Government Puts Ass on the Line, Gets Cock-Up

7 October 2001, 15:47 GMT

Dong!! Govt. members get an unexpected airing

Keen to put their entire range of services on the Internet jolly quickly, the UK Government suffered an embarrassing setback last Friday.

Government spokeswoman Annie Melchall explained: "We were overjoyed at the prospect of setting up a live Webcam that would cover every second of the exciting House of Commons debates. These debates have proven remarkably popular with Cable TV viewers, and last month's ratings topped at almost 300 people."

"With this in mind," she continued, "we rushed to get a Webcam set up, with a live feed on our .gov.uk website. However, we may have moved with a little bit too much haste, as the contracting company that handled the Webcam installation misunderstood our instructions: 'Webcam, live feed, Houses of Parliament - show regular daily jostling, sparring and wrestling of squirming members, cock-ups and all.' "

Ms Melchall paused, gathering her thoughts before continuing very carefully: "Well, I personally thought those instructions were pretty clear - but the contractors for some bizarre reason misunderstood, and instead set up a secret spycam in the Parliamentary men's toilets."

On-line webcam viewers keen to try out the new service certainly got more than they bargained for - cock-ups and all! In fact, surprised viewers were allegedly given a shocking "full-on" picture of the sort of sleaze and corruption that some suspect has been going on in our officials' toilets for generations. Your hard-earned tax money at work...

The "spycam" service was hurriedly taken off-line as soon as the mistake was discovered several hours later, by an as yet unnamed, senior member of Parliament, who had just received a distraught phone call from his furious wife.

The Register: Government cock-up over on-line PIN numbers

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