David Blunkett: ‘ID cards should be scrapped’
Tom Whitehead writes in the Daily Telegraph:
David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, has said that the ID card scheme should be scrapped, eight years after he first introduced the idea.
Mr Blunkett raised the prospect of compulsory ID cards in 2001 when he was Home Secretary, but on Tuesday the Labour MP signalled that mandatory biometric passports could provide a replacement for the controversial scheme. His comments will be embarrassing for the Government.
It follows reports that senior Cabinet ministers are privately discussing abandoning the £5bn programme in the wake of the economic recession and cuts now needed in public spending,
Opposition MPs said ID cards were in disarray and dubbed them an “abandoned orphan” after the “father” of the scheme has now spurned them.
Philip Johnson, writing on his blog at the Daily Telegraph, reiterates that the database, not the physical card, is the problem with the scheme:
Until the Government announces it is going to scrap the register, don’t believe a word about a change of heart. But I still predict that they will. They just have not got there yet.
April 29th, 2009 at 23:16
But Blunkett hasn’t called for ID Cards to be scrapped. He wants passports to be compulsory and for the National Identity Register to still exist. This is complete BS.
May 1st, 2009 at 13:27
What Blunkett is proposing is a more subversive and coercive scheme that accomplishes the same thing!
May 1st, 2009 at 16:17
I have read that Blunkett is a paid consultant to a US company which hopes to benefit from the ID card or similar projects. If this is true he should declare his interest with every statement.