ID cards: on it goes

ID cards 'should be compulsory'

Lord Falconer said the final decision rests with Parliament. The Lord Chancellor has said ID cards should be made compulsory if introduced in the UK. Lord Falconer told the BBC that the only way to get full benefit from the scheme was for people without a passport to carry one.

Is that a suggestion that UK citizens carry a valid passport - on their person?

What happens - even if ID cards are forced on us - and it isn’t on the person? Arrested and locked up? Until I can prove who I am? And I imagine there will be plently of police around to do that. Catch burglars, muggers, murderers? Who am I kidding? I have little objection to an ID card if it is just that and NOT a smart card with all sorts of sensitive information about me. AND I DON’T PAY FOR ONE. I find it totally objectionable to be expected to pay for the right to be in my country of origin. My birth country.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the government backs ID cards and fears over civil liberties are "misplaced".

NO. It is absolutely going to happen. I don’t know how this Blair could anticipate an easy ride. So many questions remain unanswered and will remain unanswered. That’s predictable. They can’t be answered without making a rotten situation even worse. “Misplaced?” What planet is he on. You’d imagine that there is enough of a problem with terrorism without waking the sleeping tiger of UK-public!

To what country does Blair anticipate retiring?

There’s a hidden agenda, of course. I can’t begin to define it, but be assured it’s there.

Plans for ID cards have been rejected by the Lords, who want to know how much the project would cost. Tory leader David Cameron criticised the cost, citing a report which puts the price at £19bn over 10 years.

Lord Falconer told BBC Radio Four's Any Questions: "The question is should you require - and I think ultimately, unless there is compulsion, you won't get the benefits of an ID card system - is it right to compel those that don't have a passport also to get an ID card? I think it is, I think it will become inevitable that you need reliable means of identification, both to stop people stealing your identity, and also making it much, much easier for you to deal with the state. You won't every time you want to change something have to fill in a long form, life will just become much easier."

Do you see the spin? The convenience of filling out forms. Not a problem. More forms are predicted. More information. Huge problem on it’s way. More work for an army of civil servants. Higher taxes to pay for it. Predicted costs can be reduced, but covertly paid for through taxation. And the result: even costlier than before and we won’t know by how much. Being fucked again. The government engine gets bigger. More powerful. Identity theft: I spend an inordinate amount of time shredding junk mail to destroy the trail to me - as best I can. Now the government want me to carry around all this information on one card (one of the unanswered, actually ignored, questions?) to make it really easy to acquire the information to become me.

Ill thought through. Bad idea.

I had a dream last night - Blair resigned. Best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.

The lord chancellor said the final decision would rest with Parliament and he added: "I think the government takes the view that to get the full benefits they will ultimately have to become compulsory."

Mr Cameron has told Parliament that plans to introduce identity cards risk ending up as a "monument to the failure of big government". He cited a report by the London School of Economics, which claims the scheme would cost between £10bn and £19bn over 10 years if the government followed its original plans.

Mr Blair said that report was drawn up by someone who was a campaigner against ID cards on civil liberty grounds. How about simply someone against an idea? The use of the term ‘campaigner’ is a slur against anyone opposed to Blair’s view. His ‘vision’.

Goal posts get moved. This (Labour) government expects to be around in 10 years‘ time? Of course not. No chance of that. Start the machinery going though so that it cannot stop.

The Home Office estimates the scheme will cost about £584m to run each year, with each combined biometric passport and identity card costing £93.

The book’s open. Place your bets. Up or down? By how much?

My prediction is £1bn and each card costing around £500. Mind you, the cash cow (oops!) will provide money that will be diverted somewhere else. Where? Who knows? That’s how the engine functions. No one knows or by how much.

Being fucked - BIG time. Again...