White Rose is a protest blog collective focusing on civil liberties in the UK.
It was set up to point a finger at the erosion of personal freedom in the UK.
Government's active measures introduce new means of control such as identity cards and surveillance cameras, the passive measures such as weakening of double jeopardy and presumption of innocence.


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Gabriel Syme and Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net to rally the Anglosphere behind the UK.
White Rose contributors are those bloggers and non-bloggers who oppose restrictions on personal liberties.

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Sunday, March 21, 2004
Big Blunkett to "Fast Track" ID Cards
Trevor Mendham (The Chestnut Tree Cafe)
(0)   Identity cards

Well, I expected Big Blunkett to try and take advantage of the Madrid atrocity to pursue his own political ends. Even I didn't expect him to do so this quickly or this blatantly.

The Sunday Times reports that a row has erupted in cabinet after Home Secretary David Blunkett attempted to change the agreed government position on compulsory ID Cards. According to the report, Blunkett is attempting to sneak in to the draft Bill a clause that will allow a rapid move towards compulsion. This move is bitterly opposed by Jack Straw, Alistair Darling, Paul Boateng and Patricia Hewitt.

Although the draft was apparently published "earlier this month", it seems clear that Big Blunkett is relying on public fear after Madrid to cynically push through his pet scheme.

We need to remind people at every opportunity that Spain already has a national Identity Card system - and it did nothing to stop the Madrid bombings.

Cross-posted from Big Blunkett - Watching David Blunkett


Comments

You beat me to this post Trevor! :-D

Posted by: Perry de Havilland on March 21, 2004 09:01 PM

Oh, well, here we go again.... BB will use whatever excuse comes his way to push this through. It doesn't help with polls that "show" 86% or whatever of the British population in favour - what question was posed to obtain that figure? The last time this was debated in public, (Michael Howard's attempt in 1995/6) that figure dissipated once people really started thinking about the underlying issues. That isn't happening yet.

Posted by: Mark Ellott on March 22, 2004 11:19 AM

Experian who conducted/paid for the poll mentioned in the Sunday Times article, are hardly a neutral source of information.

Experian, like all the other couple of major Credit Reference Agencies, are lobbying to be granted preferential access to any centralised ID database, for their own commercial reasons (on behalf of their customers in the finance industry). They successfully lobbied to retain access to the full Electoral Roll, even after the creation of a cut down version for sale to direct marketers following the court case in Wakefield.

By the way, the URL http://www.whiterose.samizdata.net/
seems to be an older version (9th March) of the White Rose blog compared with this one http://whiterose.samizdata.net/

Posted by: Watching The, Watching Us on March 22, 2004 11:17 PM

You are right to expose the Stalinist tactics of David Blunkett. This Society has already warned the Prime Minister that if he allows this Minister, who left education in the U.K. in such disarray, to introduce one more anti-freedom measure, he would suffer our implacable opposition.Originally we were not against I.D. cards but our research convinces us that they will prevent neither terrorism nor serious crime. The cost and the invasions of privacy far outweigh the highly dubious benefits and the whole scheme is driven by career politicians and bureaurats who are ever searching for ways to further enslave us.

Posted by: crimedown.org on April 20, 2004 12:18 PM
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