The ID card debate is on Monday, and Clarke intends to press on with Blunkett’s white elephant, so:

Dear Iain,

I am writing to you to urge you to speak out against the proposed national ID card scheme in Monday’s debate. ID cards do not stop terrorism. David Blunkett himself said “I accept that it is important that we do not pretend that an entitlement card would be an overwhelming factor in combating international terrorism.”[1] ID cards do not make society a safer place. According to police forces in this country and others, lack of identification is not the major problem in combating crime[2].

ID cards do cost a lot of money. The £5 to £7 (£420m over 60m people) quoted by the home office does not take into account many hidden costs. Michael Howard’s proposal in 1996 cost two to three times as much. Australia’s system doubled in price after the project was started, finally topping AUS$820[3] (£320m over 20m people). ID cards will increase the crisis caused by growing identity fraud[4]. No system is ever completely foolproof, the ID card introduces a single point of failure, instead of the distributed system we have currently.

As my representative in Government, please don’t burden me with extra expenditure and invasion of my privacy in the name of enhanced security by implementing a proposal that can not achieve that goal.

Thanks,

[Afternoon]