ID

you have to laugh – no really you do – poor old sir ian blair (commissioner of the met police) has gotten himself in a pickle with his defence of id cards. he has said that the technology of id cards would be very helpful to his officers and that the concept of id cards should be given further consideration in the fight against terrorism.

naturally enough new labour has jumped at this support for it’s (in my opinion madcap) scheme. so you have alan milburn opining that sir ian knows more about fighting terrorism than anyone else in britain (well where was he when the various wmd documents were being discussed, perhaps his insight could have been useful then!) and then going on to say "when he says we need id cards, we say he should be backed," while john reid chipped in with "we have said this all along - you cannot be serious about fighting terrorism, or for that matter fighting organised crime, unless you are prepared to support id cards,"
now interestingly both the conservatives and liberal democrats are accusing new labour of exploiting fear of terrorism in order to push their id card plans ahead of the election. it might be me but isn’t that the way they have always been promoting this asinine plan for id cards? so it is hardly earth shattering news that they are going to grasp each and every chance they get to promote the darned things.

shami chakrabarti (director of civil rights group liberty) was less than happy that sir ian had opened his mouth and said anything on the subject. chakrabarti warned the police commissioner to stay out of the political debate. going on to say “my biggest concern is that there is just a hint of the possibility of a very senior police officer attempting to influence the outcome of a general election. that's not how we do things in this country,"

let’s look at this again. sir ian seemed to say it was an idea worth looking at and that the technology might help his officers. in the past i have been very very sceptical of id cards, i still am, but i can see the sense in investigating whether or not the whole thing is feasible and beneficial. but look we don’t want a professional having an opinion on this we want to leave it to the politicians and various interest groups. surely if the head of the met cannot voice an opinion on this subject then surely the same is true of liberty? its ok we can leave this debate to those rational and balanced newspapers the sun and the daily mail.

both the conservatives and liberal democrats have other plans and both have suggested that id cards are not a practical short term solution.
the liberal democrats talk about putting 10,000 more bobbies on the street. a worthy aim, most of us want to see more plods on the beat. it’s also something that is going to take time, i have two mates who want to join the police and both have been waiting over 18 months to get on the training course at hendon.
the conservatives talk about how the id card might be a solution for the future, highlighting the fact that the scheme will not be up and running for 8 years. so what do the tory party suggest needs to be done in the fight against terrorism (and of course illegal immigration ?) well naturally it is action to secure the national borders by introducing a border police, reintroducing embarkation controls, removing those living her illegally (of course one of the “fears” of illegal immigration is that we don’t know who they are – hence new labour’s desire to have id cards – so just how the tories propose to find all these illegals is not spelt out) and the introduction of legislation to deal with acts preparatory to terrorism (ooh now that doesn’t seem like it will be too open to misunderstanding and abuse does it?)
it will be interesting to see how the tories plan on getting all that set up 1] quickly and 2] without cutting other services. simple answer is they can’t/

the tories are annoyed that new labour have stolen their thunder on law and order by becoming almost a draconian as the conservatives. not only that but as sir ian says under new labour crime has been falling….

is it any wonder that the tories are bleating about new labour exploiting id cards. and lets be fair here the conservatives have the moral high ground – it’s not like they have jumped on any fear bandwagons recently…