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‘It’s not about Fortress Britain’ says minister for immigration Guardian has an interview with Beverley Hughes, Home Office minister for immigration, about asylum centres, entitlement cards, and the future for refugees in the UK. Here is the section about entitlement cards, the New Labour pseudonym for identity cards. (Well, the Tories seem to be pushing them also…):
TH: What about entitlement cards?
BH: The home secretary is quite keen that the government proceeds down this route, and that’s because there’s only so much you can do towards certain kinds of issues – like illegal working, to some extent illegal immigration itself – towards knowing who’s going in and out of the country at any one time. The decision has got to be made by cabinet, which will be when we’ve actually published the results of the consultation, which we’re still considering. Cabinet will make a decision, and that will probably be by the end of the summer. But we’ve yet to publish our consultation results, and we hope to do that as soon as possible.
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I’m particularly interested in ID cards, as I live on a narrowboat. At the time of the last census, it was cheerfully admitted in the House of Commons that there are around 25,000 of us on the canals and waterways, and no one has any idea where most of us are at any given time. However, the one reason I don’t feel my liberty eroded by the introduction of ID cards is that I am wholly confident that bureaucracy at any level in the UK all has one thing in common; its administrators are quite capable of screwing up a cup of coffee. The problem is, of course, is that as many people will suffer unneccessary harrassment – and I expect racial profiling to be a factor here, in that certain ethnic minorities will not be as troubled by this initiative as some majorities – as will be untroubled by a bungling administration. Is Big Brother more or less of a threat if he’s a blockhead? In the meantime, best of luck; keep watering the White Rose.