Information from Olly Dommett, Researcher to Boris.
Tomorrow is the big vote: Second Reading of the ID Cards Bill at 9.30/10.00pm.
* BBC News here *
* Home Office copy of the Bill *
Boris has always been opposed to ID cards and now the Party is fully with him on this; and what with the Lib Dems on board and Labour’s majority reduced the result should be tight.
Is this true?
On the Boris Johnson blog it says:Tomorrow is the big vote: Second Reading of the ID Cards Bill at 9.30/10.00pm. … Boris has always been opposed to ID cards and now the Party are fully with him on this; and…
God willing, the Government will stop being so keen after tomorrow night. They may win, but a small margin of victory would both encourage the Lords and get Blair worrying.
BORIS: This time, DON’T MISS THE VOTE!!!
;o)
Should this bill be passed, it would be tantamount to a tremendously expensive tattoo on every arm. Now where did that happen before?
In answer to the trackback above:
Thank you for your comment on the Boris-Johnson.com site. Here is a reply to your question from Michael Howard’s Office:
The Identity Cards Bill which the Government introduced to Parliament in the last session before the General Election would have established a national ID card scheme in the United Kingdom.
We have always judged the ID cards scheme by five tests: the purpose of the scheme; the technological capability available to Britain; the capability to manage the scheme; the cards’ value for money; and, most importantly, civil liberties – including the database and the security of the system. Adequate time should have been provided to debate these very important issues, but the Government did not allow it. It has failed to answer our five tests. Consequently, the Conservative Party does not support the ID Cards Bill recently re-introduced to the House of Commons by the Government.
Get the damn thing thrown out Boris! Save us from yet more meddling please!
What with ID cards and a chip in our car to tell the government where we are going, most of our civil liberties will be lost. Please handle it Boris!!
The whole thing is ridiculous. There is no rational argument for an ID card, and there never will be. The whole project will collapse in on itself if it goes ahead.
Yes, but will he remember to go vote this time?
Make sure you all turn out to vote; hopefully we won’t end up lumbered with another expensive IT white elephant.
I reckon they should hire me to produce a government IT system. I could use it to tap into MI5 and initiate the extermination of Blair!
Probably.
😉
Finally I agree with the torys on somthing.
Go get’em boris!
I just can’t wait to get the bar code tattooed on my forehead. This fiasco will hopefully be Blair’s Poll Tax.
Talking of which, where’s Wat Tyler when we need him?
/John, ex-Labour voter.
Whoever mentioned ‘chip’ recognition should have waited to speak until after the debate. Now you’ve given the ‘Government’ another bullet for its depleted arsenal. A chip in the arm is now a possibility. Damn!
Time to bring your talents to the fore Aaron!
ID Cards: Round II
BBC – ID cards set for Commons grilling: Ministers are facing more criticism over plans to introduce identity cards, the day before the bill is given its second reading in the Commons. According to the London School of Economics the…
Yes Aaron; just hurry and make the grain sized encapsulated chip, and if what some are saying about me is true, I’m able to give the needle to a lot. Teamwork.
Boris: remember to vote this time. Also, throw a large sack over the head of my none-more-loyal-Blairite MP and drag him into the “no” lobby as well. It is allowed in the rules, apparantly.
Whatever happened to the “listening and learning” government? That didn’t last long.
ID cards! Dont make me laugh. Its fun to try and get into scary pubs and clubs. If you dont get in, you go home to a lovely bath, if you do… wahey! underage partying…
Im not saying that anybody under teh age of 16 drinks…. of course, that would be absurd.
Scoltcock: Point missed entirely.
Live debate at the moment in parliament:
Austin Mitchell MP (Lab Great Grimsby): what if some doddery fellow like me walking down Victoria Street gets debarred from holding a card – where will the limits be as to the criteria for eligibility…(or along those lines)
Glenda Jackson MP (Lab Hampstead and Highgate): I am against someone not getting NHS treatment because they may not be carrying their ID card (..paraphrased..)
Boris did make his point against the cards too earlier this afternoon
1 of the reasons why the Blair ID card project is a white elephant doomed to the graveyard is that practically every New Labour governmment computer roll-out has been a Total Bollox.
The Home Office whizz-bang new computer system 2 or so years back was a notable fiasco even by the New Nazis standards, with humble employees not being paid properly for months on end ‘cos of those darned bugs.
Blair’s already flagged the exit line, Too Expensive. For once he’s right: the cost would be nothing less than his gilded premiership.
I wouldn’t say that his exit was too high a price to pay, for whatever was on sale. He is an overpaid actor who makes up his own lines, usually out of context. The other actors , in the main keep to the script, however unbelievableand unconvincing that may be.
I have seen more believable hand puppetry then his performances of late
I can’t believe such a ridiculous bill has been passed. Well, I can. But still. Ugh.
Boris, will you try to make sure the committee stage isn’t ‘guillotined’ to the 19th of July?
I am against compulsory ID Cards, but not voluntary ones. I anyone has any sense in this day and age they should carry a card somewhere on their person that gives their name, address, next of kin, doctors name and any medical condition they may have, just in case of an emergency. That is sensible, not the tripe that Phoney Bliar is peddling!
Phoney Blair! Why not try Bliar Bliar Pants on Fire?
OI! Scaryduck, perhaps i was making a new point?
