Manchester united against ID cards, ID minister finds The put-upon people of Manchester got the chance to quiz Home Office minister Meg Hillier on ID cards yesterday, while Parliament got an update on the national identity register - the database at the heart of the project. Sir Joseph Pilling told the Home Affairs committee that 538 people were now on the database - one of them …
Meg - it's not just the ID card people don't want - it's you !! Get the message?
Oh - I forgot - you just never listen, do you?
Used to be a line between how one party viewed democracy and how another viewed it. These days it's hard to spot any New Labour front bencher that gives even lip service to democracy itself.
For God's sake, Gordon, Jack, Meg ... and all the rest ... just GO !!!!! Or are you planning to deprive us of that right too...?
To know about the ID card and national identity register scheme is to be against it.
I have personally turned a mini several of people round from being mildly for the scheme to being very much against it after just a few minutes of quietly reasoned conversation. It's remarkable to me that many people are prepared to happily sleepwalk into a future of diminished freedoms and reduced privacy at the behest of a Government that has in truth no right to know much more about them than how many of us cast our vote in their general direction. A Briton's vehement adherence to his personal principles of dignity and privacy is worth preserving, and once lost likely gone forever.
The best way to protect your identity is to keep it private, including from the Government. Especially from the Government. Ergo the database should be ditched. Here's to you, lovely sensible Mancunians.
Meg is right that nobody can steal your identity - not without stealing your fingerprint biometrics, they can't. They can still impersonate you, however, in lots and lots of situations where the biometrics are not used for authentication - and today that is every situation except for asking for a replacement ID card, as accepted by Meg in her recent radio spot.
Registering makes the data that you supply your official identity, which you are stuck with until the world ends.
The BBC is reporting that less than 600 people are in the database. That means, not only has Manchester ignored the extensive (sic) publicity, but not even MPs are signed up.
BTW, the only publicity I've seen was a single, full page ad in the Metro newspaper and a little coverage on the local TV news, where they didn't even give the URL for the web site.
Labour stronghold or not, Manchester was at least smart enough to see off the Congestion Charging scam, so with any luck, this will suffer a similar fate as people wake up to it.
Talking of which, wouldn't it be a good idea for NO2ID to be getting some publicity in the region, as per the anti-CC lobby when that was about?
"So, there you are, ID cards are like Man United - all the supporters live outside Manchester."
In the last survey of season ticket addresses, any which were outside a 1 mile radius of their respective premier league club were classed as non-local.
The results were interesting for the fact the Liverpool came top with Man Utd a mere fourth
PS About the only thing Liverpool have been top off for a while now :-)
"This grassroots, reach-out web chat was an enormous success in turning round public opinion using just reasoned argument - think Peel's speech on the Corn Laws. The online poll carried out by the paper, clearly not astro-turfed by any special interest group, found four per cent of respondents were in favour of the cards against 96 per cent of people who were against it."
Made me giggle. Keep up the good work El Reg and NO2ID, not long till we get rid of this shower of eejits at Westminster. Admittedly, they'll be replaced by other eejits, but you can't always get what you want.
Why do I have this mind-picture of Meg with her fingers in her ears going ... La, la, la?
This government is so thick it can't even shift its attention from Manchester. We gave them two fingers for the Congestion Charge lying and now another two fingers for the ID Card.
Which part of 94% against do you not understand?
But they sent Dianne Abbott around campaigning what with her being popular and nice and not hurting a fly etc...
I really should write that letter telling her how I've always voted Labour except when Jim Fitzpatrick was the candidate and how I'd rather vote Tory (spit) than see my vote go to her.
Hillier said: "But another real benefit is that once you have registered no-one can steal your identity" and "the databases will be very secure - think Police National Computer. No-one will be able to download information and it will not be on PCs on people's desks."
She'll have a slot on Radio 4 after the election, that's for sure.
(Thanks, El Reg - didn't even have to edit the quote!)
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