This is what Gordon Brown said in his speech yesterday to Labour’s Conference:

“In the last two years we have looked again at how we can give the best security to our British citizens while never undermining their liberties.

We will reduce the information British citizens have to give for the new biometric passport to no more than that required for today’s passport.

And so conference, I can say to you today, in the next parliament there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens.”

This announcement, giving all the appearance of a sweeping and definitive policy change, follows modest changes publicised by Alan Johnson earlier this year.   Is the Government trying to draw the poison from the ID card issue?   Or is the truth that the Government is also retaining its long-term ambitions?

The Guardian reports that the Home Office is preparing to spend £500,000 on advertising campaign, which features cartoon fingerprints, between now and December.   In addition, 90,000 ID cards have already been issued as part of an earlier trial.   The government is going to start issuing cards to skilled migrants when they renew their visas, making take-up compulsory.   From this month the UK Border Agency will trial issuing ID cards at Post Offices, presumably in tandem with thge Home Office advertising campaign.

The ID card policy would seem to remain intact . . . for now.

Security experts are strongly criticising a government minister’s suggestion that ex-hackers play key roles in Britain’s cybersecurity strategy.

Lord West, the Home Office security minster, made the controversial suggestion that the government had recruited former hackers to work in its new Cyber Security Operations Centre.   The Cyber Security Operations Centre is a key components of the UK government’s cybersecurity strategy announced last week.

Lord West told the BBC that the government had avoided employing “ultra, ultra criminals” but required the expertise of former miscreants.

So, the government has actually hired a team of people known to have committed criminal acts using computers and is rewarding them for that activity with civil service jobs?  It is also giving these same criminals high level access to intelligence which affects national defence?  How can this possibly be reconciled with the government’s stated aim of pursuing an ethical cyber-security policy?

Lord West, the UK’s first cyber security minister, was seen across news outlets last week suggesting the he didn’t really trust the internet.   I wonder why?