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Prime Minister's Questions on ID Cards, IMPACT system delays , Wilson Doctrine

Today's Prime Minister's Questions saw several Questions on topics which this blog has commented on - at last !

There was quite a long exchange with subsidiary questions, between David Cameron and Tony Blair on ID Cards.

The LSE Identity Project report came up again. The work of dozens of academic and industry experts was, yet again misleadingly characterised, by Tony Blair himself this time, as the work of a single man "the leading civil rights campaigner against ID Cards". Yes Simon Davies is involved, but not on his own !

Tony Blair fell back on the fallacious NuLabour "identity fraud" justification and on the alleged inevitability of the international biometric passport schemes, which are vastly different from what this Government is actually proposing,

Tony Blair managed to tar the Chancellor Gordon Brown with the brush of collective Cabinet responsibility for his ID Card scheme, by claiming that Gordon had "supplied the figures" for the still secret detailed cost estimates.

The political TV commentators / kremlinologists noted that, unusually, Gordon Brown was actually smiling during the ID Card and other questions.

Another Tory MP also asked about ID Cards and failed Government computer projects and Tony Blair claimed that fears about "civil liberties are completely misplaced".

The interim leader of the Liberal Democrats asked, as we commented on back in November, why the Information Management, Prioritisation, Analysis, Co-ordination and Tasking (IMPACT) computer system, recommended 18 months ago by the Bichard Inquiry for the sharing of "intelligence on sex offender" (actually far more than just this) amongst Police Forces, is now scheduled to be at least 3 years late.The Prime Minister did not have an answer, "off the cuff", and which he had to promise to write to Sir Menzies Campbell about it.

Labour MP David Winnick asked about the "leaked report" (?) about the tapping of MPs phones i.e. the review of "Wilson Doctrine" and very reasonably asked that there should be a debate about it.

Tony Blair claimed that it was not his idea, and seemed to deny that it was a direct result of the July bombings, and claimed that it was due to the representation made to him by the "Intercept Commissioner", which he is "obliged to consider" and vaguely promised to do so some time in the future.

Does this mean that our concerns over these technological "magic fix" policies are starting to be noticed by the major political parties ?

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