Samizdata

The Telegraph reports that the Conservatives yesterday joined civil rights groups in voicing opposition to the Government’s proposals to introduce compulsory identity cards and criticised David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, for masking his true intentions behind “spin and obscurity”.

Plans to announce the scheme in the Commons before Parliament rises today have been shelved – officially because of pressure on parliamentary time – but the Home Office said yesterday that the proposals for the ID card were “progressing well”, with an announcement expected in the autumn.

Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, said he remained “highly dubious” about any move towards a compulsory ID card.

The issue of an identity card is too important a one, with too far-ranging implications for our liberties, for the Home Secretary to resort to spin and obscurity.

Home Office estimates of the cost of the scheme range from £1.6 to £3.14 billion but Simon Davies, of Privacy International, says the true cost will be very much higher. Mr Davies led a campaign against an Australian ID card in the 1980s. Initially the plan was popular but opposition grew strongly when the scheme was finally unveiled and the government was forced to abandon it.

We know from industry estimates that a ‘smart’ card with biometric information such as the one proposed will cost well over £100 per head, so the final cost will be more like £5.5 billion.

This is a high risk political gamble for David Blunkett. He knows that popular opposition will mushroom once people understand the implications of the card, so he is being meticulous in concealing his ultimate ambitions.

White Rose readers will surely appreciate being told, if they don’t know it already, that a short posting by Gabriel Syme about compulsory ID cards, and about White Rose’s campaigning against them, was put up at Samizdata.net last Sunday.

The point is the comments, of which there have been 22 so far (Tuesday evening). The worst of the comments about anything on Samizdata are the usual abusive or incomprehensible nonsense (and the worst of them of all get deleted), but the average is good, and the best are often outstandingly interesting and informative, fully worthy to be postings in their own right on the average blog.

The ID card debate can get subtle, and lots of these subtleties are teased out in these particular comments.

Telegraph reports that David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, obtained political backing at a meeting of the Cabinet’s domestic affairs committee and a statement has been pencilled in for next Thursday, the last day of the current Commons session.

Whitehall officials said final details had still to be agreed but no meeting of the full Cabinet is considered necessary to endorse what will be one of the most controversial decisions of Labour’s six years in power.

The ID card will be required by everyone over 16 – more than 40 million people – and cost around £40, though with concessions for the elderly and the poor. Each card will contain biometric data, such as an image of a person’s iris or fingerprint, so police and other authorities can confirm the holder’s identity.

So this is it then? Tagged, finger-printed, iris-scanned, data about us stored on a ‘central database’, at the mercy of government bureaucrats.

I suppose the only thing left is the way of the late Mr Willcock who was the last person prosecuted in Britain for refusing to produce his wartime ID card and he spearheaded a public campaign that led to their abolition 50 years ago.

ID cards were introduced in 1939 but remained in use after the war to help in the administration of food rationing. The police had powers to see ID cards in certain circumstances. If an individual did not have one when asked, it had to be produced at a police station within two days.

This was where the law stood when Mr Willcock, 54, was stopped by Pc Harold Muckle as he drove in Finchley, north London, on Dec 7, 1950. The constable asked him to produce his national registration card. Mr Willcock refused.

Mr Willcock was charged under the provisions of the National Registration Act 1939. He argued that the emergency legislation was now redundant because the emergency was clearly at an end. The magistrates convicted Mr Willcock, as they were obliged to, but gave him an absolute discharge. He decided to test the law in the higher courts. Each found against him on the grounds that the statute remained in force and could only be reversed by an Order in Council.

In 1951, the Tories won the general election, and abolished ID cards the following year. Mr Willcock lived just long enough to see them go. He dropped dead in the National Liberal Club in December 1952 while debating the case against socialism.

I am not sure this would work nowadays, after many years of Labour rampaging through the justice system. However, it may be worth a try…