Angela Epstein - A useful idiot on ID cards.

Ms Epstein has been gushing about ID cards, this useful idiot has had a meeting with Meg Hillier the commissar in charge of getting us all logged onto the ID card system like beef cattle.

An in a display of gushing in the Manchester Evening News she claimed it was the best thing since her child was born. Get this arsewater from her:

I’M so proud I could almost burst I haven’t felt this good about cradling something small and pink since my daughter Sophie was born.

All right, so I’m exaggerating a bit. But honestly, when you’re the first member of the public to be issued with a brand spanking new national identity card, it’s a seminal moment.

This explains why Labour picked this useful idiot:

And how did I manage to bag poll position? Thanks entirely to this column, which I’ve had the privilege to use as a platform from which to venture encouraging opinions on the introduction of voluntary ID cards.

It gets better, by which I mean of course worse:

But I genuinely felt proud and excited when I was finally handed my card. I loved seeing my name, face and the words British citizen on this tiny piece of plastic. That’s who I am, and why shouldn’t anyone know?

Okay, each to there own, I have a passport so need no other form of ID; although have several cards of various sorts, along with tons of paperwork to show anyone who I am. No need to blow £30 notes on a bit of plastic from the state.

Then the tired old argument comes out:

As I’ve said before I understand why people have their reservations, but I personally can’t see what there is to lose if you’re a law abiding citizen with nothing to hide. And if it’s another weapon in the fight against identity fraud, illegal workers and terrorism, then that can only be for the good.

I am a law abiding citizen who wants to keep my privacy, I see no need to pay to prove who I am and so the nothing to hide argument really doesn't hold water. As for the terror debate, well the chaps who blew up buses and tube trains on 7/7 were also UK citizens and so would have been entitled to ID cards. Not all terrorists are kaftan wearing types from caves in the Middle East.

So how exatcly would having a bit of plastic have helped prevent terrorism?

Now with regards ID fraud and illegal workers, you would no doubt need a machine to read your card and confirm that you are who you say you are. Well the readers are in short supply, so Johhny terrorist and Mr Illegal Worker can buy a bogus card and who will know the difference?

Now I will explain in detail for the useful idiot Epstein that the point of the cards was to provide biometric checks of identity. That information is held on a chip within the card - without a reader there is no way to access this information. Maybe someone could explain that to her?...

The Register has the details on the readers or rather the almost total lack of readers.

So all she has is a fancy bit of plastic of no use to man nor beast, as they say a fool and their money are soon parted and she has been parted from £30 quid by HM Govt.

Were she really useful to them, she would have been issued with a card gratis but as a useful idiot, she is held in contempt and so charged the full price.
More at Big Brother Watch.

.