There are times when Parliament and the State, in general, seems to have about the same kind of understanding and appreciation of popular culture that Ian Hislop routinely demonstrates on ‘Have I got News For You’.

How else does one account for the fact that Britain really does have a satellite-based military communications system called ‘SKYNET’ – yeah, as in ‘The Terminator’ – no really, we do, just read this…

So will anyone be surprised to find that buried in the desperately dull ‘Procurement of Innovative Technologies and Research Bill’, which aims to make good on a comment/commitment in Gordon Brown’s 2005 budget speech about government departments spending 2.5% of their research and development budgets on the work of small and medium-sized businesses, we find that this new project is to be called ‘The Genesis Programme’.

Yep, there’s Klingons on the starboard bow, Cap’n but in case anyone has any bright ideas on spending any of the cash in the search for a resurrected Vulcan, don’t bother, he’s already turned up on one of Cameron’s new policy review groups.

And the sponsor of this bill?

None other than our old friend and MP for Burnley, Kitty Ussher, last seen playing Violet Elizabeth Bott on the government’s abortive – sorry, aborted – plans for banging people up for 90 days without trial.

Still, with government showing a bit of penchant for pinching project names from science fiction, it can’t be too long before we find that the National Indentity Register has been given a name of its very own…

HAL 9000.