UK draft ID card bill gets ‘helpful’ tabloid support : Simon Perry: Schemes, dreams & trivia

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UK draft ID card bill gets ‘helpful’ tabloid support

26th April 2004 by Simon

Taking the tube into a meeting in London today I saw the headlines of two of the UK tabloids. The Sun’s headline was “MAYDAY!, As floodgates open to EU migrants, can Britain cope?” and the Daily Mail’s was along the lines of Abu Hamza declaring a series of suicide bombing in the UK, which he has subsequently denied.

So, migrants and terrorism; two of the fears that the right-wing press has been trying to force into its readers minds for a long time.

I think there’s no small co-incidence that today David Blunkett unveiled his draft ID card bill into the UK. This is an idea that has been consistently rejected by the public and each time it is, Blunkett goes away, rustles up some more reasons why he thinks the public should have it and comes back with it again three months later.

Last week The Times printed the results of a MORI poll that reported that 80% of those polled were in favour of ID cards. That is far from my experience.

The explanation of this imbalance may be explained by reading to the bottom of the MORI page - you see that the sample for the survey was only 1,000 people.

The really disturbing thing about this survey is that its results are now being held up by many politicians as THE view of the population of the UK - it isn’t.

Further reading - Privacy International have highlighted a number of worrying points in the Blunkett bill.

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