back to article UK.gov backs ID scheme with peanuts promo spend

The government is so sure that the UK public can't wait to get their hands on ID cards that it is spending next to nothing to promote the scheme. Successive Home Secretaries have insisted that the UK populace is thoroughly convinced of the case for ID cards, and is just waiting to rush out and insert themselves on the mega ID …

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  1. Richard 81

    cartoon ad to push the scheme

    I find the idea of that kind of propaganda being used to be deeply disturbing.

  2. Kevin Johnston

    link?

    Hmmm..Cartoon Ad for Micky Mouse project? Anyone want to guess where the spend for this is going to end up?

  3. Nomen Publicus
    FAIL

    What ID cards?

    There is STILL no marketing of the ID cards in Greater Manchester, where the pilot is supposed to start just about... now.

    No posters, no ads on TV, no leaflets through the door.

  4. Steve Mason
    Thumb Up

    Marketing

    I'd rather they spent fuck-all promoting something nobody wants, than blowing millions of tax-payers begrudgingly donated.

    I say this is good news!

  5. Number6

    Cartoons?

    Presumably because no self-respecting actor would want to appear in an ad for ID cards? I wonder if the voice-overs will be done by former home secretaries?

    Still, could be good - Dick Dastardly as the proponent of ID cards and the pigeon managing to defeat him every time, to the sound of Muttley laughing.

  6. Guy Herbert
    Big Brother

    Not about the money

    If the cost of PR and advertising is totted up they have spent many times what NO2ID has. SO I'd suggest the move in public opinion is not down to marketing spend. Though it is generally the case that the more people know about the scheme the more likely they are to hate it, I don't think Home Office promotion has increased public knowledge, being more calculated to mislead and misdirect.

  7. mwk
    Stop

    I was about to go apoplectic

    but that was only because I read the title and thought Charlie Brown was involved.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Pissing our money away

    Bad enough they've pissed away squillions on the technology side, now they're pissing more money away on a project that will be canned when the Tories get into power.

    No one in the right mind is going to volunteer to spend money to get an ID card that isn't compulsary! These people live in cloud cuckoo-land.

  9. seanj
    Grenade

    Marketing?

    The reason they're spending so little on marketing is because as soon as these cards go on "sale" and the millions who are allegedly clamouring to get their grubby little proletarian mitts on this State Repression Certificate are suddenly non-existent the figures will be proven to be outright lies, but they'll be able to use "poor marketing" as a get-out-of-jail-free card...

  10. kevin biswas
    Joke

    @mwk....If only

    I was a better cartoonist I could have Gordon Brown as Charlie Brown trying so hard again and again to kick that football, but the audience know he will never manage it.

  11. Tom 35

    Why no marketing...

    Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...

  12. M Room
    Coat

    Ad Campaign

    Come join our great network = get your ID Card now and join millions on our great database.

    Advantages of this scheme are:

    We will know exactly where you are and what you are doing and of course with whom you are doing it.

    We will be able to integrate your tax, benefit, health, criminal, driving, travel, bank, investments, property and many more details of you and make it all available at the press of a key.

    We guarantee that no-one will have access to your information except the zillions of authorised thoroughly checked out and cleared persons.

    We promise that we will try and not loose your information or leave it on a bus, train or in a taxi.

    Our database has been written by the best in the business and it will take hackers ages and ages to get access to your information.

    Let us help you to become totally exposed - special offer for this month: only £30.00

    Oh yea - get a life - no way if I can help it.

    Mines the one with the batch of cloned ID Cards in the pocket.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £500 million media buy

    So they spend hundreds of million advertising NuLabour/Government policies? And the TV stations can't debunk or be critical of it, because they need the money.

  14. Cameron Colley

    So they've paid the media types

    now they're paying the "technology people".

    I'd just like to thank the morons who voted these manipulative thieves into power for a glorious decade of total law contortment.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    £500 million media buy

    By Anonymous Coward Posted Friday 16th October 2009 16:49 GMT

    > So they spend hundreds of million advertising NuLabour/Government policies? And the TV stations can't debunk or be critical of it, because they need the money.

    You got it. Three quarters of London's journalists, new media and PR luvvies would be out of a job without that generous NuLabour gift aid.

    On the other hand when you consider this government gave upwards of £200million pounds to Capita to create the unpopular and soon to be scraped national strategies website (a simple CMS system) the COI's propaganda ad-spend spend looks like positively good value.

  16. Alien8n
    FAIL

    @ Cameron Colley

    What makes you think you need to thank anyone?

    Simple fact:

    Not one single person actually voted "yes I want ID cards"

    Not one single person actually had any say in Gordon Brown becoming PM

    Only 20% of the country actually voted for Labour in the last election.

    This government has the lowest mandate of any "elected" government in the last 100 years. And people say that PR is bad for democracy! It would at least have ensured that the current lot were kept under control.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not long now

    Only 7 months till we can get rid of these clowns.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    a457nvf

    "Not one single person actually had any say in Gordon Brown becoming PM"

    Not that I really want to defend the man, but yes they did. He was voted in by the people that we voted in.

