According to the home secretary there are British sheeple who can't wait to be branded.
[Jacqui Smith said]: "But I believe there is a demand, now, for cards - and as I go round the country I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they don't want to wait that long.
"I now want to put that to the test and find a way to allow those people who want a card sooner to be able to pre-register their interest as early as the first few months of next year."
When I read this I was immediately highly skeptical, but I'll give the minister credit, at least she's says she wants to prove that its true.
One interesting question will be whether or not the lucky early sheep will have to pay for their branding. It occurs to me that if the early sheep have to fork over the £30 or whatever it is to get their nice ID fraud card then demand may be rather less than if the card is given away free to the volunteers. It would not surprise me to discover that, as in the airport "trial" the early birds get their brands for free.
It will also be interesting to see whether this early availability wheeze actually happens and whether they do in fact take money from the punters who sign up. It would not surprise me if a number of the early birds end up being names better known as Obama donors - you know like Mick E Mouse, or Adolfe Hitler. Indeed I would recommend that travellers in airport lounges and other anonymous locations sign up many times over for ID cards in the name of J Smith of 67 Birmingham Road, West Bromwich, West Midlands, B70 6PY as well as those of other ZANU labour apparatchiks (addresses generally available here).
It will be utterly fascinating to see whether they do actually launch the pre-register site and whether if they do, they crow to the roofstops about how many sheeple have signed up or not.
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