December 2007 Archives

SHOULD I go to jail rather than carry a hated identity card – and will I be able to get myself locked up, even if I try?

Those questions have been following me around ever since the “Datagate� scandal broke, with the loss of two CDs bearing our child benefits records.

Until this extraordinary blunder, we were all sleepwalking into the looming disaster of ID cards and the scary database that will accompany them.

The potential exposure of half the nation to fraudsters made everyone sit up and realise the far greater risk of piling far more detailed information onto the National Identity Register (NIR).

Well, I say everyone. Everyone, that is, except the Government – which insisted the answer to the crisis sparked by Datagate was, er, biometric ID cards.

This, of course, is complete nonsense. We now know, for certain, that any database is only as secure as the people who guard it. Or – as at HMRC – fail to.

Experts agree that organised criminals are licking their lips at the prospect of breaching the NIR, with its 49 separate pieces of information – on all of us.

Already, there is evidence that the microchips that will contain our biometrics – face, fingerprints and iris – can be read by illegal scanners at 30 paces.

In trials, the technology did not even work properly, failing to identify many people who are disabled, elderly, or from ethnic minorities.

It leaves in tatters the Government’s insistence that it will be impossible to steal someone’s fingerprints in the way, for example, a National Insurance number can be nicked.

And how exactly do ministers propose to issue me with new fingerprints, or eyes, once my identity has been stolen?

All this criticism ignores the mind blowing cost of ID cards – £5.3bn, according to the Government; up to £20bn, say independent studies.

Recently, would-be Liberal Democrat leaders Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne have vowed to disobey this insane law, so should I join them?

But this is where it gets tricky, because the Home Office has cunningly made it all-but impossible to take such a protest all the way to the prison gates.

Failing to register will not mean a jail term.

Instead, there will be a £1,000 civil penalty for failing to reveal changes of circumstances, such as a new address or marriage.

Presumably, I could – eventually – go to jail for non- payment of fines? But being an ID card martyr could prove a very expensive business.

THE Tories are being outrageously misleading about their plans for Merseyside’s army of “sicknote� former workers – but then so is the Government

It is now two months since David Cameron cheered the Conservative party conference by pledging to strip incapacity benefit (IB) from claimants who refuse to look for work.

Since then, the Tory leader has failed to explain how he would save an incredible £3bn by targeting people who, in many cases, have not worked since the days of his heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

Instead, there has been a drip-drip of hints to right-wing commentators, who lick their lips at the prospect of “radical� welfare reform based on the mysterious “Wisconsin model�.

So what is this miraculous Wisconsin solution to the intractable problem of people who have not worked for years and years, a tragic waste of life now passing to the next generation?

Well, what Mr Cameron does not want to say – at least, not yet – is that there is a strict two-year time limit on benefits.

Once a claimant’s two years are up, he or she won’t get any help – ever again. And, in Wisconsin, that includes lone mothers with babies as young as 13 weeks.

Some of the Republicans who introduced the crackdown openly admit they are an attempt to enforce family values – to punish people, usually women, with kids on their own.

I do not know whether Mr Cameron plans to import the Draconian “Wisconsin model� lock, stock and barrel, because he will not tell us – only his right-wing friends on the comment pages.

But, even if the war on lone mothers is dropped, we can imagine the impact of a strict time limit on IB in parts of Merseyside where claimants are common and jobs are scarce.

Last week, Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain penned a withering attack on the “Wisconsin model�, warning it led to more poverty, with thousands of families relying on charity alone.

He rightly boasted about signing up 200-plus firms and organisations to train those on benefits long-term to be “job-ready� – a helping hand, not “sink-or-swim�.

But, unfortunately, Mr Hain is not being entirely clear either – about his plans to shift IB claimants on to a stricter new “employment support allowance�.

The new test will give them less money (from jobseekers’ allowance) if they can perform modern workplace tasks, such as using a computer keyboard, or a mouse.

Mr Hain insists no decision has been taken about whether to move existing IB claimants on to the harsher regime – but his officials have told disability groups that they will.

Will anyone be honest about our so-called “sicknote culture�?