Steady progress by the forces of sanity

No2ID pulled off a major coup with its mayoral hustings. Ken didnt show up and was branded a coward by the-man-whom-Ministers-are forbidden-from-calling-Boris, who promised to cut his ID card and “sprinkle it on my cornflakes”. Details from BBC below.

And CAAT has won a High Court ruling that the Government acted unlawfully when it curtailed a corruption investigation into BAE Systems’ Al Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia.

Earlier on Tuesday evening, Mr Paddick and Mr Johnson took part in a debate organised by NO2ID, which campaigns against identity cards and the “database state”.

Mr Livingstone declined to attend, prompting Mr Johnson to brand him a “confirmed chicken”.

The panel, which also included Left List candidate Lyndsey German, UKIP’s Gerard Batten and Jenny Jones, standing in for Green candidate Sian Berry, were united in their condemnation of the government’s ID card scheme...Mr Paddick told the meeting that like his party leader, Nick Clegg, he would rather go to prison than carry an ID card - and he criticised the use of Oyster travel card records to track people’s movements, saying it was “the beginning of a police state”.

“I resent the fact that just because I have auto top-up on my Oyster card, that means Transport for London can monitor exactly where I am whenever I go by bus and whenever I go to an underground station”.

He said he would restrict the use by police of Oyster data and congestion charge cameras, except for suspected terrorist offences and violent crime - a pledge echoed by Mr Johnson.

Mr Johnson attacked ID cards as “morally and economically bankrupt” and pledged to cut his card up and “sprinkle it on my cornflakes”.

He went further than party leader David Cameron by speaking out against the issuing of ID cards to non-EU migrants, which begins this year, saying it was “creepy and wrong”.

Published by William Heath on 10/04/08 at 5:29pm

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