Gordon Brown on the ID card scheme
Gordon Brown was asked about ID cards during his interview on Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday 12th May. Here’s what he said:
R4: Are you committed to the ID card plan?
GB: Yes. We are going through with the ID plan, and -
R4: No rethink.
GB: What I said yesterday, I think it’s a very important point here, if you are in a situation, where you or I, could easily have my identity stolen, then that is a threat to my privacy and my civil liberties, and that is an increasingly common feature of our society. If you are also in a situation where you have people with massive numbers of separate identities, and using these in passports and elsewhere to get into the country, then identity is becoming a far more important issue. But what I feel that you’ve got to show people is that as you have to take measures to deal with the security of the country, you’ve also got to show people that the civil liberties of the individual are respected, that there will be no arbitrariness; that at the same time there will be proper accountability for any decisions that are made, and of course the strengthening of the Parliamentary procedures for accountability, and at the same time the assurance to people that their identity or any other aspect of what they do will not be treated in an arbitrary way, is an important part of what I believe is the British constitution, what I believe is what people in Britain have valued over the centuries, that the civil liberties of the individual are upheld.
Listen again here with Realplayer, starting at 8′ 20″.
May 13th, 2007 at 15:44
Yeah, but he still sat there and allowed Charles Clarke to bring in the id card act and claim that it did clash with any other piece of legislation on the statute books like Data protection act. He still sat there and allowed Clarke to bring in fines is people don’t tell the govt the 51 things the act allows them to take — facts about you. He says he’s a private man — but, will we be allowed to be private people, men or women.
May 13th, 2007 at 17:09
[...] Literally Gordon Brown on ID cards, from Radio 4’s Today program via No2ID: R4: Are you committed to the ID card plan? GB: Yes. We are going through with th [...]
May 13th, 2007 at 17:13
I’m absolutely sick to the back teeth of politicians blatantly misusing the term ‘civil liberties’, redefining the term to fit their arguments with noone ever bringing them up on the issue.
If you look in the dictionary, the term ‘civil liberties’ is defined as:
‘The freedom of a citizen to exercise customary rights, as of speech or assembly, without unwarranted or arbitrary interference by the government.’
ID Cards will be the epitome of governmental interference in the freedom of a citizen, which makes it even more galling that they are using the term to support the idea!
May 14th, 2007 at 08:54
[...] ;Yes. We are going through with the ID plan’. From Radio 4’s Today program via No2ID: R4: Are you committed to [...]
May 14th, 2007 at 16:05
So Gordon Brown has re-defined the meaning of civil liberties.
I would like to re-define the meaning of ‘politician’ to ‘village idiot’.
May 16th, 2007 at 08:36
So nothing has changed. It is totally beyond me to understand how having a national identity card scheme in any way enhances our Civil Liberties. Gorden Brown is always spouting the values of being British and prudent. Brown is about to go ahead with the most alien and un-British project ever thought up. Even, leaving aside the civil liberties issues, how can a politician who has in the past been very careful in how he spends our money, be the supporter of such a costly useless scheme.
I will never trust any Government department with my details. It is my conviction that this data base will not be safe and that the Government will flog some of our details on to private organisations. It is time that this humble incoming administration realized that they are accountable to us and not the other way around.
May 16th, 2007 at 16:19
We the people MUST punish these Nu Labour village idiots at the next General Election. We must show them that THEY ARE OUR SERVANTS NOT OUR MASTERS.
Vote for anyone other than Nu Labour. Consign them to the political wilderness to teach them a lesson. Bunch of useless bastards!
June 30th, 2007 at 10:38
The people must make a stand to these labour dictators and vote them out. They are selfish arrogant bastards who have no morals or care for the British people whatsoever. Making up their own rules as they go along. God help us all if they end up winning another general election. Get the slimy, immoral, cheating, liar Greedy Gordon out of power now!
January 28th, 2008 at 09:17
The ID-card sceme is not only the most amoral breach of civil liberties ever to claw its way into government policy, it is also completly pointless, impossible to implement, and a waste of tax-payer’s money. The words I would like to use to describe the scheme, not to metion the current Labour government aren’t appropriate for any publicly accessible website, but I will say this- FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT! I know nobody much likes the main alternative- Tory gits- but anything’s got to be better than the Labour right now!