Is an ID card revolt brewing?
A YouGov poll commissioned by The Telegraph has revealed that a significant proportion of the population would refuse to accept an ID card even when faced with a fine or prison term. The government have claimed in the past that there was widespread support for the scheme (although it’s not hard to imagine a survey that would generate a favourable result: Q - “Would you accept an ID card if it would stop terrorism and prevent identity fraud”; A - “Yes”. That both those claims are widely discredited won’t cause an unscrupulous and well funded statistician to lose much sleep).
39% of respondents to the YouGov poll said that they were opposed to ID cards, of those opposed 21% would be prepared to face a fine. Given the UKs current population of approximately 60 million that means that the government could be forced to take action against 4.8 million people. Of course it’s very easy to be bullish when filling out a questionnaire so the reality will no doubt be a rather smaller revolt but even a million people refusing to take a card could be enough to turn this into Labour’s Poll Tax. No politician wants to be associated with a policy that leads to rioting but so far Mr Brown seems to be as keen on ID cards as his soon to be predecessor.
December 7th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Yeah you’re absolutely right. But I fear that when it comes to it we’ll all accept ID cards. Will you be rioting Jonny? Will you cut up your ID card?
The statistical trend is also interesting. The YouGov figures show that in 2003 78% were in favour. 2005- 45%, 2006- 50%. It seems that more are in favour than a year ago, even though this year there has been more negative press- costs, failure of the technology etc
December 7th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
You know me, the original yes man. There are two possible scenarios: 1) Rioters bang on my door. “Dude, coming rioting?”, “Yes.” 2) Government apparatchik comes to the door “Will you take this ID card, sir?”, “Yes.”
It’s a race against time for my support!