How did I miss this?

“This month, NO2ID and a growing number of other organisations* ask that you renew your passport… Did you know that, from October of this year, as preparation for the ID scheme, ALL first-time passport applicants will have background checks and be interviewed by officials at one of the government’s 69 new ‘enrolment centres’? This will include your children as they reach 16“ (http://www.no2id.net/ 7 May 2006) At the moment, existing passport holders are not included in this but they will be.

Granted this means coming up with £51 now, but the ID style one will cost at least £93, according to no2ID. And will get you stuck in the sytem for life.

Anti-ID rants have been a bit lacking here for a few weeks, so I thought I’d better do some web searching about the current state of the inexorable march of ID. I found this excellent quote on http://www.no2id.net/ :

“I’ve read Orwell’s ‘1984’ – I don’t want my kids to live in it.” Andy..

There is an interesting article on the excellent no2id.net site that refers to the plan to merge the Office of National Statistics’ Citizen Information Project with the iD database, at even greater expense but allegedly saving millions after 2021. (Hmm. If anyone knows of a database that has stayed in the same format on the same hardware for more than 5 years, please tell me. Not to mention, if anyone has the capacity to calculate costs in a decade and a half’s time)

The same article links to an article in the Times that refers to a plan to add medical information to the ID database, allegedly to save lives in emergency situations while at the same time helping to prevent people without valid cards from accessing NHS resources. It brings up a quite disturbing image of doctors turning away sick and injured people who haven’t got the right ID.

And, I don’t know about you, but I find the idea of plague carriers remaining untreated personally threatening. In “The Gift Relationship,” Richard Titmuss argued years ago that Britishtransfusion service blood was far safer than US blood because it was donated out of altruism rather than a need for money. i.e Altruism in health care is more profitable for public health than selfishness.

I think this principle can be extended to the illegal immigrants gaining access to the NHS. I would much rather pay my NHS contribution and accept that the occasional person who hasn’t paid gets treated than rigorously exclude everyone who hasn’t paid their stamp and risk dying of TB or AIDS.

I am totally distressed to see that David Cameron said on May 3 that he would stop the ID fiasco. http://www.no2id.net/news/newsblog/index.php Distressed because it’s dispiriting to see that I am agreeing with a Tory leader on an issue of public security for the first time in my life. Old age is creeping up on me it appears.

By the way, http://www.no2id.net/ sells good-looking t-shirts that say NO ID. I have to get some.

The wonderful David Attenborough is 80. When most octogenarians are lucky if they aren’t in a grim care home, Attenborough is still actively promoting his concerns for the environment. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4976552.stm) He must be the best-ever presenter/creator of science and nature programmes. Every year, he brings amazing new content to remind us of the fragile diversity of life on Earth.

Attenborough has had a wonderful life, having seen so many of the fragile marvels of the world. He personifies all the positive qualities of an ideal of aristocratic Englishness – adventurousness, intelligence, wit,  moral worth, charm, willingness to endure hardships and joys with equal stoicism – that were rarely found in reality rather than ideology. 

Digital channels have been showing his programmes from throughout the past decades.  These are almost always brilliant. In his BBC radio interview, he is careful to credit the cameramen as the real creators of the stunning footage that we associate with Attenborough.  However, it is his majestic and much parodied  delivery that makes so many of these programmes unforgettable.

The BBC site says that he got his first presentation job by chance, despite the misgivings of an administrator over the size of his teeth. This suggests that a modern Attenborough would be unlikely to get near the screen. Present day tv presenters tend to be either comedy “mad scientist” stereotypes or perfectly groomed forgettable clones. Attenborough is certainly distinctive without ever being a hysterical mad scientist. His delivery is  perfectly judged. His voice is unmistakable, with its odd tendency to whisper for greater effect.  He approaches the viewer as someone like himself, with all the aristocratic virtues.

If ever there was a 50s “Boys Own” hero in the real world, David Attenborough comes close.