Responses: Does the case for ID cards stand up?

Tuesday, 19th July 2005

Is support for ID cards slipping? What would they achieve - and are they worth the costs involved? A selection of reaction and commentary on Home Office Minister Tony McNulty's admission in a speech to a Fabian seminar that the government had overstated the case for ID cards.

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Comment and analysis

'At long last, a minister has acknowledged what has been blindingly clear to the government's critics for months: the case for identity cards has been oversold. Tony McNulty, a home office minister, told a Fabian Society seminar that the benefits had been exaggerated, and added that it could prove impossible to pass the second-stage legislation needed to make ID cards compulsory. He wants to focus on the benefits for individuals, but that will make it no easier to sell the merits of a scheme that is overly ambitious, very costly and haemorrhaging public support'

Identity test - failed (Financial Times, August 5th)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/32131ecc-054e-11da-97da-00000e2511c8.html

'One thing wrong with this refreshingly honest assessment stood out: rather than drop the idea of compulsory ID cards, Mr McNulty wants to change the marketing strategy. Instead of emphasising the benefits which the scheme would provide the state, he plans to switch the emphasis to "what it can do for the individual in providing a gold standard of protecting your identity". But with support for the scheme plummeting in public opinion polls - both because of the costs as well as the infringements on civil liberties - this will be no more successful. Even a new move to cap the cost of the cards - estimates of which range from £93 to £300 - will not persuade the public, who will know that they are paying for any subsidy through their taxes. Mr McNulty's honesty should prompt one extra clarification and correction. Where ministers - indeed the prime minister - asserted that identity cards were "an idea whose time as come", could that be rephrased as "an idea whose time has passed"'

Leading by example (The Guardian, editorial, August 5)

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1543078,00.html

'However, it is clear, given the candidness shown by the normally loyal Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, that identity cards alone will not provide Britain with the level of protection required to stave off the threat.

Mr McNulty, an ally of Tony Blair, effectively let the cat out of the bag when he conceded that the Government, in its "enthusiasm", had exaggerated the benefits of ID cards. And even though Government spin doctors launched a hasty damage-limitation exercise, saying ID cards were only part of the overall strategy to combat terrorism, it made a lengthy parliamentary battle even more likely at a time when Ministers may be better served ensuring the police have the resources, and powers, that they require'.