Skipper

In May 2005 David Davis asked five questions of Blair's ID Cards proposal: will it achieve its stated goals? is the government capable of introducing such a system? is it cost-effective? can civil liberties be safeguarded? Today we hear of rustlings in the undergrowth that Gordon Brown himself has, at the very least, doubts about question two.

It seems our PM has been struck by the possibility that rolling out a major nationwide IT scheme, likely to cost, according to the LSE team, £24bn., might prove as disastrous as the multi- billion pound NHS scheme or the equally shambolic tax credit scheme which ended up paying claimants much more than they should have received and then sought to claw the money back. Brown wants assurances that the scheme will work. All the internal reviews are being withheld from public scrutiny, despite robust attempts under the FOI to find out whether they are as negative as reports suggest.

A further review of the technology would be an excellent precaution but my feelings have always been that if I cannot give positive answers to any of Davis's questions, based on what I have read about the scheme- and I cannot- the misbegotten plan should be binned as soon as possible.