back to article ToryDems stoke ID card 'bonfire'

Home Secretary Theresa May outlined the mechanics of scrapping the ID register yesterday as the bill to scrap the programme moved through the Commons. Speaking at the second reading of the Bill to scrap the scheme, May said the scheme "represents the worst of government. It is intrusive and bullying, ineffective and expensive …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah ok

    It will be destroyed, except insofar as it helps with the governments nefarious ends.

  2. Shonko Kid
    Happy

    Hoorah!

    Y'know, with a bit more NuLab pwnage like this, I could get to like Lord Snooty & Co.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I remember

      thinking Theresa May was a horrid woman trying her best to be seen as just like Maggie. After this I think I'm in love! (helps to think she's kind of hot anyway - powerful women do that to me, which just goes to show there weren't any in the last Govt.)

      1. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
        Coat

        @Bungle Zippermouth

        Are you sure that's not Teresa May you're thinking of? Without the 'h'?

  3. seanj
    FAIL

    You malingering gobshite.

    "By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream but leave the cancellation costs, which the taxpayer will be forced to pay"...

    Alan, Alan, Alan. Please realise that it was your last-minute renegotiations of said contracts earlier in the year that force us to pay these cancellation fees - when you fling shit, you ignorant little chimp, be sure in which direction you're flinging it. Now......

    ...fuck off.

    1. Marky W
      Heart

      *clap* *clap* *clap*

      I was just about to leave a similar comment. Well said.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Well said..

      Some posts like this just brighten up my day... thanks.

    3. C Yates
      Happy

      LOL

      One upvote for the post another honorary upvote for the title =)

      As said above, brightened up the day ^_^

      1. seanj
        Pint

        Re: LOL

        Cheers. The title's actually an insult which Colm Meaney levels at his son in the movie The Commitments - it always makes me laugh out loud when I hear it.

    4. Rob
      Go

      Private Appointment

      Now if we could just get a private appointment with him so it can be said to his face it would definately be, in my book, the best comment of all time.

    5. Graham Wilson
      Thumb Up

      10 out of 10 seanj. That's telling him in words even he should understand.

      10 out of 10. seanj. That's telling him in words even he should understand. ...Although these scumbags have hides like a rhinoceros.

    6. Justabloke 1
      Thumb Up

      Dear reg...

      Please send seanj's comment to Alan Johnson and sign, with love, The Electorate.

    7. 7mark7

      <title>&nbsp</title>

      "Alan, Alan, Alan. Please realise that it was your last-minute renegotiations of said contracts earlier in the year that force us to pay these cancellation fees "

      Knowing the contracts were likely to be cancelled, could said gobshite be surcharged?

    8. peter 45
      Happy

      100 up votes

      Yay. I just up-voted at 99. I got him his century!

      Now who is going to email the link to this page to dear old Alan?

    9. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
      Flame

      I see you had a single down-vote there

      Alan, is that you?

    10. Jimmy 1

      Icing on the cake.

      Would the "income stream" Alan Johnson seems so concerned about be the same one that provides David Blunkett with a nice little earner from his consultancy work for various companies who were hoping to cut themselves a slice of the ID card cake?

      1. Rob
        Heart

        Dear ElReg

        Can you provide seanj with an award for the most upvoted post?

        One of Sarah's free buns will do (if he doesn't want it, I will).

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    DemTorys

    A bit off topic, but it should be DemTorys rather than ToryDems.

    Think of it like "Dem Torys did it in for us", "Dem Torys killed off all local services", "Dem Torys made me redundant from my Climate Change Manager for Wigan Council", etc.

    :-)

    1. Mark Walker

      ConDems

      Will we call them the ConDems once we learn to hate them as much as the last mob of useless twats?

    2. Alan Esworthy

      or perhaps

      "Tords"

  5. Anon

    Not a clue

    So where does Alan Johnson think the "income stream" comes from in the first place, if not us taxpayers?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      The source of that income stream

      That would be the companies they were planning to sell access to. Those with their heads screwed on all knew this was the one of the eventual outcomes. New Labour will have been planning to sell access to the card verification side of the NIR and probably statistics gathered from it's operation.

