webofevil | Citizens must not go bald

Plans for a national ID card scheme have been branded "farcical" after suggestions it might misidentify people with brown eyes or men who go bald

Commons pin-up Tony McNulty's comment is typical of the government's approach: "we think the technology can only get better and better and better."

At the heart of New Labour there seem to be two key ideas:

(1) implement change at all costs, because even if you make things infinitely worse, at least you did something, and

(2) anything with a computer in it is brilliant.

Also,

(2)(i) Anyone who knows how to work a computer must also be brilliant,

which is the only explanation for how easily this lot are baffled with bullshit.

This was vividly illustrated last year, when Alastair Darling proudly unveiled the new computerised section of the driving test. You sit at a monitor which shows footage filmed from the windscreen of a moving car. As soon as a potential hazard appears up ahead (mother with pram, truck turning left, member of government standing in road staring open-mouthed at computer, etc), you have to click the mouse, and the sooner you click, the higher your score. However, as this was being demonstrated by a roomful of students, it rapidly became clear that you could score highest not by demonstrating any knowledge of the road, but by randomly clicking the moment the footage started playing. Cue derision, embarrassment, the painful sight of middle-aged ministers trying to understand new technology. "Oh, gosh, computers? Gosh. Wow. Have some money."