Labour running out of excuses over ID cards

I missed this article in The Times, until pointed to it by another blogger, which highlights another, or should I say, the only reason Labour feel they can actually justify ID cards at the moment.

It seems that Labour are running out of excuses as quickly as they can make them up as to why ID cards should be introduced.

Firstly, it was all about protecting us from terrorism. However, they had ID cards in Spain and this didn't protect them from terrorists. On top of this, you can get an ID card by having a passport and as has been shown recently, known terrorists have been issued with passports, sometimes multiple passports, so they are hardly an effective means of validating if you should be given an ID car.

Next, it was all about controlling migrant workers. However, the BBC showed in their news investigation this week that the migrant workers rules are easily flouted by unscrupulous gang masters who care little for the current rules, so will be equally willing to ignore rules on ID cards.

Now, Labour have a new plan. ID cards will stop voter fraud. What is laughable about this is that Labour have ridden roughshod over the opposition party's wishes to be more stringent when introducing changes in voting practise. Ten years ago, apart from one or two incidents (the situation in St Ives springs to mind where there was a big question mark over the 1992 result), election fraud was abnormal and was notable for that reason. Now, because of Labour's insistence on changing the way people vote, voting fraud is an annual occurrence, with reports flying around about it after every local election.

If Labour seriously thought voter fraud could be solved by having ID cards, why would they still be pressing ahead with the idea of text voting or internet voting ?

So as it stands, Labour's new policy seems to be "We need Labour to introduce ID cards in order to stop a problem of voter fraud that was caused by Labour policies.".

It's like taking poison to immunise yourself against another poison, or like the children's song about the woman who swallowed a cat to catch the bird, she swallowed the bird to catch the spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I guess she'll die ! There's a metaphor there.