What Harriet Harman Won't say Publicly - the latest 'wheeze"...
Speaking at a meeting organised by the Progress thinktank to discuss falling turnouts, Harriet Harman said the problem of maintaining up-to-date and accurate electoral rolls could be solved "at a stroke" by using the details held on the National Identity Register.
The Identity Cards Act, which was passed in March, only allows the information on the register to be used by departments and agencies for the purposes of preventing or detecting terrorism, organised crime and identity and benefit fraud.
"You could download [the NIR] and at a stroke you could sort out your registration in parliamentary elections," Ms Harman said on Tuesday. "But [since] some people are saying 'you keep picking new reasons for having NIR', I won't say that publicly."
They really are determined to make ID cards Labour's Poll tax aren't they...
What she is basically saying
What she is basically saying is that the problem of keeping a an existing functional single-purpose local database up to date can be solved by means of a nonexistent, fantastically expensive and over ambitious national one and keeping that up to date instead. Oh of course!
Yep let's ditch a system that's worked for decades in favour of one that won't properly exist for 10 years if it even works and wasn't designed to do this job (in as much as it hasn't been designed to do any job given Home Office incompetence) and will probably be resisted by a substantial fraction of the population.
I didn't think there was a problem with compiling the electoral roll anyway. The problem is that people either don't want to be on it or don't want to vote if they are.
Perhaps it could be because of the calibre of the people they keep being asked to vote for?
Martin
We don't want to see any
We don't want to see any more ministers coming up with bright ideas, please. They can't be trusted with them. Whenever they come up with a new idea which they think is really really good, the first thing to ask is: "If this is such a good idea, why hasn't anyone come up with it already and put it into practice?"
The answer to this is not ever: "Because everyone else is stupider than me."
The ideal way to construct
The ideal way to construct these systems is to add as many roles and requirements as you can think of and then sit back and watch it automate uk existence into the frictionless merito/technocratic society we yearn for.
I often think that the Project reserves it's greatest enthusiasms for those things it least understands, I.T., legislation, war and big business are a few examples.
Kinda brings to mind the
Kinda brings to mind the despised Poll Tax, doesnt it?
Agree to have an ID card or loose all rights to vote, to benefits of any kind including State Pension and Child Benefit, access to NHS, schooling, no doubt the right to help from our local friendly, untrained volunteer plod when the victim of crime.
Joyous rapture. If Blair is looking for a legacy to out-do his folly of Iraq, tying every essense and aspect of our existances to having, carrying and producing an ID card is a good way of going about it.
Absolutely right. I don't
Absolutely right. I don't vote, not because I'm apathetic, but because I'm a refusenik. Give me the option of "None of the above" on the ballot paper and I'll vote every time, but NuLabour will never do that, because they know for once there really WILL be an absolute majority voting... and it won't be for them...
Harriot Harman is my MP.
Harriot Harman is my MP.
I will be visiting a pub this afternoon for a Grumpy Old Mens Friday afternoon get together. She is often seen in this establishment.
If she decides to visit today I may confront her, (nicely) and ask her for a comment.
Mmmhmm. Here it
Mmmhmm. Here it comes....
Feature Creep.
Just wait for the crossover into the commercial world.