In the moments before Keir Starmer, our hapless Prime Minister, opened his mouth, mandatory ID cards were a theoretically popular policy. They polled well, despite the best efforts of civil liberties campaigners to highlight the dangers they pose to our freedoms. The most compelling arguments for the scheme were the ways that they could transform an individual’s interactions with public services, much as they have done in Estonia (where an average of five whole days a year per person is allegedly saved).
Better yet was the argument that everyone having to have an official government ID would bring an end to illegal immigrants being able to work in the system, because without this new official marker, they would be unable to be paid. One of the thorniest problems afflicting Britain could be gone, in the blink of an iris scan.
Then Starmer had to spoil it all by saying something stupid like he loves it. Almost immediately, the seal of approval became the kiss of death.
This has been likened to Starmer having the ‘anti-Midas touch’, and I can understand why. But in the actual story of Midas, his ‘touch’ was itself the curse, and the prefix ‘anti’ before Midas is not necessary. After days spent entertaining a Satyr (haven’t we all?), Midas is granted the ability to turn anything he wants into gold. At first, this brings joy and riches, until he realises that he can no longer touch anything without it transforming. This includes his own daughter, and while a little on the nose, this has provided an effective fable for those old adages – to ‘be careful what you wish for’ and that ‘you can have too much of a good thing’.
The real Midas was able to U-turn successfully, begging Dionysius for this power to be taken away, which was achieved by bathing in a particular river. For Starmer, his own Midas touch, along with the screeching, destruction-derby U-turns that are coming faster and faster each week, is a symptom of a deeper and ineradicable malaise.
This is because neither the man, nor the Government he leads, believe in anything at all. This is why Labour seem to cast about for policies that individually seem popular when polled, but because they are neither part of a cohesive story about Britain, nor are they sold with any real conviction, they always fail on contact with reality.
For those of us who desperately want the country to succeed, but believe that socialists will only ever do things to make life worse for individuals, families and businesses, we are in a bind. Starmer is so uniquely ineffective at either introducing or implementing new policies, that we should want him to stay in place and not be replaced by either a more effective leader (Wes Streeting), an even more ideologically bonkers one (Ed Miliband) or an obviously soulless trade unionist (Bridget Phillipson).
This is not a new idea, being well put by former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy: ‘The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.’
Unfortunately, we can no longer afford the inefficiencies of Labour. The much-pilloried ID card scheme has now been made ‘optional’, landing us in the worst of all worlds. The process will still go ahead, to help Labour save face, costing billions in the process. But now it will do nothing to prevent illegal immigrants from working in Britain. In the phrasing of another famous Mr Bumble: ‘The law has become an ass.’
Even after his healing, Midas was almost as unlucky as Starmer. Judging a music contest between the Gods Pan and Apollo, the former was chosen, leaving the latter to curse Midas with the ears of a donkey, which he had to hide under a cap for the rest of his days. But this is an unnecessary extra analogy. Starmer doesn’t need the donkey ears; the law(yer) is an ass, already.