      If a labour government had remained in power then 5 years from now we would have had to swipe our cards and a fingerprint in supermarkets to buy alcohol as part of a government crackdown on alcohol abuse. 10-20 years from now every purchase, every journey on public transport and every use of a public facility we make would have to be accompanied by a swipe of the card, ostensibly to spot patterns of possible terrorist or criminal activity and to 'improve services'.

      Of course businesses would be charged for the legally required equipment and connections, hence the income stream that Alan was talking about. The card fees would have been a drop in the ocean compared to the other schemes that they will have cooked up to monetise ID cards and the NIR.

      1. peter 45
        WTF?

        Who pays?

        "That would be the companies they were planning to sell access to"

        And where do these companies get the money from to pay for this access. That would be by passing on the charges to their Customers. And who would have been their Customers? Oh yeh. That would be us then.

        Not forgetting the 17.5 VAT charge that goes straight out of our pockets...and not forgetting the income tax we would have paid in order to pay for these access charges....and not forgetting the corporation tax that gets paid by these companies who make a profit from charging these access charges.......and so on.

        I'm just going for a lie down.

        No wonder they regarded this scam as a nice little earner for the Government coffers.

      2. Intractable Potsherd
        Thumb Up

        @AC 10th June 2010 14:14

        I wonder how many people outside these pages realise just how close we came to that situation, and what a narrow escape we had. That nightmare situation was only a (relatively) few votes away. Whilst I am breathing a sigh of relief that the scheme seems to have died, the cnuts in the Labour party seem to be utterly committed to it, because they clearly believe that there are voters out there that want this monstrous scheme. We still need to be vigilant, and make sure that no-one is allowed to forget that the Labour party regards your information as belonging to them.

  6. Ian K
    Big Brother

    Alan Johnson: "By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream"

    There's typical for a Labour guy; that "income stream" isn't a miraculous penalty-free revenue from heaven, it's the hard-earned readies of your actual citizens.

    Readies which, if they aren't being spent on the upkeep of the all-seeing NIR, might find their way into some more useful part of the economy. "More useful than the NIR" being near enough anything else at all, of course.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Alan Johnson

    While nasty authoritarian figures like Johnson and Blunkett are the public face of Labour, no-one with any feeling for liberty would touch them with a pole. Unless some young blood can force these old Thatcherite scabs out, I foresee a generation in opposition.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Time I think...

      ...for a breakaway Old Labour Party - preferably one that isn't a thinly-disguised front for big business. It's the only way any party claiming to represent the working man might ever again be taken seriously in this country.

  8. Aron
    Big Brother

    Yep, big brother

    Did that Labour elitist commie twit say "unauthorised working"?

    We need authority for permission to work do we now? Shows what direction Labour were taking us in.

  9. Anonymous John
    FAIL

    Re keeping ID cards for foreign nationals

    How does that work?

    "Can I see your ID card please?"

    "I'm not a foreign national."

    "Fair enough. Move along."

    1. Anton Ivanov
      Flame

      They have always been there

      The IDs for foreigners have always been there.

      I keep mine somewhere from the days when I was a pesky foreigner for posterity.

      Ditto for the register for them and a few other similar schemes.

      By the way, I had a similar thought after I was issued the ID in 1998. That was my first thought, the second one was that a kid with some hard boiled egg and glue could falsify that joke of an ID.

  10. John Moppett

    ID Cards

    The ToryDems have decided to scrap the cards, surely they were introduced as part of Euro harmonissation. So we can't use an ID card in Europe, can fellow EU members use them over here?

