Controlling migration.

Mr Brown said,

“... migration must be managed and must be tightly controlled.”

Migrate

ORIGIN Latin migrare ‘move, shift’, the root also of EMIGRATE and IMMIGRATE.

Double meaning, you see, something Mr Brown does rather well. Does he want to keep people in Britain too? It wouldn't be too surprising if he did, after all, lots of businesses snotty nosed rich people are moving abroad, and are taking their tax money and their tax businesses with them.

Maybe it wasn't a slip of the tongue - they did things like that in the old Soviet Union - kept people in, unless they could prove a jolly good reason for leaving. It kept the workers happy, stopped them seeing what the rest of the world was like, outside the socialist paradise.

In the old Soviet Union people had to have an internal passport too, weren't free to move around, or live where they wanted to, not unless they were rich or were communist high-ups.

In the old Soviet Union they made people have these documents "for statistical purposes", so they could be counted. A bit like those pesky ID cards our lot want us all to have - except our lot said the naughty big boys terrorists made them do it.

h/t LFaT

....

ID cards are not passports

Following a trail from no2id Mrs R found this article in the Manchester Evening News, which says that

Some 1,736 people in Greater Manchester have bought the £30 cards after the Home Office promised they could be used to travel in Europe.

Unfortunately it would seem that the Home Office didn't bother to tell immigration staff or airlines in other European countries, including Germany, who

said they would not accept the cards until they had been officially recognised by the German federal authorities.

and

Cyrus Nayeri was treated like a criminal when he used his new ID card to travel to Bonn

So - it's important to remember that if you choose to spend £30 on an ID card (that will lock you into a pernicious system of checks, rules, and fines for non-compliance) it offers no advantage whatsoever outside UK - because nobody else knows what it's for.

At £30 the ID card may be relatively inexpensive, now, but it cannot be used as a cheap substitute for a Passport. It has to be used alongside a passport.

It seems to be reaching the time that UK has to become a full signatory of the Schengen Agreement. Failing to do so has meant this country cannot fully access the database, and pretending reluctance is related to "protecting our borders" has proved a fruitless exercise because, with hundreds of miles of unpoliced coastline, it's like trying to keep water out of a sponge.

Being a full signatory to Schengen would also make travel easier, both to and from other European countries - which would ease congestion, possibly reduce costs and would also make employment in other EU states an easier option for British nationals - if they can speak the language (but that's a wholly different subject for discussion.)

Silly woman!

Angela Epstein writes "proudly" about being the first person to be issued with an ID card. She didn't apply for one, it seems somebody in the Home Office invited her to be first. In the middle of her article Angela says this:-

An ID card is a portable, convenient way to prove your identity without having to carry something like a passport with you — which is murder to replace if you lose it.

"Murder" might not have been the most appropriate word to use, especially alongside a reference to wartime, but never mind. According to the leaflet it's quite easy to replace a lost ID card, it even includes a comfy reference to a passport :-

If you lose your identity card (or passport) you will be able to inform us so that we can cancel it on our system. Then nobody else will be able to use it in any situation where an organisation checks its validity with us. It will already be unusable anywhere a PIN or fingerprint is required as long as you have kept your PIN secret.

You will then be able to choose whether or not you wish to apply for a replacement card.

If you want to get a replacement you will need to apply to the Identity and Passport Service either directly or through one of the high street facilities provided by our partners, in the same way as when you first applied. Clearly you may want a replacement card quickly, so this will usually be a much faster process than the first time your card was issued. This is because we can verify your identity against your existing record.

There's no information about how much a replacement card might cost and, unfortunately, the legislation says a bit more about the rules :-

Section 11: Invalidity and Surrender of ID Cards
2.8. Section 11(6)(a) Failure on the part of a cardholder to notify the Secretary of State, where the cardholder knows or has reason to suspect that the card has been lost, stolen, damaged, tampered with, or destroyed. Maximum penalty £1,000.

2.9. Regulations under section 11 The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Notification of Changes and Loss, Theft etc. of ID Cards) Regulations 2009 require a cardholder to notify the Secretary of State within one month if he knows or suspects his card has been lost, stolen, damaged, tampered with or destroyed. A card will be classed as damaged if it or anything on it has become unreadable or otherwise unusable. A card will be classed as being tampered with if it or the information on it has been modified, copied or otherwise extracted for an unlawful purpose.

2.10. In considering liability, the Secretary of State will need to be satisfied that one of those things has occurred; that the cardholder knew or had reason to suspect that it had happened; and that the card holder failed to notify the Secretary of State within the prescribed period.

So, Angela, the law says that if you lose your card and don't tell the Secretary of State soon enough (it doesn't say you can tell anybody else, or an agent of the Secretary of State) you could be fined up to £1,000. If you use your card so often that it gets worn, you could be fined up to £1,000.

What happens if you lose your passport, either in the UK or overseas?

According to Directgov it's easy

What to do about a lost or stolen passport

It is vital you report a lost or stolen passport as soon as possible. If your passport is stolen you should report it to the police at once.

If you want to apply for a replacement passport and are:

• a British national
• in the UK at the time of applying

you can report your passport lost or stolen at the same time, following the instructions ...

If you are not in the UK, or you don't want to replace your passport straight away, you should report it as lost or stolen by following the link ....

And the price?

An adult passport costs £77.50 for standard service and £112.50 for the one-week Fast Track service. A child passport costs £49 for standard service and £96.50 for the one-week Fast Track service. The Premium one-day service is not available for replacement passports.

Doh! Angela! Did you read any of the small print before you signed on the dotted line?

Ever had a feeling of déjà vu?

