Coming hot on the heels of the Chinese Government's climbdown on internet censorship, No10 has decided to take the 'blogosphere' into state control.

No10 has watched with interest as China has 'delayed' the mandatory installation of the 'Green Dam-Youth Escort' filtering software on new computers. The software was designed, according to the Chinese Government to clear the Chinese web of harmful content. But critics have said that it is an attempt to put the internet genie back in the bottle by a government with about 300 million 'netizens' to answer to.

Following on from this, No10 announced that it was forced to act to contain the chaos and disorder currently occuring in the blogosphere. "It does not make sense to endure this cacophany of voices and opinions when what is clearly needed in politics right now is unity of moral purpose and vision. Also the last thing anyone would want the cherished 'net' to do right now is to 'go off the rails'. So we have decided that for its own good we have to take the blogsphere into state control.

In an attempt to inject some humour into the proceedings, the No10 spokesman japed, "We are calling this Netionalisation. And yes, it is oblogatory."

The independent appointments commission has warned that elevating the speaker, Michael Martin to the Lords could damage its reputation.

Speakers are normally appointed to the Lords without question but the commission voiced its concerns about the 'propriety of the individual' and claimed that his presence could 'diminish' the upper house.

"We have a lot of hungry Lords to feed. Since the Times reported that our peers were willing to amend laws on behalf of clients for £100K, there has not been enough business to go around - Everyone wants a piece of the action. The last thing we want is 'Gorbals Mick' muscling in and starting a turf war."

But a spokesman for the government said, "What's good enough for the commons is good enough for the Lords. Why should the commons be the only house to have its reputation diminished."

Once again the Government does not know itself (apparently). Following recent reversals on holding the Iraq enquiry in public, the Government has done a '69' on making ID cards compulsory.

The Government has decided to press ahead with the main elements of the ID scheme though and British citizens who renew their passport will still automatically be registered on the ID database.

The government should decide what it wants to be (and how it wants to appear to its citizens). Does it want its people to view it as authoritarian? Or does it want to be the champion of civil liberties (fat chance.)

Time for the Government to stop 'chasing its tail' and work out whether it really can 'square the circle'?