IDiots

Manchester launch for ID cards

Manchester will this autumn become the first city where people can sign up for an ID card, Jacqui Smith has said.

Anyone over 16 in the city with a UK passport will be able to apply for a card from the Home Office.

The home secretary's speech signals her determination to push ahead with the cards, which will initially cost £30, despite opposition.

Mrs. Smith said,

* "As a government, we have a duty to ensure that the National Identity Scheme supports our national security, and that it provides a robust defence against those who seek to use of false identity to mask criminal or terrorist activity."

While I don't really have a problem with my personal details being stored (anybody who believes that govt. organisations don't already have all this info and much more, is living in a dream world), what I DO object to is wasting £Billions on unnecessary and totally useless measures.

Arguments over the cost of ID cards continue to dog the initiative, with the Tories and Lib Dems calling for them to be scrapped.

Dr Edgar Whitley of the London School of Economics has been warning about the cost of the scheme - which he has estimated at £10bn-£20bn - for the past four years.

The overall cost of the scheme over the next 10 years has risen by £50m to £5.1bn in the past eleventh months, the government's latest cost report has indicated.

When the first wave of Eastern European workers arrived in this country, they were known as 'economic migrants'. I met and became friends with many of them, mostly Polish, but also Latvians, Lithuanians and people from other ex-USSR satellite nations.

One evening I was sitting on the pier rank waiting for fares in my taxi, when a car pulled up behind me and a young guy got out and approached my car.

He asked me if I could give him directions to Chichester A&E because his friend had been taken there after having an accident on a building site. As his English wasn't too good, it was easier for me to tell him to follow me over there (n0t as silly as it sounds - there are always pick-ups in Chi). Because I did this for him, he always came to me if he had a problem and I got to know him quite well.

Marcin (not his real name) was a Polish gypsy, and a real 'dodgy geezer', who was always trying to get me to help him in some money making scam. Among the more questionable were setting up a brothel (he used to be a pimp in Germany), and getting me to drive a Jaguar that he would buy, to Poland where it would be rear-ended by one of his 'associates' who just happened to own the car repair business that was going to declare the vehicle a 'write-off'. The UK insurance company wouldn't pay to have a written off vehicle repatriated back to England, so not only did they pick up the insurance money, but the damage was easily fixed and the prestigious car sold on!

Another of 'Marcin's' enterprises was supplying false documents. He had contacts in London, who, on receipt of the right amount of cash could get counterfeit Home Office work permits (i've seen one of these, I defy anyone to tell it apart from the real thing) £60. Fake British passport? No problem. He even claimed that £2000 would buy you a genuine Italian or Portugese passport! How is this possible? I hear you cry. Apparently Mr. Big in London had contacts in the passport offices of these countries, all you had to do was supply him with details and a passport photograph, he would have these taken to the country in question by one of his minions, who would return with a passport.

* Call me an old cynic, but I think this is another idea dreamt up by people who don't live in the real world.

Plus, i'll never again trust anyone who uses the word 'robust' in any connection to politics.

Meanwhile, Jacqui Smith's husband is said to be eagerly awaiting the video release of 'Bobby-Sue Blows Biometrics'.