The title is, of course, taken from Monty Python.

Mrs Rigby was quite surprised to read that some Members of Parliament

have discussed using parliamentary questions to reveal the financial details of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiry, including how much the former civil servant is being paid for his work.

Hence the feeling of déjà vu. The earlier results of the same sort of thing were less than good.

Today also sees the release of another list of BNP members, said to include all sorts of "establishment" figures who should probably be censured or dismissed for belonging to something Mr Hain says is an illegal political group - at least it will be when his new bill becomes law.

Mr Hain wants to stop a member of the BNP appearing on Question Time, but the BBC disagrees and so do their lawyers. Mrs R thinks it's quite an interesting idea really, to say a political party is illegal, especially when it's only a few months after a legally held European Election when enough people voted BNP for them to win seats as MEPs in Brussels.

That's the same Mr Hain who started off as a Liberal then switched to Labour, was found guilty of criminal conspiracy in 1972, used to be in the Foreign Office and more recently resigned because of financial irregularities, but he is back again - thanks to Mr Brown. He seems to be joined to Westminster by a piece of elastic.

And finally, a bit more déjà vu from the Home office. They've managed to lose maybe up to 40,000 illegal immigrants, but obviously they don't know how many. Mrs R reckons it's probably loads and loads more. Maybe they should've handed out some shiny ID cards at Calais perhaps, maybe it would have made them all stand still long enough to be counted!

Whilst nobody was looking

They sneaked this through when nobody was looking. They probably hoped nobody would notice because we're all so worried about MPs expenses, but thankfully some newspapers are on the ball.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary who lives in her sister's spare bedroom instead of the apartment the State provides, has pushed through legislation giving HM Revenue and Customs officials the right to look at the information that will be held on the ID database, when it's rolled out.

Here's an extract from the Mail

The Home Office says the ID card scheme will make life easier for both businesses and their customers. Companies will be charged around 60p a time to check details held on the giant 'big brother' database.

Every time a check is made against the ID card, it will be logged on the National Identity Register - and the details made available to the taxman.

Officials hope for up to 770million 'verifications' each year.

The data includes addresses, any second homes and National Insurance numbers.

Firms will be told that using the scheme will cut millions from their annual fraud bills and save them hefty fines for employing illegal immigrants.

Officials believe it will be cheaper for companies to confirm identity through the database than by using current methods such as bills and driving licences. The Home Office said businesses would need a person's consent to check information about them.

Official documents reveal that some 44,000 organisations could be 'accredited' to carry out verification checks.

They range from Whitehall departments, banks and financial institutions to mobile phone and video rental shops.

It comes after Jacqui Smith's announcement earlier this month that members of the public will be expected to have their fingerprints taken at the Post Office or in high street shops and pharmacies when they sign up for a card or passport.

At present, the right to take fingerprints is largely restricted to the police.

A similar report is in the Telegraph.

Mrs R thinks this is all a bit much. When they first proposed the ID card scheme it was meant to be all about protecting us from terrorists - but we saw through that idea. Then they said it would help slow down illegal immigration. Now they want us to believe it will help track down tax fraud.

Mrs R notes that within this report is a bit of an implied threat, if businesses don't sign up to using the scheme, and demand this particular form of ID from people then ... well, we'll have to wait and see what the penalties might be.

Mrs R doesn't object one little bit to the principal of an ID card, she's seen people from other European countries using little plastic cards instead of passports.

Mrs R knows that people in other countries don't understand what all the fuss is about. She knows they don't realise that in Britain the ID card is planned to be an added extra. An extra on top of a photo driving license, on top of a passport, and something that gives no benefit to the individual other than containing - on a small piece of loseable and stealable plastic, and on one single hackable, copiable, sellable, database - every single scrap of their personal information, including details of their most intimate biological make up, something Mrs Rigby will never have the right to see, but which as yet unknown "others" will have access too - all for a "small fee".

All the "spinning", all the lies, all the changes in the story, have not yet convinced Mrs R that this is not an intrusive, overbearing and potentially illegal in terms of human rights, plan for the state to oversee every single aspect of the Mrs Rigby's life, and possibly find legal fault.

So, Mrs Rigby offers a challenge to the Home Secretary. She wants the Home Secretary to tell her of one, just one, personal benefit from this data gathering exercise.

Mrs R suspects that it her only "benefit" will be that she will not be breaking some, as yet unmade, law that requires her to carry this particular bit of plastic on her person every waking moment.

Lucky Manchester.

Manchester, the city that voted against road charging and whose population are the first in the country to be given the opportunity to try out the nice ID cards, is getting a timely boost to its transport infrastructure.

Increasing the area covered by Metrolink, which had been shelved, is now going ahead. It says so here on the BBC last updated 15/05/2009

Here's an extract giving the background of the scheme and its' funding

The original £520m expansion of Metrolink was first announced back in 2000 and dubbed the Big Bang on account of the scale of the project.

But the plan hit the buffers in 2004 when the Government withdrew over rising costs, prompting outrage across Greater Manchester and the start of the Back on Track campaign.

In 2008, the Government confirmed it would pay a lump sum of £244m for a scaled down ‘Mini Bang’ expansion to Rochdale railway station, Chorlton and Droylsden.
Then, later that year, the full ‘Big Bang’ expansion was made a condition of the congestion charge, which was famously thrown out in a referendum.
But now, after months of negotiations, it seems that the money has been found to help Metrolink go the extra mile with the remainder being found from existing AGMA budgets.

Mrs Rigby wonders if, if her nearest city was given a tram system to make it easier to get around without needing to use a car, she would be interested in getting an ID card. - On balance, probably not!