Robin Wilton's esoterica

The government is not inclined to accept Lord Phillips of Sudbury's proposed compromise (described in this previous post), under which inclusion in the National Identity Register would remain voluntary for the next 5 years. MPs have today rejected that amendment and the Bill will now return to the Lords. Home Secretary Charles Clarke described their Lordship's persistence as "a deliberate plan for delay and destruction". But then, he's having a bit of a sound-bite day. He has also said today that Tony Blair will stay in office for another two years before opening the way to a Labour leadership challenge, and has cast aspersions on the competence of Jack Dromey, the Labour party treasurer who criticised Downing Street for not telling him about $14m in loans to the party's election fund. I know we're supposed to hate Home Secretaries... after all, they are the political face of Law Enforcement, and thus of the infringement of our rights to do whatever we fancy. But Mr Clarke does seem to be going out of his way to wind some of his colleagues up.

It's one thing for bloggers and pundits to comment on illogicalities and absurdities in government policy, but to see it really done properly it seems you have to turn to an MP from the government's own ranks. Home Office Minister Andy Burnham must have loved it when this missive from Labour MP Lynne Jones arrived in his inbox. My thanks to the "Tomorrow's Fish and Chip Paper" blog for the link.

Yesterday the House of Lords yet again rejected the ID Cards Bill on the grounds that it makes registration in the National Identity Register compulsory for anyone who renews a passport. The issue of compulsion has become the key political objection to the Bill, and has also broadened the debate to one which now encompasses some fundamental tenets of the UK parliamentary system. I am learning this stuff as the debate progresses, so let me try and set out the main points for you... --- As long as the Lords keep defeating the Bill and the Commons keep approving it, the stalemate could theoretically continue indefinitely; --- Two things could bring it to an end: either one side compromises and accepts the Bill or the amendments, or the government invokes the Parliament Act (see my recent post for details of how that works), in which case the Bill goes into law despite the Lords' objections, after an interval of a year. --- The Commons could also invoke the 'Salisbury Convention' (see this previous post for details) and assert that the Lords have no authority to oppose a manifesto commitment. This is where the broader argument gets interesting. The Lords argue that the manifesto commitment was to a voluntary scheme initially, that the current proposal is not voluntary, and that no-one reading the manifesto commitment would reasonably interpret it as meaning the kind of scheme now proposed. Therefore, they maintain, the Salisbury Convention does not apply. Lord Phillips of Sudbury (Liberal Democrat peer) has put forward a compromise amendment, under which people applying for a passport between now and 2011 would be given a choice as to whether that also led to being added to the NIR. From 2012 the NIR entry would become compulsory. On the face of it that just looks like a delay; however, the timing is such that a General Election would have to take place in the meantime, which in turn would mean that ID Cards could become a clear election issue. Of course, in advance of a General Election the parties would have to publish their manifestos, and any pledges relating to ID Cards would be bound to come under rather careful scrutiny (now that people are rather more aware of the kind of 'small print' to look out for). It's tempting to think of a General Election as a definitive test of public opinion on something like this, and certainly the incumbent government regard the outcome as proof of a mandate for their legislative intentions. However, it's always dangerous to say "we said we were going to do 'x', and they voted for us: therefore we have a mandate to do 'x'". First, there's the problem that the proportion of Brits turning out to vote continues to decline; polls seem to show that a lot of this is the result of voter apathy and disillusionment with the political process. Then there's the related issue that any party's share of such a low voter turn-out will inevitably be well below 50% of the electorate... so what they actually have is a mandate from the largest segment of those who could be bothered to vote in the first place. Then there's the issue that a vote is a binary thing. You can't say "I'm voting for you because I approve of your policy on education and tax, but I disagree with your policy on ID Cards" --- you get the whole package, plus, of course, anything which may not have been in the manifesto but which looks like a good idea during the course of a government's life. Finally, there's the political reality of it, which is that most governments get voted out because people are fed up with what they have done, not because they like the look of what the alternative bunch say they will do. In the current climate, there seem to be a growing number of issues over which the public might express such a feeling at the polls: the current 'cash for peerages' allegations, the continuingly bloody mess in Iraq, the pensions crisis, the huge hole in the Health Service budget, and so on. In that context, ID Cards are just part of the tapestry.