Writers for and readers of the Guardian often get excited about the increasing grip of the secret state. The fact, for example, that it, along with Microsoft and Google, is probably reading my email.
A new worry surfaced today, with the PFI contract to look after their roads and chop down their trees that Sheffield Council has signed with Amey (I think) being so secret that even the Rt. Hon. Nick Clegg, so great and so good that he provides private counsel to the Queen, as well as being MP for some part of the city in question, is not allowed to read it, let alone any of the rest of us.
I have not given the matter much thought, but so far I have not come up with any reason why this might be a good thing. I can just about see that one might want to keep some of the numbers secret, but not the body of the contract.
Nor can I see why one should let such a contract for 20 years at a time. It is not as if - although who knows what might be in the secret contract - Amey are having to invest in a new hospital or a new power station in order to fulfill it. Something which would last rather a long time.
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