The department for administrative affairs today admitted breaching government data protection policy by not leaving a laptop on a bus for over 6 months.
Insiders described how PM, Gordon Brown, is furious that one department has felt it could go against the whole drive of the government's personal information policy.
It is estimated that as many as 20,000 sets of personal details may not have been leaked to criminals over the 6 month period.
A spokesman for the government said today: "Thankfully we give all this stuff to the EU, so it will have already been sold to the mafia and east European criminal gangs, but sadly our own criminal groups will miss out on this, which means that government league tables for crime will suffer over coming months.
"To get things back to normal, plans are underway for a senior civil servant to take the tube home tonight with a briefcase containing all the home addresses of MI5 agents and to leave it on a seat beside someone shifty."
