IDs & Ego
‘GREAT news for amnesiacs. The Commons has heard your lament (you remember – the one about forgetting your name, nationality, pin number etc.) and voted in favour of ID cards. Now, if you need reminding who you are, you can just refer to the bit of plastic in your pocket.
And so as not to appear discriminatory in any way, the rest of us will have to get one, too. Sure, the cards are not yet compulsory, but, as the Times says, from 2008 youll need to obtain one when you renew your British passport.
And theres more. As the paper reports, anyone applying for residents permits and visas from certain non-EU countries will also need to resister their biometric data – fingerprints and iris scans with the Government.
And in case you are worried about missing out, the good news is that under the Governments plan, you are free to apply for an ID card. One can be yours for an estimated £30. Cant say fairer than that.
Of course, it could have been different. As the Telegraph says on its front page, the Governments majority in the vote on ID cards was cut to just 31, from 64. The Government won the vote by 310 votes to 279.
A quick look at the numbers – a calculation that would put a GCSE maths paper to shame – shows that not all the countrys 659 MPs voted. Had they done, perhaps the antis would have won the day?
We dont know where all these elected non-voters got to yesterday. But the Times does note that at least one of the missing was stuck in South Africa.
ID papers or no ID papers, we know this absent cove to be one Tony Blair. And he would have jetted back from sunny South Africa to vote had his official jet had not conked out on the runway at Johannesburg airport.
The story goes that while hurtling down the runway at 90mph, there was a sudden bang. Sparks flew from the starboard engine. The plane stopped.
Tony takes up the tale of this brush with disaster. Another few seconds and we would have been in the air, says he. Suddenly there was a bang. Sounds awful. Not for Tony. I didnt have time to be particularly worried about it, he says with a rare coolness.
So what did Tony do? Well, as luck had at, one of his own chums, former Treasury Minister Paul Boateng, is the British High Commissioner in that sun-kissed land.
Which meant that Tony was at least able to stay the night somewhere warm and welcoming. And, above all, somewhere safe…’
Posted: 14th, February 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
