We have a duty to refund the volunteer victims of ID cards

When the Identity Cards Act 2006 was passed, some people were delighted. I was not one of them. Still, we’re told that 12,000 Britons rushed out and bought £30 ID cards voluntarily. Bully for them.
The government’s defeat in the House of Lords, in which the upper house voted to give refunds to card-holders, really stuck in my craw. Amidst the Labour apparatchiks, one individual’s vote for the ID card crowd stuck out: the sole Liberal Democrat, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. This is a man that came to fame as the liberal ‘Legal Eagle’ on Jimmy Young’s Radio 2 show. He was the Lib Dems’ Lords spokesperson on ID cards when the act was passed. I applaud his track record, but on this issue, he’s dead wrong.
We should feel for those that spent their money embracing ID cards. Bombarded with a cascade of flimsy pretexts, and myriad images of Jacqui Smith gurning with her card, who could blame their decision?
But the Identity Card Act made no reference to a refund. People that surrender their passports don’t receive one. There’s simply no reason to expect a money-back guarantee – they were not victims, but volunteers.
Even in an era of bail-outs, we have no duty to bail-out Labour’s £30 identity theft. The Lords’ decision was a farce: precipitated by a party-political two-fingers up at common sense. And Lord Phillips should know that.
By Oliver Cooper.
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