Post debacle delivers Brown identity crisis

Post by **TrueBlueTerrier** » 23 Nov 2007, 18:23

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1841672007

HOW often have we been lectured by public information adverts or the Royal Mail to use that postcode. How often in daily life are we told "You need the postcode"?

And yet it would seem that the failure to use this simple little device, that combination of six or seven letters and numbers, that has caused the biggest political embarrassment in years and could cost individuals, and eventually the Government, millions.

As I understand it, the junior official that addressed the jiffy bag containing two CDs with the names, addresses and bank account details of twenty-five million people receiving child benefit didn't write out the full address, but just put - National Audit Office, London!

What may have happened to the data we may never know - but make no mistake it is highly valuable.

Child benefit is a universal benefit paid to everyone with children, the Prime Minister's wife included. No disrespect is meant to anyone receiving means-tested benefits, but it is a matter of fact that those receiving child benefit include some of the wealthiest people in the country.

To organised criminals, these bank accounts are not just handy - they could be valuable beyond the dreams of avarice.

And yet the most brazen, the most incredulous statements by ministers have been saved for defending the Government's commitment to the planned identity card. Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Co know full well that any such system that will hold even more information of over sixty million people and can no longer retain the confidence of the public - if it ever did.

It is no use saying that there will be extra security checks for identity card information, the fact is that a simpler system has been blatantly ignored on more than one occasion and that a more complicated method will be even more open to errors. ID cards won't solve terrorism in Britain - because home-grown British terrorists will have ID cards too - and no-one can promise third parties won't gain access to the information they will hold.

Brown's Government is beginning to look not just visionless (and therefore uninspiring) but accident-prone too. After a good summer, he has presided over the "will-he, won't-he" debacle that undermined his perceived qualities as a dependable and decisive leader; then we had the Northern Rock saga that continues to get messier and messier by the day; this was followed by the hapless Home Office losing thousands of immigrants; not to be outdone by the contradictory Government evidence in favour of expanding beyond 28 days the period that alleged terrorists can be held - and now this shambles over the missing benefit information. Mr Brown has only been in power a matter of months and his administration is already beginning to look tired and worn out.

The City is hugely nervous and fears a British property slump on the back of the American one.

The last time that happened, John Major's public accounts were in surplus and moved to deficit. If it happens in the next few years, Mr Darling's accounts will already be in deficit - meaning a disastrous financial cocktail.

The road for Mr Brown looks rocky from here on in. Ditching the identity card would win him political capital and buy him time. If he won't ditch it, the parliament may yet do it for him.

He is better jumping - before he's pushed.

Post by **baldrick** » 23 Nov 2007, 23:40

Well if it had been sent by Royal mail it would have been delivered. I know where the National Audit Office is.

k979aaa · Post by **k979aaa** » 24 Nov 2007, 00:10

For GORDON BROWN has all the vision of david blunket the ex home secretary of state!. GORDON THE GREAT doesn't even have the foresight to see that his sorry (tony blair's) identity card scheme is dead in the murkey water's of his shady govenment!.

andy2007 · Post by **andy2007** » 24 Nov 2007, 15:54

k979aaa wrote:For GORDON BROWN has all the vision of david blunket the ex home secretary of state!. GORDON THE GREAT doesn't even have the foresight to see that his sorry (tony blair's) identity card scheme is dead in the murkey water's of his shady govenment!.

Don't count on it. They will probably introduce a compulsary ID Card anyway, they are obsessed with having a "Big Brother" Country.

yogibear · Post by **yogibear** » 24 Nov 2007, 16:16

I hate Gordon Brown. This is the big fat bastard who said in parliament, THEY SHOULD ACCEPT THE TERMS AND GET BACK TO WORK. this from a labour prime minister? One eyed clown

brothermagrew · Post by **brothermagrew** » 24 Nov 2007, 16:33

baldrick wrote:Well if it had been sent by Royal mail it would have been delivered. I know where the National Audit Office is.

Good for you but it would have been much better (coming through the Royal Mail system) if an ordinary hard working postie had stuck an address incomplete sticker on it.

Post by **baldrick** » 24 Nov 2007, 17:41

Yeah sorry if I sounded like I was boasting, wrote that when I was a bit the worse for drink last night.
But incomplete addresses can often be traced by the Blind Duties in Mail Centres.

littleshit · Post by **littleshit** » 24 Nov 2007, 22:05

If we had lost them it would have been Headlines in all the papers.

littleshit · Post by **littleshit** » 24 Nov 2007, 22:54

Going by the BBC news another 6 discs are missing.