BRITAIN: The Blair government suffered another setback to its anti-terrorist strategy yesterday after the former head of MI5 said its proposals for ID cards were unlikely to make the UK safer from terrorist attack.
A week after the prime minister's first Commons defeat on the Terrorism Bill, Dame Stella Rimington also said she did not think the intelligence services in general, or her former agency in particular, would press for their introduction.
10 Downing Street played down the significance of Dame Stella's intervention, insisting the cards would enhance Britain's security, and citing Spanish police claims that they had made their identification of the Madrid bombers easier.
The prime minister's official spokesman said: "Stella Rimington is a private individual and has been for some time and she is perfectly entitled to her views."
He added: "There is an international comparison to suggest ID cards have helped. ID cards in themselves are not a silver bullet, they are not . . . going to of themselves be the one thing that's going to stop terrorism. What they can be is a great help in countering terrorism."
But Conservative MP Ben Wallace said Dame Stella had "completely destroyed the government's case" and "put a silver bullet through the heart of it." And Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said the former spy chief's views were "another nail in the coffin of the massive identity card folly".
Meanwhile, Labour backbencher John Smith (who describes himself as a "serial loyalist" and who took pride in once being named "Toady of the Year") said the government should be worried at finding its measure opposed by people like himself.
While the government carried the ID Bill at a second reading in June with a majority of 31, Mr Smith yesterday insisted the cards were "unnecessary, unworkable, costly and ineffective".
On BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, he added: "You do reach a time when you start to lose confidence in some of the proposals that are coming forward . . . If somebody like me is losing confidence, the government, I believe, has a job on its hands to win us back, or do whatever is necessary to get the ship back on course."
Mr Smith's warning came as Education Secretary Ruth Kelly launched her campaign to avert a backbench rebellion against her schools reforms by insisting that the creation of self-governing trust schools would not lead to the return of selection "by the front door, back door or trap door."
Home Office minister Andy Burnham said the government would get the technology right, and insisted: "The proposals are sound, the scheme we are bringing forward is sensible . . . and the scheme eventually will come into being."