Oh great and just like their MP expenses data, how much of this new data will be edited, altered and even at times just deleted and hidden from us.

So what we end up with is very biased fragmented data, which only supports their current political agenda and propaganda.

I guess their Ministry of Truth will be publishing the data.

Free the postcode database.

That's an extraordinary claim. Where is your extraordinary evidence?

Yay, as a developer and as someone who is curious about statistics relevant to our country's well-being, I was looking forward to reviewing and utilising this online resource! Just a crying shame that it requires a Google account, which means that most people I know won't touch it with a ten foot pole... Same goes for me, if anything has Google slapped on it then I walk the other way.

For now I'll stick to the traditional method of reading reports issued by home office and local authorities / police forces / NHS to determine exactly how much alcohol costs the UK each year...

See MP expenses row and their attempts to hide and manipulate released data for reference. (Including the failed attempts by parliament to prevent disclosure under Freedom of Information legislation).

Also the years it took reporters to get access to the true information. For example the years of work of Heather Brooke. i.e.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Brooke

p.s. do you work for them ;)

The way the MPs went to so much trouble to hide information (for years) proves they will never speak the whole truth in this data. Politicians are very good at manipulation. But then political spin is propaganda. Also the work of PR people was called propaganda before it was renamed into Public Relations which sounds so much more friendly that propaganda, but its the same thing. That is the job of PR to alter perceptions of things. In other words lies, manipulation and misinformation. :) ... welcome to the world of politics. its been like this for many hundreds of years. After all its where you get the word Machiavelian (from 500 years ago!), i.e.

Machiavelian: "being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described."

I'll agree with that, wtf were they thinking about when they decided to use google groups. I went to the site expecting a summary of what it is for, a login box and a registration link. It's not hard is it...

I mailed the site admins about this and asked them why the f*ck we have to put on a pair of Google creamed underpants to take part in this. After one week of waiting... no response.

Google creamed underpants? Personally, I prefer the smell of my turd stained cacs... They smell nicer than Google, that's for sure.