Bumbling Burnham
Andy Burnam responds today to the Henry Porter article in the Observer last week.
I find it hard to believe that Henry Porter has read the Identity Cards Bill. (’This ID project is even more sinister than we first thought’, Comment, last week). If he had, he would be aware of the safeguards built in to the scheme to protect personal information.
Given Burnham’s strange claims for this bill, it often appears that he is the one who has not read it. He goes on to point out that:
The scheme will not track your life’s activities. ID cards will be used when it is important to verify identity. That is not an everyday occurrence for the majority, while the use of credit cards and mobile phones, logged in itemised bills and statements, occurs daily.
Uh… now who hasn’t been reading the bill? It specifically states that every time the card is used, that checks of the stasi database National Identity Register will be recorded. Not to mention the sweaty baboon home secretary on the third reading of the bill having this to say:
Moreover, we all now face many occasions on which we need to prove our identity, whether to open a bank account, to take out a mortgage, to claim a benefit, to pass through a border control, to get a Criminal Records Bureau clearance or many other basic transactions of our day-to-day lives. I believe that an up-to-date identity cards system will make all those transactions easier for the individual and will also be beneficial for the state.
One of the bastards is lying – which one is it?
I note that, like other opponents of the scheme, Henry Porter fails to offer his readers any alternative means of safeguarding their identities.
That’s right, Andy, you scurrilous little nincompoop – that’s because you and your rancorous thug of a boss are not prepared to discuss anything other than the insidious bill currently before parliament. There is no point proposing alternatives while the egregious home office is not prepared to listen, let alone discuss them.
Identity fraud is a growing threat and we know that it enables other crime, including terrorism.
So? And? Are you trying to tell us that your scheme will have any effect on this? It won’t. We know it and you know it. If anything, the inevitably insecure stasi database National Identity Register will provide a honey-pot for identity thieves. If there was any evidence that you are a mendacious little rapscallion, this is it.
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Comment by martin
# March 27, 2006,
And let’s not forget that the Government have manufactured these “many occasions on which we need to prove our identity” thanks to previous unworkable and ineffective laws and in an attempt to soften people up for more intrusion into their lives.
Like the “money laundering” legislation that means an elderly person can’t take £1000 out of the bank without being treated like a potential criminal while friends of the Government can throw around millions without anyone questioning it.
Comment by Longrider
# March 27, 2006,
I had to withdraw £500 in cash to pay for some guttering work (builders like cash for some reason
). Despite being a regular visitor to my bank, the old money laundering excuse kicked in and I was put through the “have you got ID?” routine. 
Pingback by Longrider » More From Henry Porter
# March 28, 2006,
[...] It’s nice to see the mainstream picking up on the civil liberties aspect of this insidious scheme and recognising the authoritarian agenda for what it is. NO2ID has seemed all too often like a lone voice in the wilderness this past couple of years. The British public has appeared unaware and disinterested in the issue. Some, like the taxi driver I rode with in Lincoln last year vaguely think it will be a good idea because it will keep out immigrants, or stop benefit fraud – whatever the bogeyman du jour happens to be. He, like the bumbling Burnham, doesn’t seem to realise that illegals will either slip in under the radar and won’t bother, or the people traffickers will simply supply them with forged cards – an extra service at extra cost, of course. No, they won’t stop illegal immigration, if anything they will enable it. Neither will they, as the cretinous numskulls from the home office would have us believe; improve security, or combat terrorism. No rational person in their right mind would believe such absurdity. Nor, for that matter, would a rational person put so much valuable information in one place, and, in the hands of an agency so notoriously unreliable. You don’t believe that government departments are reliable, do you? Make no mistake; this bill is all about control and social engineering. Henry Porter makes that point extremely well. Then, too, this: [...]
Pingback by Longrider » Lies, Lies, Lies and more Lies
# March 29, 2006,
[...] Yet… wait for it… they were both made by the same man. Yes, step forward, the mendacious lying little shit; Andy Burnham. Now, I know that an honest politician is an oxymoron, but to lie so blatantly in such short order is unbelievably temerarious. Or is that just plain stupid? It’s difficult to tell with Burnham. Does this imbecile not realise that even a cretin can see that he has contradicted himself in plain sight in a matter of a few days? Even a cretin would not be fooled into believing both statements to be true – it just isn’t possible. Therefore, Andy (bumbling) Burnham is a liar and here we have the evidence before us. That, or he is a schizophrenic or we have stepped into that parallel universe. Frankly, I’m inclined to the more simple and logical explanation that he is a complete charlatan. [...]