02.Incompetence

Gordon Brown said, that Peter Hain forgot to declare his receipt of £100,000 because of incompetence. Hain has apologized to his colleagues - bravo!
And a civil servant left a laptop to be stolen from his car with details of 600,000 people. No doubt he too will apologize.

But once a person's responsibility for such a blunder has been established, they ought to be punished financially with a hefty fine. Docking six months' salary of such an individual will certainly concentrate everybody else's mind very efficiently.

In a philatelic collection of post office document from the British mandate in Palestine there is the written apology of a clerk, who miscalculated the postage on an item. It was a genuine mistake of a few mils. But it was noticed and he was reprimanded. He was fined and wrote this apology, and promised never to do it again.

The British High Commissioner for Palestine said, that the only way to hit the 'Jewish terrorists' was through their pockets. It does not work against fanatics - but it would certainly work against incompetence!