Editorial: iPrime Minister - there is so much an app could do

An opportunity is being missed. Downing Street techno-whizzes are now trialling an iPad app to help David Cameron run the country. The plan is to feed the Prime Minister a constant diet of news, polling data, analyst commentary and specialist statistics.

There is more to the job than headlines and numbers, though. With a little imagination, Mr Cameron's app could be really useful. How about a Political Spellcheck function, to highlight potentially embarrassing phrases in texts to newspaper executives? Or a tweak of Arsenal Fantasy Manager to help with reshuffles? Or even a geopolitical "Babel fish", for instant translation of foreign leaders' words into what they actually mean? That would certainly have been handy at this week's dinner with Angela Merkel to discuss the EU budget.