Blunkett and ex-CPS chief turn on Home Office David Blunkett, who as Home Secretary led the government's push for compulsory ID cards, will tomorrow call for the scheme to be curtailed, according to a report. Instead he will propose that only foreigners be made to hold an ID card. UK nationals should only be required to hold a passport, Blunkett will argue. He will make …
In other news, Tony Blair will demand prosecution of the war criminals who attacked Iraq. And Gordon Brown will lay into those responsible for the excessive deregulation of the last ten years. (Oh wait, that already happened).
A week is a long time in politics, isn't it? In other words, politicians think we are so dumb we can't remember anything for more than a week.
What a lovely idea. Blunkett's realised that all the auto-drivel spouted by Home Office nonsense-bot Meg Hillier is not helping the already moribund ID cards 'service'. So he's come up with an interesting plan - let's get rid of the actual cards (which nobody has anyway) and bolt all the nasty database stuff onto the passport (which 80% of the population has) instead. That way our caring information-sharing government can say "We're getting rid of ID cards; now you're free to vote for us again" - and then essentially designate the passport as an ID card (which is allowed under the Identity Cards Act). At a stroke, 80% of the population will have an ID card, cunningly disguised as a passport.
It's f***ing Blunkett, for f**k's sake!
Blunkett was the proponent of this whole system and single-handedly organised the Home Office into the Orwellian ministry it is now. Jack Straw, his predecessor, was a bit of a fascist but Blunkett went further - he made sure that ID cards hit the top of the pile, time and again. So why now is he rescinding his support?
If you'll remember, David Blunkett sits on the board of Entrust, the American company that won the tender for the infrastructure of the ID cards scheme, and the manufacture of the cards themselves. That is, he did - but on Entrust's website he's just not listed as being on the board. So maybe his vested interest in the tagging and tracking of us all has expired - or maybe the scheme to tag all the kiddies (apparently this circumvents child abuse and paedophiles) will pay off when, in 18 years time, the register is extended to adults too.
Much as surveillance is an underlying concept of New Labour, the failure of the authorities to keep our data safe has meant that support for privatising data handling, and putting the responsibility for our private, personal and financial data into the hands of negligent corporations, is dying out. No-one seems to want to support the government packet-sniffing on our internet activities, when this is the modus operandi of albeit more overtly criminal organisations. They are using intimidation to legitimise covert mass surveillance, which is futile - if I was planning a terrorist attack, I wouldn't communicate in open view. So the surveillance, again, (sorry to be a bore) only affects us that have 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear'.
Perhaps Blunkett and his Nu Labour successors will stick to realistic aims, instead of trying to ban the internet, tag our kids, and shut us up.
Why do politicians speak and think differently before and after high office but do the opposite when they are in a position to actually do something? I remember when Blunkett and most of the labour party were left of centre libertarians. Now it is Jacqui Smith who is running around tmpersonationg a semi-trained rotweiler.
Could it be Sir Humphrey in the background setting the agenda? These billion pound IT schemes are just the sort of thing to give their departments kudos.
Such soft talk from the Blunkett is designed for consumption by a bunch of easily satisfied Labour voters who had flirted with the idea of not voting Labour at the next election. (Not that they'd vote for anyone else, being mostly like a bunch of sulking football supporters whose team is busy losing matches.)
On the basis of a softer message, such people will feel reassured that they aren't selling everybody out, purely on the say-so of someone they voted for last time, and as they vote the government in for another term, in will roll the full-strength "terror" legislation of choice supposedly with the mandate of the electorate.
Oh, and don't forget to vote in the European elections this year. Not only will your votes actually count, you can even vote for the people who might end up protecting your freedoms.
This is Mr 'I want the UK to be a prison without walls' Blunkett changing his mind..
I'm not so sure.
UK nationals should carry a passport only!?!?!
Is this before or after the inclusion of that damn biometric information?!
And foreign nationals have to have ID cards.
Right because their passports dont have biometrics and you want them dont you Blunkett!! Come on come clean!
The only reason hes done this is he already has his way and you biometric info is already tagged somewhere in the system. All he needs is a little function creep and hes sorted (oh wait I think he already has it)
Its a pointeless comment appealing to the current public opinion while doing nothing to stem the pointless culling of all personal data by the state
Zieg heil!!!
"Forget the paranoiac paraphernalia of national databases, identity cards and all the other liberty-sapping addictions of the Home Office. Forget the rhetoric and do something useful," he wrote.
