According to the Guardian’s editorial:

Less a climbdown, more of a stumble. A glance at some of the papers yesterday might have led you to believe that something truly momentous had happened: Alan Johnson, the shiny new home secretary and sometime last-resort leadership hope of desperate Labour MPs, had finally rid the government of its self-imposed policy millstone and binned the ID card scheme.

If only. What Mr Johnson did instead was something much more modest, but which nevertheless erodes yet further the government’s case for the identity database. In the face of tremendous trade-union opposition, this former full-time union official called off plans to trial the compulsory ID card among workers at two airports. It is as little and as significant as that. Little, because only 30,000 airport staff were affected by the announcement. Significant, because one of the ragbag of reasons for the introduction of the wretched ID register was that it would enhance airport security. This is not just a pilot scheme that has been scrapped; yet another big hole has been knocked in the justification for the entire project. What was originally dreamed up as a compulsory item to help combat terrorism and benefit fraud is now being sold as an entirely voluntary accessory to be toted by thirsty teens who want to prove to barmen that they can legally buy a pint.

This entry was posted by andrew on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 00:26 and is filed under Anti, Biometrics, Database state, General, UK News Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.