Boaty qualifications and Citizen ID cards.

[BlueSkyNick]

There is one ongoing debate about how to enforce compulsory testing and qualifications for us folk what goes to sea for fun.

There is a different national debate within Tony B-liar's camp suggesting that we and all other honest punters in the UK should be forced to carry an ID card so the rozzers, paramedics, tax inspectors, et al know who we are at all times.

If the ID card carries personal information such as medical records, tax information, criminal record and so on, then why don't we get them to add on our compulsory seaworthiness certificates too?

Two good ideas coming together as one, eh? I'm off to the pub now to congratulate myself - I'll look forward to reading the complimentary feedback in the morning.
/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Never be afraid to try something new.
Amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic

 

[ccscott49]

I`m all for it. compulsary everthing! Licences for everything, tax everything, you lot have too many freedoms, tax on boatie diesel, then the marinas can profiteer even more, tax on marina berths, tax on rivers, moorings and anchors (by size) Boat tax, mast tax, boat poll tax, that just about covers it Oh! and fender tax, pontoon tax, tender tax, beach tax, barbacue tax (smoke tax). slipway tax, trailer tax. Yacht club membership tax. Blue ensign tax. Most of these taxes already exist if you think about it.

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[Mizzenrabble]

Be assured, honest punters have nothing at all to fear from ID cards. The other options are: roadchecks at main motorway junctions and other such measures. The alternative arrangement is simply, we let everyone in the world who likes the idea, live here....Oh and by the way that means with you, as you seem to have forgotten this is a small island. UK population now 250,000,000.

You're in charge, what next?

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[bigmart]

"Be assured, honest punters have nothing at all to fear from ID cards"

Only if you agree with government whoever they are & however they change!

I prefer my privacy & freedom thank you.

Martin

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[BrendanS]

No idea where you are getting your information from, but completely incorrect
Last population figure for UK was 59.2 million, not 250 million.

250million is closer to the size of the US population (290 million)

<hr width=100% size=1>There is no such thing as "fun for the whole family."

 

[whisper]

The other 190 million is the estimated number of people in this country that avoided filling in census forms etc and so are therefore officially non existant. They don't tax or insure their cars either so the no. of vehicles on our roads is also vastly underestimated by the authorities. Hence the fabric of the country is hopelessly overstretched./forums/images/icons/wink.gif

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[BrendanS]

Hate to think what the unofficial population of the US is then!

<hr width=100% size=1>There is no such thing as "fun for the whole family."

 

[Jools_of_Top_Cat]

>Be assured, honest punters have nothing at all to fear from ID cards.<

I am sure the Jewish population were told exactly the same thing in the early 30's about carrying ID cards.

Who will have access to all this info, will our details be sold, what if someone hacks the system. Stealing an ID will be even easier as it will all be on computer, for anyone in the world to tap into. Will the fuzz be able to call up my medical details, employers address, family info all at the roadside when I am pulled over for a routine check, which is fairly often as I am a shift worker and obviously look suspicious travelling at odd times.

I was born free, I do not belong to Blunkett. I am a British subject and will not carry a piece of plastic that I will have to pay for every five years or so, expected to be about £35.00. Another tax........

<hr width=100% size=1>Julian

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.topcatsail.co.uk>Top Cat Homepage</A>

 

[Trevethan]

I usedtto object to the whole idea of ID cards, but recently have thought they might be a good idea. But the problem is will it really helo?

About 2 years ago some little toe-rag stole my sister's bag from the hospital she was working at -- contained purse, chequebook etc.

She cancelled her cards etc and forgot all about it.
Lasy summer, in fact the same day her fiancee died, she noticed someone had paid about £6 k into her account, and at the same time withdrew £2,000

After messing about and the cheques bouncing, the bank told her someone using her drivers licence had gone into Lloyds and paid in two stolen cheques and withdrawn the cash.

The bank advised her to change her account -- which she did.

She contacted the fraud squad, who have yet to respond.

Anyway it doresn't end there.

Last week the same person took £400 from her new account and an additional £1,000 from a joint account she has with my mother.

The stupid bank told this woman who was pretending to be my sister all her accounts and how much money was in them...

Now would a national ID card have helped?

Unlikely as this woman already has a driving licence etc etc in Caroline's name --

Unless the card had some kind of inbuilt finger print or something.

Anyway the moral is this is Lloyds bank is useless and they don't seem to care that they hand over large amounts of money to obvious heroin addicts that say they are doctors.....

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[Sailfree]

Whatever your opinion due to the terrorist threat THERE IS going to have to be a way of identifying people if you want to travel. As the UK passport is unable to add biometric identifiers all UK citizens that hold passports issued after (I think) October 2004 will have to obtain a visa to travel to the USA. Other countries are sure to follow.
As the recent tragic case in Morecome Bay showed there are already a large number number of people in this country not contributing to the Taxation. How much they cost this country is a debatable point but without any political party being prepared to limit what treatment is to be available on the NHS (except by forcing the NHS to do it by limiting funding) they will all need medical treatment sometime.
When the Tax burden gets too high the general population will have to accept an ID card if only as an entitlement card.
Whats your current tax bill?
40% of what you earn, a further 17.5% as soon as you try to spend the remainder, as 57.5% is not enough there is the extra Car purchase tax, road licence fee and petrol tax. Sorry still not enough lets put in Council Tax and TV licence.
Now let me go out and drink myself silly on the £10 I have left of that £100 I earned. Oh silly me there is alcohol tax as well.
How do I join this Black Economy?


