2bn tax credit gap.
The Daily Express called ministers 'clueless', and that Darling looked like a 'broken man' – but agreed with The Sun that there was 'little point' calling for him to resign. The Express differed with The Sun in calling for prime minister Gordon Brown to resign as he was to blame.
Blaming Brown for the state of public finances, 'fury' over IHT, altering occupational pensions and the system of financial deregulation that led to the Northern rock debacle, the Express said: 'He is also the author of the merger between the Inland Revenue and Customs which may have caused the administrative chaos behind the child benefit catastrophe.'
Further reading:
HMRC's data loss: what the papers say
Darling: HMRC merger and job cuts not to blame for data loss
