2007 may have been another bad year for British sporting prowess (surely an oxymoron), but that’s not to say that we never win anything. We’re world leaders in lardiness and teenage pregnancy, for example. And now, here comes another shiny, CCTV-festooned trophy to add to our groaning national mantelpiece: the award for the lowest privacy ranking in the EU!

Our rating of 1.4 (‘endemic surveillance society’) rates us as Europe’s foremost surveillance society, narrowly beaten only by Russia, China and Malaysia in the worldwide competition.

Come on Gordon: let’s try for the world title in 2008!