Tory clone? Stop pulling my Clegg
Ian Swanson writes in the Edinburgh Evening News about new Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s attitide to ID cards:
Despite claims he is on the right, the issue with which Clegg has been most closely linked so far has been opposition to ID cards.
And during the leadership campaign he said he would refuse to give his private details to “an unaccountable database somewhere in London”.
It’s a position that leaves him open to the jibe that lawmakers should not be law breakers.
“I’ve been condemned in the House of Commons by (Home Secretary) Jacqui Smith but I think that’s actually what people want from their politicians,” he said. “They want to see what makes us tick, what makes us passionate.”
December 21st, 2007 at 16:00
At last,A politician who is prepared to stand up and be counted.If we all stand up and start speaking out against ID cards,maybe the idiots in the cabinet will start to take notice,but don,t hold your breath.The only time a nu-labour politician takes any notice of the public is when their seat is in danger.and don,t forget Ms Smith your seat is a marginal and won,t take a large swing at the next election to get rid of you.!
December 21st, 2007 at 17:00
And good riddance to nu-labour. Only fit to be thrown out with the rest of the rubbish!
December 21st, 2007 at 20:15
From time to time I feel compelled to say something about this id card fiasco. The Labour party have for some time acted in a hightly inappropriate manner for a free democracy. According to Andy Burnham “no one has a right to privacy”. I don’t believe that. According to Tony McNulty id cards are “a new kind of freedom”. I don’t believe that either. We were told at the last general election that id cards would be voluntary. Not compulsory. This point alone should mean that the whole of the labour party should hang its head in shame. But no. We hear from Gordon Brown that he has proved that civil liberties will not be affected by id cards and they will be managed in a proper way. When I first heard of the 25 million data loss I thought someone from Al Qaeda had hacked into a fibre optic line on a main link from the Longbenton office where I used to work about 10 years’ ago incidentally. They had then probably unencrypted the data after some effort I would expect and only after some time had passed had the so called owners of the data been alerted to this. Before we go anywhere imagine what that means — actually using say 100 pcs in parallel to break the encryption using them like a Cray supercomputer which is equivalent to about 2048 intel pentium IIs in parallel. But, no not a bit of it instead someone put the data on a CD just like a Max Bygraves record or something from the front of the Sun or the Mirror and sent it off not even bothering to use recorded delivery. If someone had submitted that as a plot for a novel to a publisher it would have been rejected as beyond the realms of credibility, and hopelessly over the top. Instead about 50 e mails were sent in to the news casters and radio shows — some of whom I recognised from my time there — and I was quite shocked when I realised that on a daily basis they just post them off and that the reason for this is that the budget was cut by Gordon Brown’s rationalisation policies when he was in charge of the HMRC streamlining. Incredible but true. And all of this has to be taken into context with other projects the labour govt has become famous for — Afghanistan — a war not yet won;Iraq — a war we were supposed to have won 4 years ago;Attempts by Harriet Harman to talk up the idea of compulsory electronic voting; attempts by Harriet Harman to make paying for sex illegal — How? exactly; Microphones listening to people’s conversations at the Olympics; The cost of the Olympics compleltely out of control; the cost of the id cards just relentlessly lied about– is it 5billion, 10 billion, 25 billion; the e mails seen in newspapers last year between peter smith and david foord where it was suggested that it is now widely known that everything Labour wants to do about id cards cannot be technically feasible until 2024 — and of course the list goes on and on. Last year I wrote to my local mp Dari Taylor about the id cards and did not get a reply. In the street I tried to speak to her personally in Stockton High street and she just looked very embarrassed and rushed past me. It was even more embarrassing than her attempts to help John Prescott last year. What can we do faced with this stonewalling, this dreadful Orwellian govt except to oppose them where ever we can.