Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

So now, we in Manchester are apparently going to be the first people ‘allowed’ to apply to pay £60 for ID cards. Lucky, lucky, lucky us. Is this like that time when we were allowed to be the first people to not have the right to speak to a duty solicitor? I know that was an entirely popular, well-thought-out move too…

Even ignoring all the many, many arguments against an ID database, and the fact that there isn’t a single good argument for one, the idea of starting a national project with a regional rollout makes no sense, as the cards will be effectively useless even were one to take their supposed uses seriously. And the idea that people in Manchester are going to have sixty quid spare to give to the government in return for a useless piece of plastic, at a time when we’re in the worst recession in most people’s lifetimes, is frankly ludicrous. I could theoretically see a few of the “I’ve got nothing to hide!” brigade signing up for this were it free – but those are generally the kind of people who most object to spending a single penny of their own money anyway.

I’ve not been active enough in No2ID so far – I’ve only helped out a couple of times at the monthly events they have, although I’ve started being more active recently – but I’ll be down at St Anne’s Square on Saturday afternoon (details here) and I expect any readers of this blog within a ten-mile radius of Manchester City Centre to be there as well, or I’ll want to know why.

Manchester is to this Labour government as Scotland was to the Tories in the eighties – a place they don’t care about, where they can try out all their most unworkable, unpopular, vote-losing policies. The reasons are opposite, but really the same – the Tories knew no-one in Scotland was going to vote for them anyway, while Labour think they can’t lose Manchester because it’s their ‘core vote’ and they won’t vote for anyone else.

Let’s prove them wrong…
ETA Alix has a good post on this too…