In December 1950, PC Harold Muckle stopped a dry cleaner in Finchley named Clarence Willcock and asked him to produce his World War II identity card. Mr Willcock refused, saying "I am against that sort of thing."On Tuesday exactly 56 years ago in Clarence Willcock's High Court appeal, the Lord Chief Justice said that "...to use Acts of Parliament, passed for particular purposes during war, in times when the war is past, tends to turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable state of affairs." As a result of the Willcock case and Lord Goddard's attack on their abuse, identity cards were abolished by Winston Churchill in 1952 as part of his 'bonfire of controls'".
Indeed - it is a great pity that this Government including our local MP David Drew is supportive of ID cards.
Ten years ago Tony Blair passionately told Labour conference: "Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards as the Tory Right demand, let that money provide thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities."
British subjects will now, for the first time ever, be made to turn up to be scanned, fingerprinted and registered on the largest biometric database in the world. Yet the technology is untested, biometrics don't work for everyone and the record of new IT projects by this government is extremely poor. The scheme will cost billions (and rising all the time) and wont tackle identity fraud, crime or any of the high-profile problems the Government has claimed they will address. This is an obscene waste of money.
Tony Blair was right ten years ago: the money could indeed be better spent on "thousands more police officers on the beat in our local communities." I am sure there will be many more Clarence Willcocks when we get these cards.
Click on 'Passport' Label below for info on our local campaign to resist compulsory registration re passports and Data Protection Day - but best resources for all of this can be found at No2ID and especially their arguments about why we should not have these cards here.
2 comments:
Disappointing to see no-one commenting on this item, Phil.
I assume you are the no2id Phil Booth I've already been in touch with separately by e-mail?
What kind of ID cards are newly-arrived asylum-seekers forced to use?
I'm not the NO2ID card Phil Booth - very often we have been taken for each other. I'm unclear re newly-arrived asylum seekers - definiatly one to pose to the other Phil Booth via their website!!
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