Reid adds another U-turn to the list.

The last thing I expected from John Reid was yet another U-turn, but that is what we were treated to yesterday when he gave his update on the id card scheme.

In a screeching U-turn, the Home Secretary said the personal and biometric details of every UK adult will instead be stored on three separate, existing databases. By ditching the multi-billion pound system, the flagship of the whole project, it showed that the ID cards scheme is in complete disarray.

But Mr Reid desperate to save cash, with the cost of the project already estimated at a staggering £5.4 billion, but he denied money had been wasted. He added: "Doing something sensible is not necessarily a U-turn".

No, Mr Reid, doing something sensible would be to scrap the whole idea. Besides, what exactly do you have to do to make it count as a U-turn? Cancelling a major part of a project would qualify, wouldn't it?

However, if you didn't think that was bad enough, in a second major development, it also emerged that millions of pensioners will be ordered to hand over their fingerprints and pay out for an ID card, even if they do not want one, or face a fine of up to £2,500.