Date published: 2006/03/15
The BBC says:
Government plans to force all passport applicants to have an ID card have been defeated in the Lords for a third time.
Peers voted by a majority of 35 to overturn the proposal, which was backed by MPs earlier this week.
Opposition peers say the plans break the government's promise that ID cards will initially be voluntary.
But Home Secretary Charles Clarke told the House of Commons on Tuesday passports were "voluntary documents" that no-one was forced to renew.
The Lords insist it should be voluntary for people who apply for new-style biometric passports to have their details entered on a national identity database.
Of course the Lords are correct, not that that will get them (or the country) anywhere. And of course Clarke is being completely disingenuous to pretend that the ID cards are voluntary when he is insisting that people who apply for passports have to register. He might as well claim that income tax is voluntary because nobody forces you to earn any money. And they wonder why people think so little of politicians, when they cannot even be honest about something so simple.
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