Britain: Britain's new Home Secretary Mr Charles Clarke last night faced a baptism of fire in his first important test as home secretary when sceptical MPs from all sides of the Commons condemned the identity cards legislation he inherited from his predecessor Mr David Blunkett as illiberal, expensive and unworkable.
In a fresh demonstration of his determination to reinforce his bruiser's credentials, Mr Clarke made plain that, subject to a future vote, ID cards will eventually have to become compulsory - and that those MPs who oppose compulsion should vote No now.
But in response to the hail of criticism - which he and his allies said came from MPs who had "clearly" not read the Bill - the new home secretary promised to examine "every constructive suggestion" that would improve the measure.
It left a cross-party coalition of libertarian MPs, ex-ministers and lawyers, still threatening to vote against it. They backed a Tory colleague, Mr Bill Cash, who waved a copy of George Orwell's novel 1984 and warned that the proposal to create a national identity register, the core of the Bill, would create "a sea change" in the citizen's relationship with the state.
Mr Clarke opened the debate on the second reading of the Bill in the extraordinary position of being aligned with the last Tory home secretary, now the opposition leader, Mr Michael Howard, whose U-turn in support of ID cards - imposed on a divided shadow cabinet - guaranteed last night's rebellion on both sides of the Commons.
It also left Mr David Davis, Mr Clarke's Tory shadow, having to defend a measure he privately opposed which he did with a series of criticisms of its defects that did little to hide his earlier feelings.
Making the case for ID cards, Mr Clarke, long one of the cabinet's pro-card faction, said the case is strong "both in principle and in practice" in people's everyday lives.
The £5.5 billion estimated cost of the scheme, which is set to be introduced step-by-step over many years, will be offset by money saved from curbing benefit fraud, he said. - (Guardian Service)