    It's been said before, and I'll say it again. You don't vote to elect a Prime Minister. It's generally the leader of the party that's actually in power.

    as for "Only 20% of the country actually voted for Labour in the last election"

    If this is true (which i doubt), then it's likely that 15% voted for the tories, 10% the others. The remaining 55% didn't vote, so Labour still won. It's not about what percentage of the country voted, it's about the percentage of the people that actually got off their arse and voted.

    On the ID Cards, you're right, no-one wants them in their current incarnation. But I'm sure the retail trade would like something similar (minus the huge privacy implication) to make the enforcement of age related legislation easier. The current scheme is crap, it takes too much data that it just doesn't need. But don't think there aren't people who would benefit from its introduction (and I don't just mean the MP's and those who get the contracts).

    In heinsight, the FAIL logo was quite appropriate for your post!

  19. edwardecl
    Thumb Down

    I've already got an ID card...

    It's called a passport...

  20. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Photocard driving licences

    All you based ion the UK who drive have realised that the photocard part of your Driving Licence needs to be replaced every ten years, yes? And that our caring, sharing Overlords decided that - since it was (allegedley) forcibly imposed by the EU as part of "European Harmonisation" and the EU beancounters said that a "nominal fee" could be charged for replacing the card - we should all pay an extra £20 for a new photocard?

    What, not everyone knew about this when they (willingly) exchanged their "old" paper licence for this new piece of crap? Did ZaNu Liebour conveniently forget that the plastic card was supposed to REPLACE the paper licence, not be an additional form of ID to carry - something else the EU "imposed" but that nobody seems to have told the Boys (and Girls) in Blue who insist that merely having your photocard does NOT count as a form of ID unless it is you are also carrying that crappy little piece of paper...

    Oh well, so I guess I will also have to carry that ID card I was so desperate to get that I voted for somebody else who said they'd dump the scheme if they got in...

    Still, I'd love to see how the next government gets out of implementing it - if Godrun Brown's worker drones have been half as effective as they like to boast, they (are supposed to) have the contracts written in such a way that the penalties for breaking the contracts are so large that it is almost as cheap to enforce this vile piece of totalitarian diktat than it would be to tell the supppliers to go play with themselves...

    Never mind dinosaurs - anyone got any intact Guy Fawkes DNA??

  21. Alien8n
    FAIL

    @ a457nvf

    Actually you're wrong. For the Labour party to have voted him as PM there would have to be a vote. There was no vote, there was simply Tony Blair saying "I want Gordon as the next PM" and then everyone else was too scared to stand against him. With Gordon Brown's history of bullying and smearing anyone that stands in his way it begs the question just what has he got on Tony Blair that Blair would actually say he wanted Gordon as his successor? Remember back to when Tony Blair resigned, whenever anyone looked like being a possible candidate against Brown they were immediately smeared in the papers "sources close to Downing Street say" kind of stuff that was meant to discredit them in any way possible.

  22. Maty

    Logical Watson

    The more the public learn about the government's ID card scheme, the less they like it.

    Why should the government spend money telling them about it?

  23. Jack the Ripper

    @Alien8n

    PR is not the panacea it is made out to be. I believe this is used in the EU elections and they resulted in 2(?) BNP MEPs. So while everyone is going on about how wonderful PR is, the standard warning of unintended consequences should be ringing loudly in everyone's ears, particularly when dealing with a body of people as fickle and potentially unpredictable as the electorate.

  24. Tom Chiverton 1

    @Nomen Publicus

    "There is STILL no marketing of the ID cards in Greater Manchester"

    Nonsense ! There's been tons - over the last two Saturdays No2ID members from all over the country have been spreading the message in the city centre and surrounding areas :-)

    They've even burnt a giant ID card !

    Don't be a guinea pig, support http://manchester.no2id.net/ !

  25. Graham Bartlett
    Black Helicopters

    Never mind the marketing budget

    I really don't mind having an ID card. I already carry my driving license with me at all times. If you want to merge ID cards, passport and driving license into one, I don't care.

    I *do* mind having to pay a couple of hundred quid for something which does FA for me. And frankly I'd rather that having paid that money, hospital porters and tax-office helpdesk staff weren't able to fake-up a criminal record for me.

    And that they weren't able to clone my ID so that they can carry out real crimes and implicate me. Not that I think they'd deliberately want to smear me, but if you're doing this then chances are you'll pick someone at random who's about your age, height and racial group, so casual checks of photos won't spot it. That makes it even harder to prove your innocence if you look similar to the real criminal.

  26. Paul Charters
    Stop

    Erm...

    'It's not about what percentage of the country voted, it's about the percentage of the people that actually got off their arse and voted.'

    True, except the term 'actually got off their arse and voted' should probably actually read 'were utterly desperate for someone to add a 'none of the above' box to the ballot paper and couldn't bring themselves to vote for either the douche or the turd' (South Park reference).

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