The British government has abandoned its plans to force airside workers in London City and Manchester airports to sign up for ID cards after workers and unions kicked up a fuss.

No2ID and others are calling it a humiliating climb down but don’t get too excited about the demise of the ID card scheme because it’s far from dead.  Airside workers will no longer be required to have the ID cards (yet) but Mancunians are going to be spammed relentlessly from the end of the year telling them to volunteer for ID cards and the rest of the North West and London will be offered voluntary ID cards from next year.  And every over-75 is going to be given a free ID card.

The amounts of money being spent on this particular white elephant are obscene, especially when the national debt has reached 150% of GDP and the Tories have said they will cancel the whole ID card scheme after the next election.  Of course, you generally can’t trust Camoron to tell the truth (his lies about the EU constitution are a prime example), but the Tories have written to the 5 main companies bidding for ID card contracts warning them not to invest any serious money in them because they’re going to be cancelled.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised to find an incoming Tory government saying that the cost of cancelling the contracts would be too high and continuing the ID cards scam.

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