- Tony Blair achieves stage one in his attempt to force me to emigrate. Stage two to follow later today.
Of course, now that they're going to tie passports in to ID cards and force us all to have the buggers, I'd better get my act in gear and find a country without such mental authoritarians in charge (preferably one that allows me to smoke in pubs) to give me citizenship asap, or (thanks to the government's ever so generous concession to make it "volunatary") the only way to avoid having the barcode tattooed firmly on my forehead will be to find a remote part of Dartmoor and avoid all human contact for the rest of my days.
I think I'm probably rather too angry adequately to express just how much I despise this God-awful, craven, cowardly bastard of a government, and every single MP who voted in favour of that horrendously illiberal bill.
Update: Oh, and am I right in thinking that, following this question from Tory Ben Wallace, Charles Clarke has admitted that all a terrorist/dodgy criminal type need do is fly to Ireland, get a fake Irish passport and then hop on a boat to Liverpool before being allowed free travel throughout the UK? Or was Shadow Home Secretary David Davis correct in suggesting that, for the ID cards plan to work, the Irish government will also have to adopt the bloody things, re-introducing somewhat unfortunate similarities to the old colonial days?
Update 2: A Kate Hoey follow-up solicited the following from the Safety Elephant:
"Once it is compulsory to register, Irish citizens resident here would be obliged to register. The common travel area is unaffected in principle by that definition, although, as I told the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, a series of practical questions arise that are subject to active discussion in those circumstances."So yes, it would appear that the Irish bypass will be well and truly open to all dodgy foreigners with bombs and the like.
Please also note the Freudian slip "once it is compulsary". It's only a matter of time, kids...
9 Comments:
It is all getting rather tragic, isn't it?
Sad thing is there's never going to be a party with the common sense and common decency to stand on a platform of almost complete reversal of all that has gone before...
I blame everyone but me.
Ninety quid this farcical piece of plastic is going to cost.
We'll do time for the bastards.
Unfortunately Ireland (compare Guido Fawkes' comment on this matter) won't allow you to smoke, even if it won't (yet) foist an ID card on you. On smoking, you'll have to face it, that's a dying art. In more ways than one.
I just don't get it. I don't. The whole thing has a vaguely sinister air about it but I can't work out what the hell this is actually supposed to achieve, for good or ill. If it will do bugger all to fight terrorism, benefit fraud or illegal immigration, what will they do?
It is just another bit of "look how security conscious we are" posturing?
Relax. Will everybody just chill?
As I've said before, it's now time to sit back and watch the fun. The spiralling costs, the incompetent implementation, the bitter recriminations in the press, the thousands of dissenters jamming the courts, the political careers in tatters. It's going to be fantastic.
If I had it, I'd put good money on ID cards never seeing the light of day.
We need a "vote anyone but Labour" meme kicked off.
if everyone who smoked left the country we wouldn't need to outlaw it, either way suits me
Well, my passport will last until after the next election. After that, it's Germany or Ireland.
Germany would be good, don't need to speak the language, beer is great. Ireland speaks the language and the Guinness remains Guinness.
I'm thinking Justin's right (Simon Carr says similar in today's Indy), it's doomed anyway. Besides, the NIR is "unhackable". Right, how many hacker communities will have it as their top target once that gets touted around.
Bishop? Pretty much what I've been saying since I started blogging. Think I need to up the pace on that one a little. 3-4 years. Then they're out, or a lot of us are off.
I've never smoked, but, well, irrelevent, I'd rather make my own choices as to where I drink/eat and who I sit with thankee muchly.
MatGB
Could one set up a fund to reward anyone who successfully hacks the NIR? Would the rewarding/encouraging of the act in itself be illegal? Would we care if it was?
On the "Anyone but Labour" meme - it desperately needs someone with graphic design skills to set up a banner for display on blogs. Can anyone help?
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