Sooner than you think!

According to the Financial Times, the government are planning to go into overdrive when it comes to issuing ID cards:

Labour plans to race forward with the contentious identity cards scheme to ensure the multi-billion pound infrastructure is up and running before the next election, neutering a Tory pledge to scrap it.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, this month said that ID cards were a monument to over-mighty government. “I promise you this – in office, we will pull it down,” he said.

But Andy Burnham, the home office minister responsible for the scheme, said Mr Cameron’s “throwaway line” would be rendered irrelevant by the rapid roll-out of the scheme. He said it would be a fait accompli by the 2008 or 2009 expected date of the next general election. “I’m keen to see plenty of ID cards in circulation come the next election,” he said. “The whole landscape will have changed by the time if – and it’s a big if – the Tories ever get anywhere near power.”

At first I thought “Fuck!”, but that I thought “The more the rush it, the greater the chance of a complete balls up occurring as they technology won’t be ready, especially with this government’s record with big IT projects,” so I’m in favour of this plan – the earlier the better, I say!

By the way, does anyone find it disturbing that the government are rushing through the ID card roll out simply because they want to screw the Tories (or a potential coalition government) into keeping them, not because they are confident about the technology?