More ID Cards By The Back Door
Seen over on DefenceManagement.com:
Labour to create Veterans ID card
The Labour Party have pledged to provide free ID cards for forces’ leavers if re-elected to government.
“A veterans ID card will help veterans access their improved benefits and will be free to service leavers,” says the manifesto. “We will continue to strengthen mental health provision in partnership with the Combat Stress charity, and roll out our Welfare Pathway to give personnel and their families better support and advice.”
Are there no depths to which the Labour Party won’t sink in order to force unwanted and unneeded ID cards down the throats of an unwilling public? It seems that members of the Forces will have to have them to get their due will find that artificial barriers won’t be erected in their path if they surrender to the siren voices of civvy bureaucracy. The hope for Labour is, of course, that having carried a Forces ID card for a good few years it will seem as second nature to carry one out of uniform too.
The rest of us will recognise it as another insidious step on the path of making this tool of the police state a future legal requirement in ours.
Ahh, but will it allow you into GOM for Uber cheap Horses Neck’s?
It’s a risk not worth taking *shudders with fear*.
“having carried a Forces ID card for a good few years it will seem as second nature to carry one out of uniform ” Well spotted Mr Eye, same with schoolchildren and their library cards I expect.
Why not force MP’s to carry one in order to access all the benefits they currently get?
Let’s see how they like it….
I proudly carried a Forces ID Card for more years than I care to remember .. and since leaving HM Forces, I’ve been required to carry hpotographic ID in the jobs I’ve done ..
(A National ID Card would not have got you into any of those places) ..
As for Benefits, since I’m in receipt of a Service Pension .. I’m not entitled to any Benefits (not even Job Seekers Allowance) ..
I’m willing to bet that had my name been fucking “DeBique” or some such, they’d have been busting their collective guts to “help” me ..
But I’ve coped, despite the lack of “official” help .. So my answer is Bollocks to ’em …
I’ll carry a National ID Card IF & WHEN it suits MY purpose .. and NOT until ..
Oops .. should have read “Photographic” … :-[
They are such scroungers they wouldn’t care. Anything to keep the snouts firmly in the trough.
It’s all salami tactics, isn’t it? Slice by slice, slowly until it’s too late to roll things back.
I’m an Imperial measurements bloke, none of this metric nonsense if I can get away with it. But they don’t need to abolish real measurements and risk the political backlash – just teach only one version to kids and wait for the rest of us to die out. Sooner or later cards will seem “normal” and us holdouts will look like dinosaurs.
Agree with all that – I carried my card when I had to; now I don’t have to I don’t carry anything.
Fellow blogger here St Crispin better have his Forces card next week when he’s out here in Gib though….the Mess in HMS Rooke beckons!