    1. Captain Mainwaring
      FAIL

      Every little helps

      If our local ASDA is anything to go by, the answer is probably no. I have seen two incidents over the past few months there where two European students from the local Uni have attempted to purchase alcohol, duly presenting their National ID cards as proof that they were over 18. In both cases a supervisor was called over , who patiently explained to them that European ID cards were not acceptable forms of identification and that they would have to come back with their Passports. The German student rather indignantly pointed out that she did not have a Passport and had travelled to the UK on her German ID Card and could not understand why it was not accepted by the store as proof of age.

      I don't know if this is general throughout the UK or even mainland Europe, but it does make one wonder how genuinely useful a UK card may have been on the continent if it had survived the axe.

      Has anyone else come across incidents like this?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Flame

        In our local Coop...

        ...my son was refused alcohol on the grounds he couldn't prove he was over 25 (25??). Not only is he almost 40 (and looks it) but the jobsworth behind the counter was a woman he went to school with!

        The very next day in the same shop, I saw a serviceman not long returned from Afghanistan refused because his military ID was 'unacceptable'.

        Can't say what happened after that - I won't set foot in the place now.

        Less a problem of law, I suspect, than of the mindless jobsworth culture that's strangling this country.

  11. John Lilburne

    Ex labour Home Secretaries ...

    ... ought to learn to shut the fuck up.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Mike Street

    Alan Johnson

    talks a lot of nonsense on this and most other matters. The 'income stream' he talks about was going to come from us, the UK taxpayers, for a card which we didn't need or want. Just because it wasn't funded through the tax system, he thinks it would magically appear. In fact, the same people would have had to pay.

    Thank goodness the clueless numpty was the last Labour Home Secretary to foist expensive white elephants like this upon us.

  13. Skizz
    FAIL

    Newspeak madness.

    Alan Johnson: "By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream..."

    What they call an 'income stream' the rest of the world would call a 'stealth tax'.

  14. Name Withheld

    Who's paying

    I guess by income streams he is referring to the fees paid for the cards and additional costs born by providers of services by the electorate, stealth tax then to increase the size of the Gov.

    Well done the govt.

  15. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Cost of cancellation

    "By cancelling the scheme, the Government remove the income stream but leave the cancellation costs, which the taxpayer will be forced to pay..."

    Why does no-one in government ever seem to notice that whatever the government does, the taxpayer pays anyway? Arguing that there is no cost to the tax payer because a project is self-funding from mandatory payments is at best disingenuous and at worst outright misrepresentation.

    Let me put this in an easy-to-understand way: whether I pay thirty quid, or whether I'm taxed thirty quid, I'm down thirty quid in either case.

    Paris, because even she can understand that.

    1. Otto von Humpenstumpf
      Megaphone

      Tax or pay? Tax and pay.

      Remember that the cost for building the system came from taxes, whereas the cost of the ID card was to be paid by the applicant.

      Your question ("Why does no-one in government ever seem to notice that whatever the government does, the taxpayer pays anyway?") seems to imply that this was somehow an oversight. It was not: it was a calculated ploy by Johnson, Brown, Darling, and the rest of the morally bankrupt NuLab clique to extract the maximum amount of money from the taxpayer.

      To make Johnson's remark clear: The taxpayer (we) pay for a system that will then be used to extract additional cash from us. This way, the government was planning to make a profit. The hight of cynicism was to openly admit this and to unashamedly call it a "revenue stream".

      So you would have been taxed maybe three hundred quid (for the system) and ON TOP OF THAT would have had to pay thirty quid for the ID card.

      Given the choice between these guys and a dose of the clap I know what I'd choose. I prefer getting laid to getting screwed.

  16. James Pickett

    Excellent!

    "individuals will not be able to use their cards to prove their ID"

    A nice touch! One could almost accuse TM of having a sense of humour.

    1. Graham Wilson
      Joke

      Where's Hacker and Sir Humphrey?

      Where's Hacker and Sir Humphrey?

      I think Sir Humphrey would have considered the introduction of ID cards as an extremely brave decision.

      :-)

  17. Mr Jolly
    Thumb Up

    A bit shocking really...

