Best Of

All part of the Nigel for PM narrative. Who is funding this lot?

A rogue or bad poll is one where you disagree with the result?

Nothing to do with the quality of the poll, which seems accurate according to all recent evidence. The problem is Farage is not being subjected to ANY scrutiny by some mainstream media channels whereas every else is.

Farage's catastrophic paracetamol-autism interview with Ferrari on LBC led every LBC bulletin on Wednesday and was picked up by ITV. Absolutely nothing from the BBC. Zip, nada, nothing. Chris Mason's fawning eulogy on the nature of the Reform Conference was quite remarkable and drove a coach and horse through the BBC's impartiality remit.

Call the beggars out!

As the Labour Party conference begins, can we take a breath and appreciate what we are seeing?

15 months after winning a HUGE landslide the government are now polling distant 2nd at best - or 3rd at worst. With Starmer the least popular PM ever (and that's with recent stiff opposition). With rebellion in the ranks and the King in the North on manoeuvres.

What is the government's Big Plan to win back support and transform the political agenda? Mandatory digital ID cards! How to keep digging from the bottom of the pit.

Are they this disconnected from reality already?

Yes, and it’s fascinating. Other parties take note - this is what happens when you spend all your energy desperately saying nothing controversial in order to win government, and then don’t have a clue what you want to do when you get there.

The Ming Vase strategy has been the death of this government. It’s biggest misstep. The second was that the only policy they came out with (not to raise IT/NI/VAT) hamstrung them on fiscal policy.

So you have a government with no mandate for anything, with no money, with limited scope to pull the fiscal levers in a way that would help, and with a gang of backbenchers who don’t feel beholden to any kind of policy agenda.

It has been an utter disaster.

I do find some of the hysteria over ID cards rather strange given how much data the government already holds .

We happily have driving licences , passports etc . Once again No 10 comms have been useless .

You get out there , frame the debate before others do . Starmer should have had an evening news conference, laid out the plans and stressed it isn’t just about the boats .

If Labour wanted to introduce this, it should have said so in its manifesto. It’s a policy for which it should have obtained a democratic mandate, particularly because it has been proposed and scrapped before.

Do you guys want to “stop the boats” or what? I would prefer we didn’t have compulsory ID cards but ultimately we need to do something different and this is one thing to try

No it isn't.

Anyone hiring anyone illegally, cash in hand, already is breaking the existing laws.

Anyone hiring anyone legally, is already taking proof of right to work in the UK.

Stopping the boats by introducing ID cards is about as meaningful as wearing a balaclava to prevent pregnancy.

I mean that’s just factually incorrect - this would provide a validated, quick and cheap way to check

To check what?

What is the problem that compulsory ID cards are trying to solve?
If it is illegal hiring of immigrants, a simpler solution is to make it legal.
Then they can help the economy and support themselves instead of being a drain on taxpayers.

What are the criteria to get an ID card? It can't be NI number, passport, NHS number or driving licence as not every one has one.
I can see a lot of hard cases, particularly with old people or people who migrated here many years ago.
And if you don't have one, what are the consequences? I know Reform would deport you using balaclavad UK ICE.

I'd have thought a decent digital ID system could potentially have driving license no, NI number, NHS number, passport as child fields of the overarching national ID no.

Because of course there is absolutely no problem with having all that information in one place, which if lost or stolen, will be an absolute gold mine for the thief.

It is an utterly daft authoritarian idea, for which Labour has no mandate.

Plus imagine the utter fuck up which Fujitsu or similar will make of the database behind it.

All linked back to a unique iris scan

Iris says she's unique, but how come everyone has her scan?

She teaches many pupils?

I can see what you did there. The joke couldn't be cornea.