OneAndOneIs2

I'm not generally big on following politics - I lean towards the "Don't vote, it only encourages them" school of thought. Although I did vote. But that's beside the point.

Anyway, the Minister of State for Immigration has made a speech. It's already showing up in my email and RSS aggregator (via El Reg), so here's a link to the official text of the speech.

The first line that one notices is Nearly two thirds of consumers now have an internet connection at home.

"Consumers"?? Excuse me? When did we stop being citizens and just become "consumers"?? This is a politician speaking, not a CEO, right?

Last year British residents made 68 million journeys abroad - an amusing boast from a government that recently doubled airport tax using the ever-popular excuse of "global warming" - aircraft produce greenhouse gasses, don't you know. We must tax them for the general good.

It's obviously an expensive business, this global warming. Nothing else can justify charging money for it. It's not like the tax does anything other than make the government money - the planes still run, using the same fuel. One could almost believe that the tax had nothing to do with climate concerns. It seems, rather, to be rather reminiscent of the Duke of Wellington's opposition towards railways: it will only encourage the lower classes to move about

Cheap air travel has resulted in very little contribution to the greenhouse gas production of mankind. It has, however, meant that even poorer families can go abroad for their holidays, something that bothers the richer upper classes no end. Is it any shock that the London Elite want to whomp the prices back up?

Call me cynical...

Anyway, moving swiftly on to the point that he wants to make: The "ID cards are good" one. He explains that today’s online, hyper-mobile world is fraught with peril, and has lead to a cost to the British economy of £1.7 BN a year due to identity fraud - although, bizzarely, he doesn't link this to the earlier-stated fact that the value of British e-commerce topped £92 billion - which makes that 1.7bn cost look rather trivial, wouldn't you say?

Oh well. Keeping things in perspective has never really been a trait politicians were famed for.

Uncannily, my previous reference to the introduction of railways in this country now sees its parallel as he compares the introduction of ID cards to - can you believe it? - the introduction of railways.

So.. when railways were introduced in this country, they were built using an inferior narrow gage (Brunel wanted 7ft rather than 4ft8in.) After creating a huge, sprawling system of railways, Dr. Beeching came along and shut down most of them. And then the government privatised the whole system and flogged it to a bunch of corporations.

And we're supposed to be comforted by the thought that ID cards will be "just like" the railways, are we..?

Nah. I think I'll maintain my position of supporting the No2ID coalition. I like technology as much as the next man, if not more, but if history has shown anything, it's this: Governments are hopeless incompetents when it comes to introducing new technology.