Labour to create veterans' ID card

Defence Management

No end to Labour's authoritarian wastefulness, it seems.

The Labour Party have pledged to provide free ID cards for forces' leavers if re-elected to government.

The pledge was made in the party's manifesto, launched on 12 March.

"A veterans ID card will help veterans access their improved benefits and will be free to service leavers," says the manifesto. "We will continue to strengthen mental health provision in partnership with the Combat Stress charity, and roll out our Welfare Pathway to give personnel and their families better support and advice."

The manifesto also reiterates promises made during the last parliament, including pledges to cut waste within the Ministry of Defence.

"We are reforming defence procurement," states the manifesto, "making further reductions in civilian staff, and cutting lower-priority spending on headquarters costs, travel and consultancy."

'Free' to service leavers - I like that. 'Free', as in 'free - until it becomes necessary'.

Hillier ID Card Cretin

Identity minister forgets ID card.

Yes, Meg Hillier, the latest Labour apologist for the ID card scheme, proves yet again what a bunch of fuckwits they all are:

Identity minister Meg Hillier arrived at a photocall to promote identity cards, but then realised she left her own at home.

She travelled to Liverpool to announce a further roll-out of the controversial identity cards across the North West.

Ms Hillier checked her handbag for the card before putting the slip-up down to the demands of looking after her baby.

Meanwhile, over in Hull, a man and his wife are prevented from boarding a ferry after their ID cards are refused:

A man has received an apology from the Home Office after his ID card was refused as he tried to board a ferry to Rotterdam.

Norman Eastwood, from Salford, and his wife Jeanette were planning to travel from Hull on P&O Ferries on Saturday.

The new ID card, introduced in Manchester, can be used instead of a passport across Europe - but the travel firm said it did not know this.

A Home Office spokesman said it "seems to be an isolated experience".

What I want to know is why have Mr and Mrs Eastwood got these damn cards in the first place. Did they sign up voluntarily? Do they realise what they've let themselves in for? Why the hell didn't they just bring their passports?

Even poor old Kosmoplito, Euro-luvvie, has had problems with his Belgian ID card in Sainsburys.

Cancelled Manchester ID Cards Itself

Manchester is first to get ID cards

Some minor aparatchik was shoved in front of the media this morning to announce this. It's embarrassing reading the pathetic excuses New Labour's underlings have desperately scraped together to try to justify ID cards once again.

They can now directly apply to attend appointments from November 30 to have their photograph and fingerprints taken for the £30 cards at Manchester's passport office.

Junior Home Office Minister Meg Hillier said the cards would be particularly useful for students and young people as they would "save the cost and hassle" of getting into clubs and bars.

Anyone over 16 in the city with a UK passport can apply for a card.

Ms Hillier told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Really for a lot of people it's a day-to-day convenience thing.

"For a lot of young people ... they often take their passports to prove their identity in nightclubs and bars and the Passport Service sweeps these up every week. So for a lot of people it'll save the cost and hassle of taking your passport, risking losing it and instead you've got this very convenient little credit-sized card. I've got one and it's very useful."

The ID cards are very hard to copy and are very secure, with biometric information stored on a database, she added.

"This is not a database that can be downloaded onto disks," she said.

"It's going to be held in different places so there'll be fingerprints and your picture on one database and your biographical information (on another), which is I must stress just the same as what's held by the Passport Service anyway ... and they will be linked together by another database."

The database would only be used for "serious crime issues" or identity concerns at a border.

The mini-witted former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced in May that Manchester had been chosen as the country's first idiot trial area for ID cards, and so it comes to pass.

Which is a bit funny because I'm sure I read Gordon Brown recently saying that ID cards were off the agenda.

Mind you, he said that a couple of years ago.

Could it be that he's a total fucking liar?

ID Cards WILL Be Compulsory!

Independence Home

In a written answer to a question posed by Independent Labour Peer, Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 14th October, Lord West of Spithead, for the Government, has confirmed that from 2012, ” anyone applying for a British passport would be offered the choice of being issued with a passport or an identity card, or both documents and their identity details and biometrics would be recorded on a single national identity register”.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon, commenting on the response from the Government said: “This exposes how deceitful the Prime Minister was at the Labour Party conference when he announced that ID cards would not be made compulsory during the next Parliament. Whilst he was being technically truthful, the fact that details being added to a single national identity register is compulsory for anyone applying for or renewing a passport, which is most of us, effectively makes ID cards mandatory.

Such are the lying shitbags who run this country.

You Can Shove Your ID Cards where The Sun Don't Shine

ID cards snubbed - News - Manchester Evening News

ONLY 8,000 people have enquired about getting the government's controversial ID cards, which will be launched in Manchester.

