LSE hits back over ID cards
The London School of Economics (LSE) has said the response of home secretary Charles Clarke to its report on ID cards smacked of “desperation”.
Mr Clarke described the LSE report, which asked serious questions of the government’s plans to introduce biometric ID cards, as a “technically incompetent piece of work”.
He said one of the report’s authors, Simon Davies, came “from a highly partisan position”, adding that the report did discredit to the LSE.
But as the legislation that will bring about a national ID card system enters its committee stage, the row rumbled on with Mr Davies criticising the home secretary’s comments.
“To go in on an attack the way they have indicates to me a level of desperation that indicates just how bad things have gone for the government,” Mr Davies said.
Speaking to the Today programme, he admitted he was opposed to ID cards but said that he had not been the driving force behind the report but one of two mentors.
“This is far bigger than one person. It involved 120 over-viewers and researchers and contributors,” he said.
And Mr Davies confirmed that the LSE had put forward an alternative proposal for ID cards, which he said had been “completely overlooked” in the publicity about costings.
“If both sides are prepared to come out from their corners and say let’s work towards this alternate model where we can garner public trust, then we can work over the summer in developing a model which I think the British people would support.”
ID cards are among the government’s most controversial policies, with critics questioning both the cost and reliability of the proposed scheme.
Campaigners have warned that requiring citizens to carry identification would undermine civil liberties and turn the UK into a police state.
The home secretary however maintains that ID cards would help stamp out benefit fraud and support the work of the security services.
The identity cards bill is currently at the standing committee stage ahead of its third reading in the House of Commons.
