Leave them alone and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them
BBC News: MPs narrowly back ID cards plan
Ministers have won a Commons vote over their controversial ID cards plan but their majority was cut from 67 to 31.
Was it ever in doubt?
Simon Hoggart, The Guardian: Berserk bees invade Clarke’s bonnet
Few people like this bill - not even, it is said, Mr Clarke himself. It is one of the curiosities of New Labour that MPs make passionate speeches against, rave and bellow at the minister, and yet mysteriously the thing goes through anyway.
Some of these newly elected MPs seem to have forgotten how Rizla-thin their majorities are. Still, there’s nothing like taking a dubious mandate and running with it.
The ID card debate really has brought out New Labour’s vintage qualities. Unremittingly New Labour, you could say. After arguing yesterday that ID cards will drive a stake through Big Brother’s heart, another turd tripped from Charles Clarke’s downspout:
Earlier he branded a London School of Economics report estimating a cost per card of up to £300 “technically incompetent”.
Technically incompetent. Like the study of medieval history, Clarkie regards scrutiny of his polices as “a bit dodgy”. But then he’s speaking from the high ground as the representative of a government responsible for the technically competent tax credit system, the technically competent Magistrate’s Courts Libra system, the technically competent Child Support Agency system, the technically competent Criminal Records Bureau system, the technically competent National Air Traffic Services system, the technically competent passport system, and the technically competent Windows upgrade that froze 60,000 Department for Work and Pensions PCs for four days.
Tony Blair then chipped in:
BBC News: Blair ‘will listen’ to ID fears
At prime minister’s questions, Mr Blair said: “We will have to listen to those concerns and respond to them.”
It’s beautiful conflation of his two most facile platitudes. A lot of listening and learning has been done but there is a lot of listening and learning still to do.
Alex, The Yorkshire Ranter, and Jarndyce of Fair Vote Watch are convinced we’ll never see Clarkie’s cards. I’m not so sure. With the clock ticking, Blair’s spending his political capital like a terminally ill man and his life savings on a weekend in Vegas. He won’t have to sweep up the trail of destruction. Charles Clarke is merely the floozy helping him to cash his chips.
Posted on June 29th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
| See also • One fine day in the middle of the night • The Safety Elephant slays Big Brother • The Register: How Clarke is fiddling the £30 ‘affordable’ ID card |
Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe By Email • Print This Post • • • |
|
Filed under Uncategorized |
regrettably 600,000 people die every year - that’s 600,000 ID cards which may or may not be cancelled, handed in, lost, ….
Also if a sizeable proportion of holders find that they accidentally leave their card in the microwave for 20 seconds on full blast it might not work subsequently. Do you get a replacement ? Who pays for it.
Not that I would expect a sizeable number of people to handle their cards in this negligent way.
This is something that’s beginning to piss me off actually. If you disagree with us, you’re not just wrong, it’s not just a matter of opinion, you are actually incompetent and unworthy of being listened too. Right and wrong, agreeing and disagreeing, in NuLabour Lalaland, equals able and incapable.
As far as I know if you damage the card you must report it and pay for a new one otherwise you face at least a £1000 fine, possible £2500 if you don’t have one.
If you fail to pay then you will have 2 years in prison.
Deliberate damage is of course a criminal offence.
Reserve me a cell.
yes, but it would have to be proven that you had deliberately damaged it, wouldn’t it?