‘ID cards won’t work’ – MP claims
After last week’s launch of an anti-ID card campaign by shadow Home Secretary David Davis, we’re starting to see local Tory MPs and candidates go on the record criticising the scheme. Here’s one reported in the Cambridgeshire Times:
Identity cards are a bad idea, says MP Malcolm Moss, who this week added his voice to the growing number of MPs opposed to their introduction.
“They will do nothing to improve the safety of our citizens,” said Mr Moss, the MP for NE Cambs.
“They are not the answer to the threat of terrorism, to benefit fraud, illegal immigration, human trafficking or to identity theft. They are a waste of money, and a Conservative Government will abolish them”
Here’s another from the Malvern Gazette:
Tory parliamentary candidate Harriett Baldwin this week spoke out against government plans to introduce ID cards.
She said local people will be forced to travel at their own expense to regional centres at Birmingham, Oxford or Swindon to get the cards.
She said: “ID cards are a bad idea. They will do nothing to improve the safety of people in Worcestershire. They are not the answer to the threat of terrorism, to benefit fraud, illegal immigration, human trafficking or to identity theft. They are a waste of money, and a Conservative government will abolish them.
February 14th, 2007 at 13:12
I am not complaining, but they are strangely similar in their wording (even down to the not always used comma before an and)…
“They are not the answer to the threat of terrorism, to benefit fraud, illegal immigration, human trafficking or to identity theft. They are a waste of money, and a Conservative Government will abolish them.”
February 14th, 2007 at 17:27
Cambridgeshire seems to be a centre of cross-party excellence as far as anti-ID card protests go, boasting at least four MPs who have voiced their opposition — David Howarth, Andrew Lansley, Malcolm Moss and Jim Paice — see
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/region_wide/2005/10/19/18933ce4-2160-4e1b-9f4b-bb82e6b1ac40.lpf
February 15th, 2007 at 04:54
Of course the wording is similar – it’s a Central Office approved and supplied, ’stickyourconstituencynamehere’ talking point that’s on-policy. Which is excellent, as it shows that this is more than a few individuals saying this, it’s the party as a whole that’s putting its weight against ID Cards.
February 15th, 2007 at 09:02
Yes, martinb, I had worked that out! I just would prefer MPs that actually thought for themselves.
…
I know, too much to ask!
P.S. It also encourages the governments count xx protests as 1 tendency that we saw with the id-card consultation. Central office should have taken a leaf out of the online protest letter/email encouragement sites practices and suggested that the MPs reword the text!
P.P.S. The papers should also have wrote “wrote” and not “said”, Oh the standard of reporting these days!