    That a Government is actually doing something which is actually popular with a lot of people - scrapping the ID cards and promising a repeal act to get rid of a few of Labour's crazy/intrusive/expensive/hairbrained laws and schemes - I begrudgingly give them a thumbs up...!

    Although I can't help but think they're just softening us up, ready for dropping a massive bombshell on us.

    1. Rob
      Unhappy

      We already know what the bombshell is...

      ... we've seen it in the bomb factory called the labour government for the past few years. With the advent of the election Labour painted in white lettering on the side "Massive Cuts, thanks for the gravy train with love, Labour Gov"

    2. Graham Wilson
      Flame

      It ought to be popular! The principle of keeping 'The State' in check goes back to Magna Carta!

      @Mr Jolly

      It ought to be very popular!

      With English-speaking people, those of the UK, US, Canada, Australia, NZ etc., keeping 'The State' in check has been a fundamental doctrine that goes back to Magna Carta (if not earlier to the Charter of Liberties).

      DO NOT FORGET THE STATE IS OUR SERVANT -- IT IS NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND AS SO MANY INCORRECTLY ASSUME.

      If we ever forget this important principle of freedom then totalitarianism will enslave us. Mealy-mouthed apologies for an unpopular and wrong decision made by 'The State' are unacceptable. If it's wrong then it's wrong and it must be corrected!

      In recent years, for many it has become acceptable to believe that 'The State' has the best interest of its Citizenry at heart. This is ABSOLUTELY WRONG unless 'The State' is in the complete hands of its Citizenry.

      Unscrupulous power-hungry politicians, too many international and corporate interests, propagandists and lobbyists have been systematically trying to destroy democracy by various means--divide-and-rule for instance. By dividing the Citizenry over issues, they are the ones who gain and control the power. Thankfully, they have not totally succeeded but they have significantly skewed power in their own interests.

      The scrapping of this ID bill goes part way in redressing that power skewing but there is still much to be done before a proper balance is restored.

      It might be a corny old line but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It applies just as much to 'The State' as it does to an external enemy.

      ____

      NOTE TO ALL REDNECKS AND LAZY LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES: What I am saying is not for one moment carte blanche to fraudsters and terrorists. These problems must be addressed but in ways that do not undermine fundamental freedoms and liberties of the people.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Identity cards for foreign nationals

    I wonder what the case is for identity cards for foreign nationals -- presumably the benefits of having these cards for identifying people only matters if shops, businesses and institutions have the card reading equipment to do the biometric fandango. But for the sake of a few tens of thousand foreign nationals in a population of 61m, it hardly seems worth it.

    Foreign nationals are just ordinary people. If the case doesn't stand up for national identity cards, then how can it stack up for foreign nationals.

    Unless of course, you just don't like Johnny Foreigner and you want to irritate them using pennies from the public purse.

    1. Ian K

      Tried to Google this...

      ...and failed miserably to get a result (probably the horrid new backgrounds distracting me), but read recently that maintaining a register of resident non-EU nationals is a mandatory EU directive for all member states. No need to do the same for (foreign) EU nationals, mind.

      As it says at the end of the Reg article, there was already an equivalent scheme in place before the ID card system was set up, and the former was simply rolled into the latter. That is quoting a politician though, so it might turn out to be a porky.

  19. irish donkey
    Happy

    the ID Card Club

    Of course all those thousands of people that were writing to Jacqui begging for an ID card can form their own club/face slap group called. ....'ID Cards R us'

    they could have little meetings were everybody has to show their ID cards and pretend to be all official and everything. Oh then they can drink ginger beer and go frolicking in the woods and have lashing and lashing of fun!

  20. Graham Marsden

    Anyone want to start a sweep...

    ... on how many Labour MPs are going to vote against this bill?

    And how many will, purely by co-incidence, be absent from the Chamber when the vote is taken...?!

    1. Graham Wilson
      Thumb Up

      Well said.