During a live webchat at the M.E.N offices, Lord Bill Brett, the minister responsible for the introduction of the ID card scheme, admitted only a small percentage of the population had asked about the voluntary scheme.

The cards will cost £30 and contain biometric details of holders.

Obviously, the remaining population need to be re-educated.

ID Cards To Be Linked To Police Records

ID cards to be linked to police records - NO2ID Press Releases » 2009 » August.

ID cards to be linked to police records for millions

Millions of people working in education in health or as volunteers
could come under pressure to be fingerprinted and obtain a national ID card, it was revealed today.

Bastards.

Twelve Minute ID Card Cloning

ID card cloned in 12 minutes. "This chip is the vital security measure that, so the Government believes, will make identity cards 'unforgeable'.

But as I watch, Laurie picks up a mobile phone and, using just the handset and a laptop computer, electronically copies the ID card microchip and all its information in a matter of minutes.

He then creates a cloned card, and with a little help from another technology expert, he changes all the information the card contains - the physical details of the bearer, name, fingerprints and so on. And he doesn't stop there."

Alan Johnson (above) is 59. He is also a prick.

Voluntary ID Cards Compulsory Fines

£1,000 fines to bolster ID cards as Tories pledge to scrap scheme (Guardian):

MPs tonight approved fines of up to £1,000 for those who fail to tell the passport and identity service of changes in their personal details including address, name, nationality and gender.

The fines are part of a package of secondary legislation being pushed through parliament designed to implement the national identity card scheme, and which will allow sensitive personal data on the ID card/passport database to be shared with the police, security services and other government departments.

The regulations were approved as the Conservative party made clear for the first time their commitment to scrap not only the identity card scheme but also its underlying database.

The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, told MPs: "One of the first acts of a Conservative government will be cancelling the ID cards scheme. The scheme and the register are both an affront to British liberty and will have no place in a Conservative Britain. They are also a huge waste of money."

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, also made clear that there had been no U-turn over ID cards and that the programme was still on course despite claims that he had ruled out making them compulsory. "We haven't scrapped ID cards, what we are doing is accelerating their introduction," he told MPs. Johnson last week cancelled a compulsory trial due to start in September for 30,000 pilots and airport workers.

The Conservatives' home affairs spokesman, Damian Green, asked how the scheme could be "voluntary" when they were penalties for failing to provide information for the database: "If it is a voluntary card, why are there penalties attached for failing to provide that information?" he said, adding that the government should warn people that once they "volunteer" for a passport or ID card it was then compulsory for the rest of their lives.

Fines starting at £125 and rising to £1,000 are to be levied on those who fail to notify the authorities of a change of name or address, or to surrender an identity card, or to report a card lost, stolen, damaged, tampered with or destroyed.

Total total fucking bastards.

Cameron To Cut ID Cards And Identity Register?

Cameron has just said on BBC that things like the ID card system AND the Identity Register need to be cut.

Then he was asked about Tory plans to let private private companies have access to our medical records. Cameron sidestepped by saying this was part of a review that they were still to look at. No doubt they will actually carry on with that, but the BBC presenter failed to mention that this is already happening under New Labour anyway.

It would be ironic if the overwhelming need to cut public spending caused the demise of New Labour's police state plans.

Rectal Johnson ID Card Suggestion

The new Home secretary, Alan Johnson, has said the government will not make ID cards 'compulsory' and that the money saved in scrapping the whole system would be peanuts. In other words, the whole thing is still on.

Just because something is not 'compulsory' doesn't mean you don't have to have one. Further comment from Henry Porter.

Johnson is just another fucking Labour scumbag admired by the cretinocracy because of his working class credentials, as if somehow this prevents him from being a disgrace to humanity like Prescott.

He can shove his ID cards up his proletarian arse.

Jacqui's Little Snoopers

Old news but still news: Jacqui Smith's private snoopers - The Community Safety Accreditation Scheme gets noticed by The Daily Mail (it's only been around since last year, when I blogged about it):

A growing army of private security guards and town hall snoopers with sweeping police-style powers is being quietly established, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Under a Home Office-run scheme, people such as park wardens, dog wardens, car park attendants and shopping centre guards receive the powers if they undergo training, and pay a small fee to their local police force.

One thing none of these goons can't do, however, is look after your welfare if you are being attacked. Their orders are to stay out of it and call the police. So much for community 'safety'.

And courtesy of Chicken Yoghurt - ID Cards: 10 things you might not know.

That Jacqui Smith, she's doing a really good job, isn't she?

