Hoon 'ponders passport checks', but talks about ID cards

I'm late with this, but it is necessary to echo what a number of other bloggers have already said - what is the point of another level of so-called security, in the form of ID cards, if we are not making use of the perfectly good method of identifying people we already have, passports, when they leave the country?

This Labour government is obsessed with the trappings of security and announces with tedious regularity the necessity of introducing further 'regulation', but seems unwilling to implement legislation already in place. If the comment by a Eurostar official is accurate, that 'there is no permanent point manned by UK officials, but checks are implemented at times of heightened security', whereas there is a 'permanent passport checking point, manned by French officials, in place at Waterloo Station', then I should be very interested to know just what, in the fantasy world occupied by Mr Hoon and his New Labour colleagues, contstitues a period requiring of heightened security?

Labour's basic instinct, even in the guise of so-called 'New Labour', is still to control with lots of stick, but very little carrot, but they are so incompetent that they confuse grandiose declarations of intent without being willing to follow-up with action where it matters. It is tabloid politics of the very worst kind - trying to appeal to the voters who read the Daily Mail, without offending their core Daily Mirror-based support. But neither group can be fooled for ever, surely? Labour's real skill, as with many socialistically-inclined parties, is in the dissemination of propaganda rather than the efficient execution of their own, never mind more sensible, policies - so it could be some time yet before the British public finally grows tired of these flim-flam artists.