Ministers have rolled back central element of digital ID plans, possibly allowing people to use other forms of identification to prove their right to work
Here are extracts from three interesting comment articles about the digital ID U-turn.
Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman in the New Statesmans says there were high hopes for the policy when it was first announced.
I remember a leisurely lunch over the summer when a supporter of digital IDs told me how they thought Keir Starmer would reset his premiership. Alongside a reorganisation of his team in Number 10, and maybe a junior ministerial reshuffle, they predicted he would announce in his speech at party conference that his government would be embracing digital IDs. “It will allow him to show he’s willing to do whatever it takes to tackle illegal immigration,” was their rationale.
Sure enough, Starmer announced “phase two” of his government, reshuffled his top team and, on the Friday before Labour party conference, he duly announced his government would make digital IDs mandatory for workers. “We need to know who is in our country,” he said, arguing that the IDs would prevent migrants who “come here, slip into the shadow economy and remain here illegally”.
In policy terms, I don’t think you particularly gain anything by making the government’s planned new digital ID compulsory.
One example of that: Kemi Badenoch has both criticised the government’s plans to introduce compulsory ID, while at the same time committing to creating a “British ICE” that would go around deporting large numbers of people living in the UK. In a country with that kind of target and approach, people would be forced to carry their IDs around with them in any case! The Online Safety Act, passed into law by the last Conservative government with cross-party support and implemented by Labour, presupposes some form of ID to work properly.
Here is the political challenge for Downing Street: the climbdowns, dilutions, U- turns, about turns, call them what you will, are mounting up.
In just the last couple of weeks, there has been the issue of business rates on pubs in England and inheritance tax on farmers.
We welcome Starmer’s reported U-turn on making intrusive, expensive and unnecessary digital IDs mandatory. This is a huge success for Big Brother Watch and the millions of Brits who signed petitions to make this happen.
The case for the government now dropping digital IDs entirely is overwhelming. Taxpayers should not be footing a £1.8bn bill for a digital ID scheme that is frankly pointless.
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© Photograph: Parliament Live
© Photograph: Parliament Live
© Photograph: Parliament Live
US president says Jamie Dimon was wrong to suggest he was undermining independence of central bank
Donald Trump has hit out at the JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, saying the Wall Street executive was wrong to suggest he was undermining the independence of the Federal Reserve.
The US president and his administration have come under fire for their attacks against the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, who is facing a criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice over alleged “abuse of taxpayer dollars” linked to renovations to the central bank’s headquarters in Washington.
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© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Shawn Thew/Pool/Shawn Thew - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock
After Guardian writers shared their choices, readers responded with picks from films including Withnail and I, Emily the Criminal and Chopper
The fact that he manages to save a kid’s life while remaining a sweary alcoholic without an ounce of dignity and self-respect … is positively heartwarming. GusCairns
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© Photograph: Murray Close/Getty Images
© Photograph: Murray Close/Getty Images
© Photograph: Murray Close/Getty Images
We’d like to hear from young people, parents and teachers about how Elon Musk’s controversial chatbot is affecting you
Degrading images of real women and children with their clothes digitally removed by Elon Musk’s Grok tool continue to be shared online, despite widespread alarm and a pledge by the platform to suspend users who generate them.
While some safeguards have been introduced, the ease with which the AI tool can be abused has raised urgent questions about consent, online safety and the ability of governments worldwide to regulate fast-moving AI technologies. Meanwhile, the misuse of AI to harass, humiliate and sexually exploit people – particularly women and girls – is rapidly escalating.
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© Photograph: Algi Febri Sugita/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Algi Febri Sugita/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Algi Febri Sugita/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
US owner scraps auction after bids from private equity firms fail to meet its £2bn sale expectations, report says
Coca-Cola has reportedly abandoned plans to sell its Costa Coffee chain after bids from private equity firms failed to meet its expectations.
The US soft drinks company halted discussions with remaining bidders in December, according to the Financial Times, ending a months-long auction process.
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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
The eccentric, sharp-eyed sitcom was so loved that it was once the fastest-selling DVD ever. A quarter of a century on from its Channel 4 debut, why has it fallen so far off the radar?
There are few British comedy shows that were as popular, yet now completely extinct, as Phoenix Nights. The sitcom – which ran for just two series between 2001-2002 – is set in a fictional working men’s club in Bolton, and was a huge hit of the physical media era. Its second series was once the fastest ever selling UK TV show on DVD, shifting 160,000 copies in its first week of release. However, it is now 25 years since it was first broadcast on Channel 4, and it does not feature, nor has it ever, on any streaming service. Instead, it’s confined to dodgy fan uploads on YouTube and the secondhand DVD market. It is also almost entirely absent from all of the major publications’ best TV of the 21st century listicles.
Nevertheless, it remains a programme like few others. Distinctly northern and working class, it crucially uses neither as the butt of its jokes. In the same way that The Royle Family turned the everyday routine of watching TV, bickering, having a brew and asking each other what they had for tea into a relatably funny yet poignant shared living-room experience, Phoenix Nights invites people through its sparkling tinsel curtains into the familiar yet fading glory of clubland.
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© Photograph: CHANNEL 4 PICTURE PUBLICITY
© Photograph: CHANNEL 4 PICTURE PUBLICITY
© Photograph: CHANNEL 4 PICTURE PUBLICITY
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