Matthew Waffle Taylor Waffle Spending Waffle Cuts Waffle

Over on his blog Matthew Taylor, CEO of the RSA, makes waffly sounds about the supposed savings made by cancelling such projects as the ID card scheme:

The costs of dropping a scheme could include money spent winding it down, compensation for cancelled contracts or redundancy payments. These costs are rarely counted in claimed savings.

He seems to saying that a) the amount saved by scrapping 'one-offs' is minuscule compared to the vast debt we're facing and that b) the saving may not be as large as people estimate.

Nothing at all, of course, about the unacceptable nature of the ID card system and its attendant 'one-offs', such as the National Identity Register, ContactPoint, etc.

But there again, Matthew apparently was 'in government' (I thought he was just an adviser to Tony Blair?) and knows about this stuff.

Jacqui Smith Is An Ethical Vacuum

The intellectual and ethical vacuum that is our Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith, has announced that ID cards will be 'piloted' in Manchester.

It will be interesting to see how many citizens will actually sign up for this 'popular' scheme at £60 a pop. Or will the Labour party be bunging its more braindead local members a sub to make the figures look less than dreadful? That's if any take-up figures are eventually released.

Despite the fact that this rancid government is in a state of putrescent collapse, and the economy likewise, the Home Office is ploughing ahead with this dishonourable, expensive amd dangerous project.

That equally rancid oaf, David Blunkett, keeps adding his bit by pretending that he's now against the very cards he pioneered a few years ago. Instead, he's promoting the biometric passport - in other words, everyone to have a passport rather than a separate ID card. And possibly make himself a few bob if it comes to fruition.

Do we really have to wait a year to get rid of these blood-sucking parasites?

British Jobs For British Graduates And Other Labour Fairytales

More government spin to paper over EU jobs diktats: British jobs for British graduates (not). No doubt hoping to confuse people who don't realise the difference between EU applicants and non-EU applicants. I always advise my students and other young people to leave this country as soon as they can (and while they are able to).

Peter Hitchens on British Jobs for British workers. I more often agree with his brother but sometimes he is spot on, as he is here.

New Labour and the countryside.

A very disturbing and premonitory story about ID cards, etc, over at Henry Porter's blog.

Lies, Lies, Lies, Delusion and More ID Card Lies

According to Hillier*, the public wants the biometric cards, adding that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is already being asked "When can I get my ID card?". (Silicon.com)

Of course we all do. Thirty quid a pop is not bad for something we don't need, didn't ask for, which will cost the country millions to run, cause untold problems, won't work properly, and be hacked into and abused by criminals.

Jacqui Smith's majority is a slim one (2,716) and there are rumours New Labour are trying to secure her a safe seat come the General Election Massacre. Perhaps we should get her husband to write letters to the local press asking her to quit politics so she can spend more time with her family.

* Meg Hillier (40): another professional (New Labour) politician - university, journalism, local government. According to Wikipedia: 'In March 2008, Meg Hillier voted with the Government in favour of nationwide Post Office closures, including 7 in the London Borough of Hackney of which her constituency forms a part.' Well done, Meg. Good to see you have the interests of your constituents at heart. Her pointlessness has already been noted.

Baron Mandy's Antoinette Moment - Heads Off Soon

According to reports, Baron Mandelson has suggested that the striking workers at Lindsey oil refinery and other places can go and work elsewhere in Europe. I think that qualifies as a 'Let them eat cake' moment. We all know what that led to.

Jacqui Smith continues to use underhand tactics to make ID cards look acceptable: targetting schoolkids. What utter fucking scum.

Light Touch For Them, Heavy Hand For The Rest Of Us

While Gordon Brown backtracks furiously on his 'light touch' approach to the finance system, the rest of us continue to receive the heavy hand of his Stalinist practices when it comes to the ID card, National Register project.

The writer Cory Doctorow (Canadian-born therefore a Commonwealth citizen, UK resident, married to a British citizen and now father of a British child) is one of the first Johnny Foreigners to have to carry an ID card. Read his own response here.

Foreigners first, then airport workers and teachers, then students, then the rest of us.

Unions Oppose ID Card Scheme

The TUC has pledged to oppose ID cards and the National Identity database. About time. Probably the first significant move against New Labour's Stasi state, since what's needed is organisation, awareness and action; which is harder to achieve with individuals or disparate groups.

David Cameron, Leader in Waiting, has already pledged his opposition both to the ID cards scheme AND the National Identity database and said he will scrap them. Whether he will in fact do this when he's in power is another thing, of course, so he needs to be aware that there will be trouble if he doesn't keep his word.