Keep Him Out!

A Florida pastor has been invited to the UK to speak at an English Defence League rally in February.

One wonders why the pastor of a church with less than forty members should be invited to speak but, of course, this is the man who achieved international notoriety for threatening to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It has rightly been said that extremism breeds extremism, and we have enough extremists of our own without inviting any more into the country to stir things up. So I for one would welcome a decision by the Home Secretary to keep this fellow out of it!
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Gone!

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Perhaps few government proposals in recent years, other than the hated Poll Tax which bought about the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, have aroused so much hostility as the last government’s introduction of identity cards.

The introduction of these cards elicited claims that they were an intrusion and that the country was moving closer to a police state. Others took the view that many countries used identity cards and that their citizens didn’t seem to mind having them. Indeed, when living in America I had to have an ID card and it came in very handy when cashing cheques and making some purchases.

Anyway, the Home Secretary has now announced that the first bill of this new parliament, the Identity Documents Bill, will abolish identity cards within one hundred days. For many, this will be good news. But, perhaps, those who had lashed out £30 on a shiny new ID card won’t be too happy to learn that they will not be getting a refund.

What has come out of yesterday’s announcement is the news that the ID card scheme has so far cost the country £250 millions and that scrapping it will save £800 millions over the next ten years.

That’s some saving!
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