Apparently Big Blunkett is now thinks ID cards should be scrapped. According to Aunty, that is and she never tells porkies.
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett says the government should scrap plans to introduce ID cards for all…
Oh, goody.
…in favour of mandatory biometric passports. Speaking at InfoSec 2009, a security conference held in London, the MP for Sheffield Brightside said biometric passports could do the job.
Not so goody.
Asked whether ID cards could be dropped, Mr Blunkett told the BBC: “I think it is possible to mandate biometric passports.”
So… What’s the difference, then?
“Most people already have a passport but they might want something more convenient to carry around than the current passport and may be able to have it as a piece of plastic for an extra cost.”
In other words, he wants to mandate an identity card and call it a passport. So, he hasn’t changed his position one iota. And Aunty is being somewhat disingenuous in claiming that he wants them scrapped. He wants no such thing.
Using existing databases to hold the same information already gathered to issue passports could be a way of allaying fears over a new “database of information”, one of the key criticisms of the ID scheme.
“People don’t worry about the Passport Agency but they do worry about some mythical identity database,” he said.
Yes, well, we’ve trodden this ground before, haven’t we? And it is interesting to see this poisonous little man claiming that his brainchild is now “mythical”. I suspect that should biometric passports be made mandatory, the database currently used will expand logarithmically to include whatever the home secretary of the day feels he or she needs to keep the trolls under their bridges or the dragons in their lairs. In other words, it will become a de-facto national identity register.
Still, arseholes will always be arseholes and David Blunkett is a prime example of the breed.
David Blunkett suggesting Home Office policy again, I see. You’d think he’d shut up for a while. After all, if the party (or anybody else) had valued his opinion, they wouldn’t have booted him out of the Cabinet.
Does anyone know if he has any connection with the firm that wants to produce these things? I was told that he has.
John Gibson
I think you’ll find the answer to that one is still yes. This nasty, sinister example of the political class would willingly sell the British peoples’ civil liberties in order to line his own pockets. The man is beneath contempt.
Always found it amusing in a juvenile way that he’s the MP for ‘Sheffield Brightside’. 😉
How he has the cheek to think he can get away with such drivel, and how the BBC think it’s ok to publish it without pointing out the bleedin obvious, staggers me.
The word is chutzpah, I believe.
And I’ve just been reading how ineffective they are.
Mr Eugienides (http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/) reports that Blunkett is not exactly neutral:
Register of Members’ Interests
1. Remunerated directorships
Adviser on business development and trade relations to UC Group Ltd, Bromley, Kent (July-December 2008); global e-solutions company. (£45.001-£50,000)