Fifty-four thousand Geordies are up in arms over another glaring error; another badly thought-out system leaving them exposed at the back. No, the start of the football season hasn’t come a few weeks early, Newcastle City Council has admitted to accidentally exposing the cardholder details of potentially tens of thousands of its citizens.

The council is insisting there is no chance that any fraud or misuse has occurred, which must be incredibly reassuring for the affected Novocastrians. And in a hurried statement, chief exec Ian Stratford was keen to reiterate that they are still receiving payments for council tax and the like. Well, Sneak wholly concurs that it’s important to get perspective in these circumstances. You might have been defrauded to the tune of several grand but that’s no reason not to pay your local authority for the sterling work it does collecting the bins…

30 Jul 2007