http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/09/st_id_cards_doomed_emails/
John Lettice
"The UK ID card scheme is doomed to fail, and an attempt to put a face-saving downscaled version into place threatens to wreck the project sooner, rather than later, according to civil service correspondence. An email exchange between David Foord of the Office of Government Commerce and Peter Smith, acting commercial director of the Identity and Passport Service, leaked to the Sunday Times, paints a picture of an impossible mission, a "Mr Blair" driving a cut-down "early variant" card and a Passport Service already making contingency plans in anticipation of ID cards crashing in flames."