"Let's have fewer terrorism acts, fewer laws attacking our right to speak frankly and freely. Let's stop filling our prisons with junkies, inadequates and the mentally damaged. How apposite in 2009 to have, instead, a few more laws to confront the clever people who have done their best to steal our economy."
Sounds like the basis of policy i could actually vote for.
You have missed the point completely.
Registering on the Identity Database is going to be a condition of getting a passport. So if passports become compulsory, then registering on the Identity Database becomes compulsory. And the National Identity Scheme is accelerated, not stopped.
Forget about the ID Card itself. The Home Office don't give a monkeys whether you get an ID Card or not. All they care about is that you register on the database. Then they can link every strand of your life together with one unique number, and track you every time you are checked against the register (card or no card).
........may we be truly watchful. Two-time loser Blunkett has popped up over the radar horizon during the past few weeks, giving several interviews to the media in an attempt to resurrect his political credibility. Whether his new-found respect for the rights of UK citizens is a true conversion on the road to Damascus or just a typical load of New Labour bullshit only time will tell. But you can be sure that it wouldn't be happening unless he had received the nod from Brown himself.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch house the Wacky one is being dissed and set up for a fall by the party spin machine. Is there any connection between the resurrection of Blunkett and the imminent demise of Jacqui? Do bears shit in the woods?
One of Blunkett's more sceptical interviewers can be found over here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/14/david-blunkett-politics
I am confused by this part of your statement..
<quote>
and track you every time you are checked against the register (card or no card).
</quote>
How are they going to track you if you have no card?
How are they going to check you against the register, with no card?
Please can you clarify this.
Jack Straw just wants to help people..
"People" being ministers who want to copy any data their department holds to any other depart or company they want without the annoying delays of getting a relevant law passed. In fact without needing any kind of parliamentary approval.
How kind of him.
Aimee - Think about how you access your bank account. You can already do banking transactions without your bank card (in your branch, on the phone, or on the internet).
In exactly the same way you will be able to transact with the Identity Database without using your ID Card. You'll have a PIN number and password, and for face-to-face transactions you could use your fingerprints. This means that, even if you have no card, you can say who you claim to be and then provide evidence. When a physical document is required, then other documents such as your passport will be accepted instead of an ID Card.
(A big difference between the identity scheme and your bank, though, is that if your bank card number is abused then the bank cancels it immediately and issues you with a new one. If your national identity number or copies of your fingerprints start being abused by criminals, how will you repair your identity? Soon, somebody may be about to find out that it isn't easy.)
Of course - they could follow the usual trend where advice is "unsolicited" and just destroy the reputation of the expert in question:
Drugs - "look at the statistics" is greeted with scorn and you are villified in the press
WMD - well you end up dead for that one, after you've been villified in the press
CEO of a major company? - villified for saying the UK economy is on the skids. (close the curtains on the train comrade - then we can pronounce that the train is moving!)
Senior member of a trade union? Villified for suggesting that a car plant (I wonder if it's the one closed for 1/3rd of the YEAR) might run out of cash and have to close.
Ex head of MI5 who claims that the threat of terrorism is grossly overpublicised to pass onerous legislation - shouted down.
Under this sickening administration an expert is only an expert for as long as he agrees with the government.
I wonder if we'll see wholesale changes to history to show Blunkett as a traitor and enemy of the state he once acted as such a favoured mouthpiece for?
Don't ever lose sight of the fact they want us branded, in fear and controlled.
Go? I wish they would. bLIAR has ruined this country, and now brown is just pissing on the corpse.
Quoth he: Why do politicians speak and think differently before and after high office but do the opposite when they are in a position to actually do something?
It's a common problem, not just in politics. When I was still working, I always wondered why many of the senior managers acted like demented gargoyles at work; surely to heavens they didn't act that way at home?
It was like they unzipped their thorax, removed their heart, and put it on the bedroom dresser before leaving for work in the morning.
After years of sparring with those assholes and wondering, I finally concluded that it was a version of Parkinson's law in effect: they'd risen above their level of competence, didn't have a clue how to behave, so they used the best model close to hand: the behavior of a Mafia don.
Either that or they had wives they'd terrorized into submission, just as they tried to terrorize their employees.
Along with the bankers, the financial traders, all Republicans, the NuLabour party, lawyers and assorted other groups of social undesirables, liars, and bullshit artists, the gargoyle crowd needs to be given a one-way ticket to the 200 mile limit.
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