Leaflets attacking Government plans to introduce ID cards are about to be delivered to 12,000 households on the East of Kidderminster.

The leaflet is being delivered by local Liberal Councillors in the Offmore and Comberton, Greenhill and Broadwaters Wards.

Liberal Council Group Leader Cllr Mike Oborski said today "the ID scheme is a massively expensive white elephant which will seriously endanger personal liberties while doing absolutely nothing to tackle terrorism, crime or benefit fraus".

The leaflet argues that

The ID Card scheme is not just a harmless new bit of plastic in your wallet. It requires a massive and intrusive database that changes the nature of UK Citizenship and shifts the balance of power further away from the citizen to the State. With the National Identity Register (NIR) and ID Card, the Government will control your identity. It will decide who you are."

Showing ID to officials will become an everyday part of British life.

Although other Europeans are used to ID Cards the NIR is much more controlling than their ID Card systems and they have legal safeguards we do not. It will open your life to inspection by thousands of bureaucrats.

Even the Government admits the minimum cost is £5.5 Billion — that’s five domes! That estimate has already doubled in six months! It does not include the charges for ID Cards, the penalties for errors, or the cost of policing many new offences. The Government is reducing the Civil Service. But it will create a whole new Identity Agency. Taxpayers and businesses will have to pay yet more for special scanners in doctor’s surgeries, benefit offices, banks and even hotels.

Big Government computer systems are a catalogue of disaster. Yet this is the biggest and most complicated government computer scheme anywhere, ever. Even if it works perfectly, the ID scheme cannot meet the problems it is supposed to solve. The Government admits that the NIR will not stop terrorism. Almost all benefit fraud is lying about circumstances, not who you are. A single master document makes identity theft easier, and more worthwhile, not harder. Criminals don’t play by the bureaucratic rules. ID Cards won’t cut crime.

With a wink to racists, the Government says ID will stop illegal immigration. But it doesn’t in the rest of Europe.Asians and black people often feel they are unfairly stopped and searched by police already. ID will give more reasons to “check” people. What’s more, demands to prove you are British will creep into more and more public and private services, with the system as an excuse. How does a divided society make you safer?

You are about to be fingerprinted, eye-scanned and tagged like a criminal. Any errors will be your responsibility. The Home Office will have the final say. Even now about 100 people a month (out of a few thousand checked) are wrongly marked as criminals by the Criminal Records Bureau. The NIR could mean several checks a day for everybody. What happens to your life when the scanner fails or there’s a mistake?

The ID scheme is expensive and socially destructive. Either it will help make Britain a police-state, or it will be a bigger white elephant than the poll tax. Help us stop it.

Grave matters...

Recent so called "safety checks" in Kidderminster Cemetery cost Council Taxpayers £16,900.

841 - some 14% - of the 6,400 Grave Stones were identified as "unsafe" and the families of the deceased will, between them, have to pay many thousands\ of pounds to put them right.

However the number of people injured by unsafe Gravestones in Kidderminster Cemetery since the emergence of the Wyre Forest District Council over 30 years ago remains precisely and exactly zero!

The figures were revealed in reply to a question from Liberal Group Leader Cllr Mike Oborski at last night's full meeting of the Wyre Forest District Council.

Cllr Oborski said that "the whole process has caused considerable misery and distress for many relatives".

"The whole business is political correctness gone mad!"

Cllr Oborski said "This is an unusual example when "the solution" is in reality the chief cause of "the problem"!

Speaking afterwards Cllr Oborski said that was "deeply disappointed that the Council are not prepared to look for a better way of handling the matter and remain totally  complacent despite the upset caused to so many families and relatives."

Congratulations Liz...

Congratulations to Liz Mills on becoming Wyre Forest's very first Honorary Alderman! It couldn't happen to a nicer and finer lady!

Mike & Fran are now on Skype...

Mike Oborski at oborski1920

Fran Oborski at foborski

If YOU are on Skype please get in touch!

Cllr Lewis said the roads in her Greenhill Ward "which particularly need attention include Roden Avenue, Cherry Orchard, Offmore Road, Leswell Street, Lorne Street and Lea Street".

 A Sad day...

Our thoughts and prayers are with the dead and injured in London and their families and friends.

See the BBC information service for background.