Do you ever wonder if Gordon Brown is suicidal?

[AtheneNoctua]

ID Cards

£5bln?!?!?! Now, remind me why you have to raise our taxes?

ID cards - bonkers idea. But not Gordon's. Wish he'd just nip that one in the bud though, there's a good chap.

Wonder if people will revolt like they did with the Poll Tax?

It's the stupidest idea ever - I just cannot imagine what they're thinking. All that money, hassle and inevitable computer cock-ups and counterfeit scandals - for something that won't help anyone and makes us look even more like some kind of 1984 nightmare. Doh!

Unfortunately the bastard is already making us pay for it.

The cost of ID cards is bundled up with the Passports Agency.

Hence my new passport cost me twice as much as my previous one. £72!!!!

Oh, it's gone done now. A couple of weeks ago it was gonna cost £14 billion, don't know where these newspapers get their figures from anyway.

I won't get one, they can put me in prison and throw away the key for all I care.

I'm no fan of GB but do feel a bit sorry for him. He waited all that time for Tone to bail and then got handed a pile of crap to put his name to. Bet he wishes he'd been a train driver or a zoo keeper instead, poor disappointed sod.

Oh, I didn't know that. They have jacked up the price of passport to pay for ID Cards. So, they have the UK citizens paying for the cost of the imports. Nice.

I think I'm going to have an ID card soon.

I don't know about Gordon, but I wish he'd been a train driver or a zoo keeper instead.

Hahahhaah
Are you listening Multiple mums? There's your next thread title right there

Don't you sometimes feel it's like a runaway train? They just can't stop something, even if everyone thinks it's a terrible idea. So much money and time already spent on it, that they just can't walk away.

TBH, though, I also think this inability to back down on certain insaneideas is a consequence of our rather degraded political culture: to admit that something was a mistake would be perceived, and used, as such damaging political ammunition by their opponents, that they daren't do it. And the media would pick it up, and it would be tomorrow's sensationalist headlines.

I feel this way when I listen to the Today programme: the interviewers repeat the same questions, hoping to trick or grind their interviewees into admitting they've made a mistake, etc., and the politicians, briefed up to the eyeballs, just keep repeating the party line. There's no real debate anymore, it seems to me.

Very depressing.

Ooh international. He would look quite hot in a donkey jacket.

That's so true penth. And yet it is possible to do a huge U-turn and get away with it if you brazen it out and stick to your guns. I wish politicians would learn that.

I really don't see what the problem is with ID cards (apart from the cost of course!). Many countries have them. It seems to me like it is simply resistance to change.

We've never had ID cards therefore we don't want ID cards ID cards are bad let's keep things just the same always.

I think it would make things more simple. How many times I have had to take a bank statement, photo id, utility bill etc etc to prove my identity. We have to prove our identity all the time. Mortgage, loan, tenancy agreement, car finance, if stopped by the police..., it's not like we are losing any anonymity. Identity fraud is already rife, so I fail to see how a high tech photo id is going to make that any worse! It just seems far more straightforward to have the one card.

So you carry an ID card. big deal.

Well the vast cost is a huge issue, for something so pointless, in these straitened times.

But also identity fraud will still happen, so I'm guessing you will still have to faff about with various forms of ID. The record of governments managing complex database systems is beyond dire, so I predict it will go seriously tits up and have to be abandoned.

LOLOL at Ovulating

you wud hAVE to be

Anyone who thinks this is just another form of ID by which to prove his/her identity should take a gander over here at the vast array of data Gordon wishes to collect (and maintin!). It is an impossible and incredibly expensive feat.

If we want to simplify proof of identity, we should seek a more cost effective solution for a document which all already have : a passport for example.

Whilst I acknowledge that many people oppose the scheme on grounds of civil liberties violations, my first an formost object is the cost. And what a cost it is!

And...
These ID Cards will do more to make you more vulnerable to identy fraud than they will to make you safe from terrorrists.

Do you really trust the government with your data?

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

-Ronald Reagan

The cost of ID cards is a huge issue from the off especially when the government bleats about the cost of Ghurkas repatriating here when these people were prepared to die for our country.

ID cards are just pointless. We do not need them. We do however need the money spending on myriad other things.

It is a runaway train........

I won't vote Labour again next time. But I could never ever ever vote Tory - not least because I wouldn't know what I was voting for at the moment - so is it Lib Dems all the way, baby?

God it's like Facebook.

In fact I have a suspicion that FB is Gvt ID data collection by stealth.

You can always sign this petition

petition for Gordon Brown to resign

The £14.5 billion figure is how much the govt set aside in the budget for ID cards.

ID cards - great idea. After all, I think the govt has proved that it can be trusted to keep all our personal data safe, hasn't it? Much better to keep every little details of our lives in one handy place.

Just watched Gordy on PMQs - one of the MPs asked him a tongue-in-cheek question about what he plans to do about bullying in the worplace (referring to the recent revelations that he throws mobile phones at people and printers off desks when cross). He said "Any complaints should go through the usual channels" - face like THUNDER and sat down again looking like he was about to explode. He is really, really pissed off at the moment it seems. Much as I disliked Blair's policies, at least the man knew how to handle stuff like that with a bit of humour and charm.