Tuesday 29 September 2009

Sly Gordon

Gordon Brown, knowing he's going to lose the election even if Jesus appears for the Second Coming and will only speak to the Prime Minister, gave a rousing speech which appeared to a) go for the Tories (excellent) and b) row back on some of his favourite reactionary policies.

Only, as usual with the Dear Leader, the small print is highly informative. He said that there won't be a vote in the next parliament on making ID cards compulsory. Well, that's very reassuring, were it not for a couple of minor points:

If you apply for a passport or driving licence, you'll go on the national identity register.
A parliamentary vote isn't required to make ID cards compulsory. Secondary legislation is enough.

As the chief executive of the passport agency says in this article: the 80% of the population who have a passport can leave the country without being on the ID register - they just won't get back in.

So thanks Gordon, very generous. Luckily for me, I have an Irish passport and no driving licence. The weird situation is that non-EU citizens already have to have ID cards, British citizens basically won't be able to avoid having one in the next few years, so EU citizens are actually better off than both other groups, better even than British people in Britain!

1 comment:

Benjamin. said...

I actually found his speech to be of great sentiment, no mention at all nor the dismissive inclination put toward the Tories of the Liberal Democrats which is rather strange considering the polls stating the increasing support behind the promising Nick Clegg whom I mentioned upon my recent blog.