March 7, 2008
There's clearly something in the water down at the Home Office. For it seems that whoever occupies the BIG CHAIR for any longer than a couple of minutes turns into a megalomaniac with ideas way above their station.
Just look at the roll-call of recent home secretaries: Blair's 'attack dog' John Reid, Blair's 'attack dog' Charles Clarke, and Blair's 'attack guide dog' David Blunkett. Mentalists all three.
The latest 'attack dog' to squeeze their bottom into the no-doubt top-dollar, luxurious World of Leather special issue, adjustable lounger, is none other than home secretary Jacqui Smith, whose mania for the ID card seems to know no bounds and makes the other dogs of war look like a pack of ferocious chihuahuas.
One minute she's telling us that airport workers will get it, the next that all migrant workers will have one, and now the madwoman has students in her sights.
Clearly, joined up thinking – and perhaps joined up writing too – is not one of Ms Smith's priorities.
From November foreign nationals will have to provide their biometric details, she is reported to have said. Presumably she means they will be having their biometric details taken, as bogus asylum seekers are not known for their commitment to providing legitimate documentation.
And as these foreign nationals will be unknown when they arrive, presumably they will be able to decide to change their personality at the port, get an ID card and begin living the Reggie Perrin dream.
Yours Truly sees this whole sorry affair as a golden business opportunity and is thinking of sneaking out to spain before emerging from the sea at Dover in a Daniel Craig-as-James-Bond kind of way (only with blue skin rather than blue trunks), before nipping down to the port office to claim his stash... sorry... to provide biometric details to a waiting attendant who couldn't possibly be bribed in any way... before claiming his free state handouts – or at the very least being giving a seven-bedroomed house in Margate from which to operate an unreliable and downright dangerous employment service for migrants.
