Being a Yorkshireman I suppose I see their point!

Seriously though, this latest move on ID cards beggars belief:

Manchester is one of several areas being considered in the UK to act as a test bed for the rollout of ID cards to UK citizens.

Thousands of people living in the pilot areas, likely to be major UK cities, will be able to get ID cards from November this year.

Looking at the wording I suspect they are flying a kite here to see the response. Lets hope the good people of Manchester show themselves to be level headed and tell the Government to get stuffed, again.

The Home Office will lobby banks, retailers, councils and universities in these “beacon areas” to allow the cards to be used with their services, such as opening a bank account or proving age when buying alcohol.

This is a bit more worrying given the way that this centralising Government has taken control of just about everything that moves. Banks will just about do anything they are told given that they are everyone’s bogeymen and responsible for everything except child porn and climate change, even those are open for debate.

Councils and universities will have no choice given how they are funded. Retailers will be interesting although I am sure their will be some implied threat of legislation to make their lives more difficult.

Volunteers for the ID card pilot will get their cards ahead of the wider UK population, who will be able to apply for ID cards from 2011.

Given that 30% of the population are still gullible/mad enough to say they will vote Labour I don’t doubt their will be some volunteers. All that will do is add more weight to the “care in the community” doesn’t work argument .

Speaking today at a conference hosted by the BCS Security Forum, identity minister Meg Hillier said: “We need heavy penetration in order to get the cards to work.

I will leave readers to use their own imaginations about what needs penetrating and what object they would like use. I have a vision of politicans being lined up, bent over and ID cards being shoved….

“They won’t work if nobody has any idea what they are. We need everyone to recognise the cards, from workers in the Co-op, to bank staff.”

Before we decide if they are working we need to know what problem they are fixing. I still haven’t seen one argument that hasn’t been shot down in flames within 30 seconds of being but forward.

Hillier said the price of the cards will be fixed at £30 until 2011 and that talks are continuing with high-street businesses to host the machines needed to take the fingerprint and facial scans stored on the cards and the National Identity Register.

Hasn’t she noticed there’s a recession on and people have better things to spend £30 on. If they haven’t then they need their heads looking at and we are back to the care in the community argument again.

The government hopes the cards will become a single form of ID allowing individuals to do everything from opening a bank account to buying parking permits.

I would like to think that spending £12Bn of our money would bring more than hope! Just goes to show they still have a solution looking for a problem. But then again this shower have shown they have absolutly no idea about the value of other people’s money.

However, Hillier added that the government cannot make it compulsory for people to have an ID card to access public services, as that would require new legislation

The implied threat being that they will legislate, or more likely be instructed to by our real Government in Brussels. When will the Tories start shouting from the roof tops that they will kill this waste of money?

According to Hillier, the public wants the biometric cards, adding that home secretary Jacqui Smith is already being asked: “When can I get my ID card?”.

Listen, you moron, a few people high on their medication walking up to that authoritarian bitch currently occupying the position of  Home Secretary and claiming they want an ID card is no basis for spending £12Bn to take away the relationship we have had with the state for centuries ie we go about our daily business as we see fit and its fuck all to do with them.

Here’s a challenge – if you really believe its popular, hold a referendum. You daren’t, dare you?

A website where people can register their interest in getting a ID card will be launched in the spring.

Ah, its really a way of finding out which care in the community contenders have splipped through the net at the last round-up.

Far be it for me to encoruage people to break the law but given the Governments track record on IT projects we can expect delays and then some fun as this with technical know how set to work on it.

God how I hate them and even mre for spoiling my start to the weekend. (I get these stories in trade newsletters so can’t ignore them!)