      ...And soon we'll be able to count the slimy little shits (and post their names up on the the Internet for posterity).

  21. Captain Mainwaring

    For all the fire and brimstone

    For all the venom and bitter words Alan Johnson hurled across the chamber at his successor, the former home secretary also announced that his party would not be opposing the passage of this bill through the commons.

    Nothing like going down fighting for a cause you believe so passionately in.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Nothing like going down fighting for a cause you believe so passionately in."

      You're right, that's definitely nothing like it.

      1. Captain Mainwaring
        Thumb Up

        Right On!

        Good point, well made.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    ID

    Is

    Dead

  23. Mike Shepherd
    Happy

    Pin back your ears, Blunkett

    "I trust that, as a former Home Secretary, the right hon. gentleman is not intending to hold equipment for the falsification of documents".

    Ha! Wouldn't it have been kinder just to kick his guide dog?

    1. Ascylto
      Pirate

      Blind Kitt

      No, no, no.

      Make Blunkett a Government Minister and have a Civil Servant every day move the furniture around in his office.

      THEN kick the dog.

      1. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

        And make him minister in charge

        of something like designing government logos and never approve any of his work.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Mr Jolly

    "A bit shocking really... #

    That a Government is actually doing something which is actually popular with a lot of people - scrapping the ID cards and promising a repeal act to get rid of a few of Labour's crazy/intrusive/expensive/hairbrained laws and schemes - I begrudgingly give them a thumbs up...!

    Although I can't help but think they're just softening us up, ready for dropping a massive bombshell on us."

    Cameron was interviewed in the free Metro paper soon after he became leader (the interview was something like 2007 IIRC) and part of it went thusly*:

    Metro: We have heard a lot about you proposing to scrap ID cardsa s a priority if you are elected. Are you really going to promise to scrap ID cards?

    Cameron: Yes

    M: Yes? you mean yes without any prevarication or provisos?

    DC: Yes.

    I agree there may be some massive bombshells coming, but to his credit Cameron always promised to can ID cards and it looks like he will keep at least one promise.

    *I like the word thusly.

  25. James Thomas

    Wow.

    I wonder if an ID card will become a valuable collectors item in a couple of decades?

    It's amazing how New Labour can be even more hateful out of power than they were in power. Alan Johnson must either be utterly stupid to still be defending ID cards.

  26. Oliver 7
    Thumb Up

    Speaking of good quotes

    "This will not be a literal bonfire of the last Government's vanities, but it will none the less be deeply satisfying."

    I don't have a particular soft spot for the Tories or for Theresa May but her smug dig at Alan Johston filled me with mirth. Well done gal, couldn't have put it more succinctly!!!

    Now, trot along Alan, there's a good boy.

  27. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Flame

    Still seems to be a hell of a lot of backend in place.

    WTF happened to the *100*s of £m when they are listing just £18m being cancelled?

  28. rgbowman
    Flame

    US oil rig, operated by US citizens, under US safety regulations

    British money for the cleanup. You're welcome, Mr Obama.

    http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=124283944277854

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Getting Screwed

    "Given the choice between these guys and a dose of the clap I know what I'd choose. I prefer getting laid to getting screwed".

    At least with the clap you get a shot from the doc, wash your willy, and it's all over and done with in short order.

    Whereas the harmful effects of any legislation introduced by Liebour lasts for generations.

    Paris because I'm sure she has no relationship to the Liebour Party.

    1. Ian K
      Happy

      "Liebour Party"

      I see what you did there...

  30. Steve Barnett
    Happy

    It was tosh from the start

    It's nice to have a bit of good news on a Friday.

    This stupid bit of Blair/Bush/911/David Blunkett and Alan Johnson are idiots legislation was doomed from the start!

    Waste of money. Good riddance. Only sorry to hear that we are still going to have to pay a load of American waste of space consultancy companies to go away!

    Anyway, I should be having a happy weekend knowing that ID cards are dead and buried (for the moment).

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