Via NO2ID, this little snippet in the Metro.
People face paying twice for ID cards and electronic passports – and MPs want to know why.
Of the issues surrounding the government’s insidious ID cards scheme, it is this that is most likely to incur the ire of the public. So, a good start…
The public should pay just one charge for both, a report by the Public Accounts Committee says today.
Er, no… We shouldn’t have the damn things in the first place. We do not need identity cards. Any such “need” is an artificial one created by a paranoid government that introduces legislation, such as its draconian money laundering act, to scare businesses into demanding some form of identity document and therefore, creating a need with the solution already prepared.
The two could be bought for a combined £93, the Government has said.
Wow, for all of £93 I can buy my own tag – at least cows get theirs for free.
The committee said it was baffled by ‘why citizens need an identity card as well as an ePassport, particularly as the ePassport offers broader utility in terms of global travel’.
We don’t need an identity card, we don’t need an identity card, we don’t need an identity card. Frankly, there was a time when we didn’t need a passport, either…
However, what the committee is missing and the Metro fails to mention, is that this isn’t about identity cards or passports; it is about the National Identity Register; a catalogue of our lives that will contain every interaction that involves the production of the cards on its audit trail. That is what this is all about. Indeed, the report only mentions the register twice and then only in passing.
Longrider,
You’ve missed an important point:
“People face paying twice for ID cards and electronic passports – and MPs want to know why.”
and
“Wow, for all of £93 I can buy my own tag – at least cows get theirs for free.”
Gaaaah!!!!! the amount you CHARGE people for the card is ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT. We, the poor, serially-b*ggered taxpayers, ALWAYS PAY THE WHOLE STUFFING BILL.
It is the total cost of the programme that is the issue: any amount that is not physically charged will be drained from the treasury just as surely as if GB spent it on champagne and dancing girls.
(that is of course, not to denigrate your more substantive point – I just want to note that the MPs in question are just scoring points with this particular soundbite)
It’s that £93 price tag that the public will see – not the hidden costs subsided from general taxation, unfortunately… Talk about wastage running into billions and peoples’ eyes glaze over. Talk about having to stump up money directly, here and now, and they start to take notice.
True but irrelevant in this context: MPs should be keenly aware that there is no distinction whatsoever: sliding some of the funds for this away from direct charges on to general taxation makes no difference to the burden on the taxpayer.
This is soundbite not substantial politics.
Agreed.
You are dead right: how often is the NATIONAL IDENTITY REGISTER mentioned? When they do start compiling it there will be a moral obligation to hack into it or somehow destroy the records. Let us hope the experts are already working on a plan.