ID cards - Lord(s) save us

GNU LABOUR

I was away from my blog when the ID Cards Bill passed through Parliament (assisted by my supine soon-to-be-ex-MP Andrew Slaughter), otherwise I would surely have commented on it. We can only hope the Lords organise to crush it out of sight - they've done this for most of the government's loopy schemes, so they can damn well do it for this one. After all, one advantage of being a Lord is that you're never up for re-election so you're free to tell a government of your own colour to go and stick their ideas where the Sun don't shine. Never before have I been so relieved that we have unelected representatives passing (or, with luck, in this case rejecting) legislation. Oh, the irony!

Luckily, Alex the Yorkshire Ranter has plenty to say on the matter, including why the very reason to have the cards has just been ditched by Fungus the Home Secretary, and why none of this matters because Brown won't let him have the money, anyway.

See also this lengthy but important refutation of some of the arguments in favour of ID cards at Talk Politics.

And also this from Chris Lightfoot (via Devil's Kitchen).