Can you imagine the horrors that would have arisen had Theresa’s ‘hostile environment’ home office been tasked with issuing ID cards while she was running it? Windrush migrants would’ve been the tip of a very large iceberg.
Mrs May on the Today programme…
. Is delusional too harsh?
1 Like
I don’t think of myself as against the rule of law. But if ID cards had come in I’d have refused to carry one.
VB
5 Likes
That’s was exactly my reaction. “Best interests… Just deliver Brexit… Yadda, Yadda…”
No it isn’t, you delusional robotised imbecile.
It reminds me of Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord’s classification of his officers:
"I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities.
Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous."
Guess which category Mayhem falls into.
11 Likes
What if they were the same blue colour as the old British passports? 
More seriously, what’s your objection ?
1 Like
She’d clearly worked out Humphreys’ line of attack in advance and her prepared answers kept her out of trouble. She asserted that the options were This Deal, No Deal, No Brexit. I would have thought that by now a reasonably well-informed secondary school child would have challenged that.
VB
The idea that Humphreys might launch into the PM over Brexit is verging on the ludicrous though. Leaving aside the fact that Mrs May is staring at a circa 100 vote defeat if the current count is correct, she faces the very real threat of Parliament taking over the whole process. This renders the ‘My Deal, No Deal or No Brexit’ mantra redundant so using the Today programme’s platform to broadcast such nonsense hardly helps her position.
What did she gain from this, other than not being verbally assaulted by Cuddly John? John Crace sums it up well:
https://twitter.com/JohnJCrace/status/1070598974984388608?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Divested of PMship but still in Westminster, this looks like the way forward.
If you are already in hospital, certain nurses can stop you leaving under Section 5(4) until the doctor in charge of your care or treatment, or their nominated deputy, can make a decision about whether to detain you there under Section 5(2).
1 Like
The functioning of a society requires the surrender of some liberties in return for some benefits. It’s my judgement that I don’t live in a society plagued by intolerable problems which would be solved by ID cards. There are, on the other hand, many examples from recent history where ID cards have been used as a powerful tool by oppressive states. I feel it’s just better not to expose future UK governments to that temptation.
And it would have cost a lot of money which could otherwise have been focused much more tightly on where the problems really lie.
VB
5 Likes
Agreed.
I can totally agree on the last point: given so much of the system-costs would be IT-based there’s so muhc of our recent history that says it would be otched.
OTOH, having lived most of my life in two countries with ID systems - one brilliantly implemented, the other … not so much - I can attest that the ease of interacting with the state - tax / health / local council / Freedom of movement related issues - is hugely impressive, and well worth the loss of associated personal freedom.
You have to haver trust in in the state though, and that’s where it falls down in the UK. Which is ashame, as it solves many of the FoM hurdles that may (hopefully) return.
Is that really because everyone’s forced to carry a piece of plastic in their wallets though ? I can recite my NI number and I used to know my NHS number before they changed it. I have a number for the government gateway into the tax system where I also have a tax ID. There’s a reference number on my council tax bills and another one on my (council issued) voting card (although they seem to cope fine with just my name and address at the polling station). All this works pretty well. Why add another layer of bureaucracy ?
It seems to me that IT systems work better when their scope is limited, both in terms of simple numbers (are your two countries with working ID systems tiddly compared with the UK, by any chance ?) and of range of things they have to do (it’s true that any tool can be a hammer if it’s big enough, but somehow the one that was designed just to be a hammer works best).
As far as FoM goes, I have a passport. I can see a case for imposing tighter ID controls on visiting foreign nationals - maybe requiring them to produce, when appropriate, a document issued at entry. When we travelled in Russia we were advised always to carry a colour photocopy of our passports with us. The police were entitled to stop foreigners on the streets and ask for this. We were warned to try to avoid getting into this situation though. Apparently the police routinely use it to accuse foreign visitors of minor infringements in response to which we were advised to say “Oh dear. I am so very sorry. Can I pay a fine ?” and then to hand over money in small denomination notes.
VB
The problem is, we de facto have ID cards now via our various digital and administrative identities - driving license, passport, Tesco clubcard, utility bills - but without the actual convenience of an ID card.
The people slipping through the net of an ID card already slip through the net of the other forms of ID so I don’t really see an enforcement issue either.
I can’t decide my position on identity cards. My default is similar to Graeme, I don’t like the idea of them, don’t think that they should be needed and don’t trust how they could be used in the future.
That said, I already have a passport, driving licence, tax and NI IDs and other government ID I probably don’t even know about. Would it really be a problem?
I would like to see some analysis of the amount of fraud it is likely to prevent and its cost before coming to a final conclusion.
I will always be uneasy about a really strong form of ID - its loss could be disastrous, and the benefits from faking it could be huge.
What worries me about identity cards, other than the fact that the government IT side of their implementation would obviously be a very expensive shambles, is the potential for making it compulsory to carry them, leading to a “Show me your papers!” culture, and the potential for them to be demanded by all sorts of organisations.
If I had to have one, it would be left in a drawer at home. If you have a good reason to discover my identity when I’m out and about, then have the Police arrest me and they can do so at their leisure.
In a drawer at home, it’s only another NI number, so not an issue, but also no real benefits over the NI number I already have.
1 Like
The power of an ID card from the state’s point of view is that it’s unified and universal. It controls your whole life and everyone has to have one. Not having one can be made an offence, so you can be found conveniently guilty even if you’ve done nothing else wrong. At the moment if the police arrested you because you couldn’t produce a Tesco clubcard I suspect they would have trouble keeping you in custody once the magistrate got to hear of it. I’m not clear what the convenience of a card would be. I’m sufficiently organised that I can find my tax reference number in less than 2 minutes when I need it.
No. No problem at all.
They would be brilliant for stalking totty though.
VB
1 Like
That’s an interesting response, as it seems a very British - me too, I mean no offence 
- take on the issue.
Probably having been exposed to the benefits for a long time now, I see it more as ‘look at what I could gain’, instead of (what seems the more typical) complaints of intrusion of privacy and a semi-Stasi culture of “halt, who goes there!”
My registration card is common across nearly all aspects of public life: hospital, doctor, tax and banking, local council, kindergarten / school / libraries, and neatly integrates and simplifies the information I am required to tell the state about, and reduces / eliminates the need of data to be stored on different systems, with the accompanying risk entailed.
FWIW, it also makes diddling the tax man a tricky job, as all bank records require the registration number, and all banks provide the tax authorities with certain key details. I can at any time go in and check, edit or approve details based upon my one login.
As far as I am aware, Danes are not required to produce this card at any time, and it has no Stasi connotations. Legislation is eye-wateringly tight on handling of data (and is helped by a comparatively high level of trust in the state.)
As said above, I’m not entirely sure what info mine contains that you lot wouldn’t have residing on different electronic databases
1 Like
I wonder if national identity comes into it. Do most Brits see their Britishness as a right, providing superiority over Johnny Foreigner, while most Europeans see a privilege?