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[claymore]

Oh what a splendid idea - I'm all for id cards as I often wake up at all times of day and night and the first thing I often say is - "who am I?"
When I was attempting to be thought of as something of a philosopist during my youth - - by trying to read Catcher in the Rye and those God-awful Tolkein novels, I would often muse out loud - "Who am I?" and people would nod and look at me with deep respect and say - "There's a man who thinks" - now when I say the same thing they rush to me and go through my wallet to find some id so that they can help me
Yes ID cards would be a grand idea -and linked to compulsory boatie qualifications, when you are out in the wild and the wicked and you are thinking "Should I really be doing this?" a look at your id card would confirm that yes you should be and then everything will be alright.

<hr width=100% size=1>regards
Claymore
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[Metabarca]

ID cards are a complete waste of time. In Italy, which is obsessed with bits of paper (until recently, there used to be a 'certificate of existence' to proved you... existed!), fraud is every bit as rampant as anywhere else. Why, because having decided that bits of paper are fundamental for doing anything (changing residence, opening a bank account, going to hospital), Big Brother can be fobbed off with said bits of paper as long as they look right (ie there's no actual checking going on behind the scenes) - it's appearances that matter. So it's a simple matter of forgery to get what you want, as someone did over the past few months here: they forged a few driving licences and what not, opened 120 bank accounts, moved a bit of cash in and out, got a loan and scarpered.
I was stopped in my car recently without papers. The cops checked it was mine by radio (fair enough: big engine car in an area susceptible to cross-border scams), then fined me for not having the document with me. They admitted that if I had had anything that looked ok (and it doesn't take much more than a photocopier to produce car papers), I'd have been waved on.
Brits, let us remember Agincourt, Trafalgar, Waterloo, Paddington (er...)!! Resist! Don't say yes to id cards! Whenever they say cards cut crime, ask them if there's less crime or fraud in France, Italy or elsewhere than in the UK. Of course not! rant over

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.comoy.com/saillinks.html>http://www.comoy.com/saillinks.html</A>

 

[jhr]

Bits of Paper

Was recently asked to produce a piece of paper on our (UK) Company letterhead, confirming that somebdy had been employed by us, years ago. It was needed to show to the German authorities (as confirmation of entitlement to state pension benefits, I think).

The guy asking for it also asked if I would mind putting an official looking stamp on it. When pressed for further clarification, he said that it didn't much matter what I used but, true to stereotype, the German authorities loved stamps on official-looking bits of paper, and it would make things easier.

I was tempted to use my "I haven't got time to read this cr*p" stamp given to me for Xmas by SWMBO, but decided it was too much of a risk in the end, and used something more anodyne. But I bet nobody would have noticed /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho

 

[tome]

Re: Bits of Paper

Back in the late 70's I moved from Italy to Germany. In Italy we had to have a 'permesso di soggiorno' permit to live there (a 'sodyernose' as we called it), and in Germany the situation was even worse - we even had to report to the local Police Station whenever we moved. I received my first (of many) parking tickets within 5 minutes of my first stop in the country. By the time I returned to the UK I had hundreds, and took great pleasure in putting them on the windscreen of any German cars I saw here.

When I took out car insurance in Germany they couldn't get the Italian insurance company to reply to their letters confirming my no claims entitlement. This went on and on, until someone in the German office told me it was just a question of having the form rubber-stamped. They sent me the form, and I had a friend in the UK make me a stamp which put an end to it.

I was arrested in Rome for not having any documents, which is when I discovered that I was going out with the Police Chiefs daughter. But that's another story...

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[ParaHandy]

excellent! will Crapita be running the ID card issue and maintenance? that should guarantee complete failure .. (or was it the gov that forgot to tell Capita that the CRO data requests would require to be signed and thus had to come thro' the post and not by telephone at the huge & swanky call centre in Bombay?) ... anyway, as no gov IT project has to my knowledge succeeded, we're in no danger of it ever happening ....

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[ChrisE]

<anyway, as no gov IT project has to my knowledge succeeded>

Para,
I have to disillusion you on that one, the project that I am managing for a government department has just gone live on time, 20% under budget and to an approval rating of over 85% of the 1500 users across the country. He says modestly.

Seriously, the stats are that around 70% of IT projects fail and that figure holds in both the private and public sector. Which is either a sad indictment of the IT industry or a reflection on the relative immaturity of the industry.

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[ParaHandy]

good for you!

the inability to get (almost any!) IT project to work is making UK unproductive and as we don't actually make anything these days, this is getting more and more serious.

Had to laugh at IR .. the online project is claimed a success even though the cost PER RETURN is £5,000 ... why don't they just give me the money?

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[jhr]

Germanic efficiency

In Germany they have a "church tax" on employees (I expect you know about this, if you've lived there).

In a probably vain attempt to help them avoid paying, I once advised somebody who was going to work there to tell the authorities that he was an atheist. However, he had previously spent a year there as part of his degree, 20 years before, so it was entirely predictable that his claim to be an atheist was met by a crisply Germanic "Nein - ve have ze proof zat you are ein Katholik: you told us zo ven you vere at Univerzity" /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho

 

[ChrisE]

Well you know who to ask if you want one to work! I don't come cheap though, I've got a boat to run (and toys to buy).

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[tome]

Re: Germanic efficiency

I can well believe this - I seem to recall it's a Kirkenstauer or suchlike. Bit of a culture shock after my time in laid-back Italy (except for the beurocracy).

We were once stopped by ze Police and our driver was bretahalised and passed ok, which surprised me given the amount he'd consumed. He was the most sober amongst us at the time. We all asked to take the test and not one of us failed - I expect things have changed in this respect.

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