Fair enough, but the proof-of-age-in-pubs argument is rather beside the point of the whole human rights surveillance state-me-do thing.
Yet another example of why party politics is un-democratic, methinks. If MPs had voted how they truly thought, or, at least, reflecting the views of their electorate (I know, i know…that’s how it’s supposed to happen)the whole bill would have been out the window months ago. Sadly, liebour MPs seem far too keen on obeying their fuhrer. May their beds be filled with the fleas of one thousand camels!
:o(
Ok scaryduck, lets agree to call it quits. Big Brother could be watching us soon..
Fleas in beds: now there’s the novel explanation to my question on the inability to sleep well during the summer months.’ Camel fleas’,perhaps not the exact description , but probably close enough. I had been worried that the humidity was a tad high.Is it really global warming that is to blame for tis upsurge in temperature? Is mankind the vandal in the woodpile? Semper PC ! Be that as it may; in view of the poor forecast for tonight, I offer:—————————————————
Is there a legal method;
To keep your cool at night,
To cure the dread insomnia,
Ere dawn can show its light?
I confess I’m not an ardent fan,
Of close and muggy weather,
It brings me, oh so very close,
To the limits of my tether,
It keeps me from enjoying
My much-needed beauty sleep
And I’m really sick and tired
Of counting endless bloody sheep.
I’m not a lover of the ovine species,
Neither have I claimed to be.
I’m not a Welshman: I’ve no wellies:
I’m just totally sheep free.
So roll on blooming autumn;
Blazing leaves with awesome hues
And I mean those on the palette:
Not those awful Romney ewes.
There is an addendum, which I will keep up my sleeve.
I hope you sleep better Mac
Would be great to read the next section – as in… suddenly you invest in wellies and Mr Sandman appears and helps you weave a tale of deep, deep sleep
There are too many unanswered and probably unanswerable questions about ID cards. For example, putting data into a computer is one thing. Removing it is quite another; a simple example, for my own company we have a database for invoicing our customers, like many others. Sometimes a customer tells us they have changed address. Then what do we do? If we change the address on their current record then the address on all previous invoices of theirs changes, making them wrong. If we create a new record then their customer ID changes and our database gets ever fatter.
When will records, which by the nature of biometric data will be huge, be removed from this wretched database? When I die? Probably not, because they will argue that they might want to see posthumously if I had committed a crime. We know that evidence sometimes links people to crimes many years after their deaths.
It is in our nature that once we have information we are reluctant to destroy it. I have a room full of compute disks I will never use again, but I cannot bring myself to destroy them – just in case…
Another issue is how this data will help each and every one of us. In principle I have no objection to having something (cheap and simple) to prove my identity. If I hire a car I have to prove my identity. Will every car hire company have the technology to read these cards? It only makes sense if they do, but I understand they won’t. Will the Post Office? If yes, what’s the difference?
Something inside me does object to a piece of plastic having more authority than my flesh and blood does to identify me. And then, when my flesh and blood is busy rotting away, where will my card be? What petty criminal will be carrying it as the ideal, technologically perfect identity theft tool?
At the point of use of these cards, unless they can scan all of the biometric data from the person in front of them and compare it with the card, a process that apparently takes some 25 minutes, the card will not prove the identity of the holder in any case. Only the photograph is likely to be useful. When I worked at BT many years ago we had photograhic passes. It was known that someoe had covered theirs with a picture of Michael Jackson but he was never challenged; people never look that closely and if the picture looks different then they assume that the person has changed their hair, glasses, put on/lost weight, etc.
If the usual IT integration culprits (a large Texan company) is used for this project I am quite certain it will never work satisfactorily. They are renowned in the industry for obfuscating their code to ensure that only they can maintain it. This enables them to get contracts extended indefinitely because when it does not come to fruition it is impossible to remove them and get someone else in.
On that note we should be asking why so many Pounds Sterling are sent out to be converted to Dollars by this company that pays little or no taxes here.
All in all, the ID card proposal is ridiculous. I just cannot see a burglar leaving his card at the crime scene, so how will it reduce crime? When the Government makes that claim, they are not referring to the crime that affect people, only crime that affects the Government (which is only indirectly us) such as benefit fraud. But as I said earlier, if the point of use of the card cannot do DNA testing it doesn’t actually prove anything.
Colin there is no doubt whatsoever that you are a BB or a CC – Brain Box – Clever Cloggs. It isn’t every day you get quoted in a national paper.
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR QUOTE IN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH TODAY via this site – watch it all of you …. it was Vicus who scored highly last time …now it’s colin whyles …the magic of blogging
ID cards will not prevent crime or stop terrorist attacks, one iota. Criminals and terrorists will be able to forge ID cards. No, they are just another means of Government control via Brussels. Blair knows this but, as always wants to be seen doing something even if it doesn’t work.
Stuart.
The more I think about ID cards, the more ridiculous and pointless they seem. If I hand my card to someone who wants to check my identity, tehy might be able to plug it into a device that can access the central database and compare the data on the card with the data in the central database. That proves that the card is valid. But what proves it is my card? The only thing left is to compare the photograph with me unless they can do the DNA testing or iris scans or facial recognition stuff.
As we’ve discussed, most of the people an ID card would be useful for (banks, car hire, insurance, etc) will not be allowed or able to do this. What we will have is the most expensive photographic ID card in the world.
And the card will have more validity than the holder.
Barmy.
As ever, thank you Prophet Colin