Have you returned your census form? Here’s a question for you: How come our 2011 census was handled by US military and defence giant Lockheed Martin?

Why do we need an American missile and land-mine manufacturer asking us intimate personal questions? What are they planning to do – blow us up in alphabetical order?

Are Brits now so dumb they can’t be trusted to distribute and collect questionnaires? (Paris Hilton and Katie Price fans may abstain).

Why, in these austere times, must the Office of National Statistics employ overseas personnel when we have so many (soon to be) unemployed civil servants?

Here’s what I think. It’s the globalisation of highly- confidential personal information and our civil servants just aren’t up to the job. They tend to leave highly confidential information on trains for anyone to find or copy it then lose it in the post when what’s required is a global marketing strategy.

Like Sky TV our personal information will be divided into various categories and offered at a premium to banks, retailers, credit card companies, finance houses etc.

What better organisation to sell off all our private information than a US conglomerate experienced in global intelligence?

Like many American institutions they have, however, seriously underestimated the British sense of humour.

Had they bothered to study the 2001 census they would have discovered Jedi to be the fourth most popular religion in the UK and they should have definitely checked the answers to question 18 (What is your main language).

I doubt they will find many international bankers who speak Klingon.

Question 17 has been ‘intentionally left blank’ for those who can’t write and I’m not sure Lockheed Martin understand the logistics of obtaining answers from ‘Gypsies or Irish Travellers’.

Britain may have clueless politicians and inept civil servants but its people are far from stupid. (Paris Hilton and Katie Price fans may abstain).

We didn’t survive this long by being gullible.

Lockheed Martin still have a lot to learn about the British.

May the force be with you.

The views on this page are Vic Barlow's and not necessarily those of the Express