This from the current Private Eye (sadly not online - come on Hislop) - click on the image for a larger view.

The gravy here is this:

“…the £3.9bn figure quoted in 2003 was an internal estimate untested in competition, and was calculated using a different price base to the £8bn.”

They might as well have just picked a figure from thin air. It’s like doing the weekly shop with only twenty quid in your pocket but being heedless of the price of the things you’re buying. A case of Stella Artois. Some fillet of beef from the butcher’s counter. A Simpsons DVD box set. You get to the till and of course you don’t have enough money. With a queue of people peering over your shoulder, one by one your little extravagances are knocked off your bill.

Not with this Government though. They hit the supermarket and go mental. Truffle oil. A whole tuna. A case of bourbon. Champagne. Cakes, loads of cakes. One of those stupid Terence Conran toasters. All seven Simpsons DVD box sets. They get to the till and on finding they don’t have enough money, instead of putting back what they can’t afford, they phone their mate. He’s put upon this mate, he works all hours and he’s knackered. But he never fails to turn up and empty his wallet. And he never complains. He’s never once said “no”. You know who this doormat is? This self-loathing shade who’ll do anything he’s told? The little guy of the gang whose always pushed around? It’s you, you dickhead.

During the ID card debate, Charles Clarke said this:

Our estimate of the average annual operating costs of issuing passports and ID cards to British citizens was published last year and at present is unchanged at £584 million.

Is that an “internal estimate”? Yes. Is it “untested in competition”? Yes again. Have you got your wallet handy? I think I hear the phone ringing. Run along.