Identity cards are another invasion of privacy says rocker Roy Wood

May 31 2009 by Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

IDENTITY cards. Do we really need them?

The Home Office has triumphed yet again with another half-hearted attempt at legislation that once dissected, means absolutely zilch.

I have had enough of watching Jacqui Smith’s expression on our screens, face looking like a smacked bottom, desperately trying to convince the electorate that she is telling the truth.

According to our Home Secretary, this ID scheme will be imperative in the fighting of crime and terrorism.

OK, so it has presumably been well thought out, hasn’t it ?

Now it doesn’t need rocket science to work out that because the introductory scheme in Manchester is not compulsory, we’re hardly going to be swamped by queues of terrorists and crooks in post offices all over the country, waiting to supply their fingerprints to the authorities.

So it cannot be effective in significantly reducing crime.

Any police officer will tell you that their biggest problem has always been linking these crimes to the perpetrators, rather than simply trying to identify the individuals in the first place.