ID card morphing as we watch

And it seems like it's an admission that we were right to be making the criticisms we have been (just do a search on "ID_cards" on this blog). Here's what some of the chief critics of the UK government's scheme have been saying

The government should instead use the money to set up a dedicated UK border police, said Mr Davis.
Nick Clegg, for the Liberal Democrats, said: "These are sticking plaster measures in which the government is cutting corners to make the increasingly unpopular ID card scheme more palatable.
"The fact remains that however much John Reid rearranges the deckchairs, ID cards are doomed to be unacceptably expensive, intrusive and unmanageable."
The SNP called the move an "embarrassing u-turn" which proved the Home Office was "not fit for purpose".
Campaign group No2ID said "mixing up" new data with existing data meant the system would be "even less secure than originally suggested".
The idea that this could then be integrated with banks' chip and pin system, as the Home Office has proposed, was "farcical" in practical terms, a spokesman added.

In fact, there is the intriguing suggestion that this could pave the way for a climb-down.

the change of approach could also offer Gordon Brown an escape route, should he become prime minister and opt to scrap or scale back ID cards.
“It doesn’t close off an ID card scheme,” one senior industry figure said. “But it lets the government proceed with two things it really cares about – e-border controls and an identity management system that will let citizens do e-business more easily with government – while allowing a successor to Tony Blair to drop or significantly amend the ID cards project if that’s what they want to do.”

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