The last refuge of the scoundrel (21st century)

Here comes that epoch-making fourth invocation of the Parliament Act.

The realisation that a lie remains a lie no matter how many times or with what wide-eyed conviction it is repeated is one that usually strikes children of seven or eight. Clearly it has yet to strike the Labour Party, which as an institution appears to have the mental age of a five-year-old and the scruples to match.

Home Office minister Andy Burnham earlier said it had been "absolutely clear" from before the election that the cards would be linked to passport applications.

From the Manifesto:

We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports. [manifesto p54; document p27]

Disregarding the lawyerly, bet-hedging "initially", this sentence is likely to be interpreted by most capable speakers of English, of whom I am certainly one, as meaning that when one renews one's passport, one has the option of "registering for" (ie purchasing) an ID card. "I'm here to renew my passport, please." "Certainly, Sir. Would you like an ID card with that?" "No, just the passport will be fine, thank you." - that sort of thing. But no! Turns out we're all dunces! That stuff you learned at school about subject/verb/adjective agrement is meaningless! Now there's the new Equivocal Wriggle-Room style!

Here's my thing, Andy: taking the subordinate clauses (still with me?) out of the sentence I quoted from the manifesto leaves us with:

We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.

The meaning of the sentence has not been altered, but it helps us to see the agreement more easily. Clearly, it is the ID cards that are "rolling out" and, equally clearly, the basis on which they are rolling out, initially or otherwise, is voluntary. Unquestionably, the adjective "voluntary" describes the basis on which ID cards will be rolled out. Passports are simply mentioned in passing, as though to suggest that this happy transaction will simply take place at the same time as passport renewal and will not be codependent. The "voluntary" has absolutely nothing to do with renewing passports, and anyone reading that sentence would be hard pushed to infer that ID cards and passports would be inseparable.

Still, revisionism's like a warm shroud when you're losing the argument, eh Andy? The idea that the manifesto means what you now claim it means is only slightly less laughable than the notion that everyone studiously went out and picked up a copy and voted on the strength of it. That is what you imply when you and that unshaven buffoon Charles Clarke talk about the Lords "frustrating the will of the people" in such sanctimonious, highfalutin tones. It is demonstrably not the will of the people that ID cards be compulsorily introduced on pain of never leaving the country again, and it wouldn't be so even if you had a popular vote majority or more than 21% of the electoral roll on your side.