Andy Burnham has another snipe at the LSE Identity Project Report
Junior Home Office Minister Andy Burnham is, yet again, hiding behind Parliamentary privilege to repeat his false accusations about the alleged authorship of the widely quoted London School of Economics Identity Project Report, and by implication, against the academic integrity of both Simon Davies and the 60 or so distinguished academics who have contributed to the report and to its collective peer review.
House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 24 Apr 2006 (pt 12):
Identity CardsLynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his statement of 18 January 2006, Official Report, column 833, what the evidential basis was for the assertion that the London School of Economics Report was written by the leading campaigner against identity cards. [62611]
Andy Burnham: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minster stated that he thought he was right in saying that the Identity Project Report, published by the London School of Economics' Department of Information Systems, had been written by a leading campaigner against identity cards. This is a reasonable conclusion given the close correlation between the contents of the report and the publicly expressed opinions of the individual who acted as project mentor/co-ordinator and of the organisation he is a director of.
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24 Apr 2006 : Column 854W
Nobody believes that Tony Blair has actually read this report, but, as Prime Minister he should not have to. He should have been competently and dispassionately briefed by the Home Office.
Nothing of similar depth and detail to the Identity Project report has been revealed about the Home Office's vague plans for their National Identity Register / ID card scheme. These ongoing attempts to dismiss this work as somehow being inaccurate, because of the public opinions of one of the large team of acknowledged experts involved in its production and academic scrutiny, is pure political propaganda, and dishonours the institution of the Home Office, which is supposed to be impartial and honest and competent.
Burnham is clearly referring to Simon Davies of Privacy international, who has had to threaten legal action for defamation, if Andy Burnham or other NuLabour Ministers and apologists repeat such remarks outside of the protection of Parliamentary privilege.