Daily Archives: April 6, 2005


Despite his resignation from cabinet, David Blunkett is still plugging ID cards whenever he can: David Blunkett has called for urgent action on electoral fraud following the Birmingham vote-rigging scandal. The former home secretary described the case in which six Labour councillors were found guilty of postal vote fraud as “totally outrageous”. He called for individual rather than household voter registration – backed up by a national ID card scheme. Of course, a moment’s thought reveals that ID cards wouldn’t prevent any kind of “citizen not present” fraud, such as fraudulent postal voting, precisely because the citizen and his ID card aren’t available to be verified. Mr Blunkett’s comments do nothing to dispel the impression that compulsory ID cards are a solution looking for a problem – and not finding one.

ID cards and postal voting


SpyBlog has finally had a partial response to its freedom of information request on identity cards. Of course, little information is actually revealed, hidden behind various loopholes, including the claim that to supply details of meetings going back to September 2001 would cost more than £600, ie take longer than 3 1/2 days at £25 an hour. Perhaps these figures can be used to project Home Office costs in setting up the ID cards scheme? Some information is revealed around the costs for travel and entertainment.

Home Office keeps cards close to its chest regarding costs ...