- The Guardian - All-night battle over ID cards looms:
"This afternoon MPs in the Commons voted to reject the peers' amendments, which would have given an opt-out of the national identity register to people simply applying for a new passport.Meanwhile, in a wonderful display of governmental misdirection, that disgusting excuse for a Home Secretary (so bad I'm almost pining for the days of David Blunkett or Michael Howard) has offered a "compromise" which spectacularly misses the point: people applying for passports won't have to carry ID cards for a few more years, but they'll still have to have their details entered onto the National Identity Database - the real evil at the heart of the project... Nice one Charles, you tit.
"The bill now goes back to the Lords tonight, with parliament breaking for the Easter recess at the end of today's session."
Late update: FUCK. The Lords have fallen for it. After a heroic, drawn-out defence they've been conned into believing it's the cards, rather than the database that backs up the cards, that's the problem.
End result? If you renew your passport you will be on the database, and there's nothing you can do about it. You won't have to carry an ID card until 2010 - but as that's potentially within the lifetime of this parliament, there's little hope of a reversal. We're all screwed.
7 Comments:
It remains to be hoped that the database will be as late and over budget as big government IT usually is, so that it will still be unusable by 2010 and a different government can bin it on the basis of sound governance and not throwing good money after bad. Never underestimate the power of the fuck up.
Chris
Frankly, incompetence is now our most valuable ally - that and the groundswell of public opinion once people start to realise what we've known all along. The media war is about to start.
What was that about this is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning? Someone said that somewhere... ;)
It appears from the transcript that people will be able to give up their current passport and get a new one for ten years just before this goes through. Some compromise.
Only 60 and 56 non-contents for the two aspects of the debate. Tragic. Hansard suggests that a lot felt it was their duty to accept the compromise, because the ping-pong had been going on long enough and that the Lords had put enough pressure on the govt and at least got some movement from them.
Seems a bit weak to me. At least some of them stuck to their guns.
You've missed the point, Lads. No, you won't have to have a card before 2010. But *yes* you will have to go in the register and *yes* you still have to pay the extra cost card or no.
Bollocks. When does this come in? Is it still that 2008 limit?
That's right, Ken. 2008 still applies. Incompentence allowing.
Ach, we're all fucked up: ID cards, limits to freedom of speech, teenagers whose only crime is to be full of hormones are swept-off the streets, people are detained without trial, eccentric old greezers are arrested under the fucking terrorism legislation, can't damn well smoke indoors in Scotland anymore, and you can't drink outdoors but you can drink like a bastard and gamble your children's inheritance away in a fucking casino that's open to five o'clock in the freakin' morning, and bloody Galsgow and Edinburgh councils are going to ban the use of glasses in pubs, so why they don't just go the whole hog and ban drinking, I don't know...
It takes a special kind of chutzpah to describe this as 'progress', don'tcha think?
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