My worry is that the contracts for the private sector work to setup the infrastructure will be booby trapped by penalty clauses, making it difficult to pull out of the scheme. Interesting that the overall cost is quoted as £4.7bn but the tories reckon they'd only save the exchequer £2bn by scrapping the scheme.
Don't forget that the Civil Service doesn't change with a change of Government - despite its politicisation by the Stalinist Party. The same faces will be there after the next election....I'll bet with their Departmentmental budget allotment to protect - and associated jobs - the Oppositions plans to chop the scheme aren't too popular.
The cards themselves, if forged, will make it easier for badhats to fraudulently represent themselves as the legitimate cardholder. The scheme's a nightmare. I'm MAN based and hope this all goes away before I'm made to get one of these things. I never thought the day would come when, as a British Citizen, I routinely had to justify who I was to the Civil "Servant" wanting me to do so.
It shows you how utterly wrong we've gone when you see the result of a number of inbounds arriving together in one of Manchester's terminals very early on a Sunday Morning during Summer. Last year the queues waiting to clear passport control stretched the entire length of the terminal. The vast majority of them were UK passport holders back from their hols. UK passport holders trying to return to their own country, and having their passports minutely examined by the reduced complement of border agency staff at that time of the morning. Hmmm. The project is well underway.
