The BBC has trailed excerpts from the interview given by Sir Ian Blair, the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, which is due to be broadcast at 8am this Sunday (to fit in with coverage of the London Marathon) on the BBC1 "Breakfast with Frost" television programme.
Why is the supposedly independent Metroplitan Police Commissioner, supposedly the most senior policeman in the UK, making political statements of any sort during the General Election campaign ?
Other senior public servants are bound by a code of ethical good conduct (and common sense) not to do so, as they have to work with whichever political party or coalition forms the next Government.
Sir Ian Blair still obviously does not actually understand the devilish detailed implications of the New Labour Home Office's dreadful ID Cards and centralised National Register databases plans.
His apparent faith in "iris recognition" biometric technology is also naive, especially as most of the world's plans for Biometric Passports will not make use of them.
Sir Ian Blair mentions the notorious Kemal Bourgass case with respect to the problems of identity.
"Asked whether ID cards should be introduced after the election, he said: "I think there has to be further consideration of that."I wasn't particularly keen on ID cards until recently - until I began to understand the way in which identity theft is carried out.
"There are no more printing presses in basements. The documents that are being produced are exactly identical to the real documents, they're just unauthorised," he said.
"And so we have to go to a place where we do know who people are. We now have the technology, I think through iris recognition, to go to that and I think that would be very helpful."
He said the problem with people such as Bourgass was that they were unknown to authorities."
He does not, in the extracts broadcast or made available online so far, explain how iris scanning, fingerprinting and photographing 60 million innocent people would have had any effect whatsover in preventing or catching Bourgass, an illegal immigrant who had already been arrested for shoplifting and criminally fingerprinted.
The Evening Standard ran a piece on Thursday 14th April about the "no Rcin found plot" case, which points out that those arrested had various multiple or false documents on them, for which some of them have been arrested.
"The eight with fake IDs who found a home in Britain" Alistar Foster Evening Standard, page 5 Thursday 14th April 2005
This lists:
- Mustapha Taleb, 35, Algerian - "false French passport"
- Mouloud Sihali, 29, Algerian - "admitted having a false French ID and using a fake Italian ID card." "Bought a fake UK passport for £280"
- David Aissa Khalif, 33 Algerian - "fake passport (unspecified) and Italian driving licence". "Admitted possessing six French and Belgian passport"
- Sidali Feddag, 20, Algerian - "entered the country aged 17 on his father's passport in 2000"
- Kamel Mezoug, 34, Algerian - "granted asylum in 2001 and issued with a UK passport in his own name" - therefore he would have been issued with a genuine UK biometric ID card, had the system been in place the. Admitted to "using two false identities after he was granted asylum"
- Samir Ali, 31, Algerian - "Owned three fake passports - Spanish, Italian and French"
- Mouloud Bouhrama, 33, Algerian - "Now facing trial for possessing a false passport" (type not specified). "Had at least six false identies" (presumably none of the British ones).
- Khalid Alwerfeli, 31, Libyan - "facing trial for possessing a false passport" (presumably not a UK one) "Entered the UK using a forged ID card" "Had two aliases" (which are not illegal if they are not used to defraud or mislead)
So if there had been a perfect UK ID card scheme linked to a perfect UK Passport system, as vaguely promised by New Labour, and apparently called for by Sir Ian Blair, it might possibly only have detected the one cheap (£280) fake UK passport and it would and could have had no effect on the twenty six or so other fake or false identity documents used by these eight illegal immigrants.
Sir Ian Blair also seems to be calling for even more vague "catch all" anti-terrorism laws, an is implicitly criticising the "not gulity" verdicts brought in on some of those mentioned above, more on this tommorrow, if we get to review the interview.
"So Kamel Bourgass was fingerprinted and released by police before killing Stephen Oake. Maybe immigration applicants should be fingerprinted but I'm a bit confused as to how spying on the rest of us would have prevented the policeman's death."
-- letter sent to The Independent.