Compulsory ID cards are history

The Labour government's hugely expensive and highly controversial ID card system has finally been killed off - not with a bang, but a whimper.

However, in his eagerness not to be seen executing a complete U-turn, Home Secretary Alan Johnson has left himself with the most costly and controversial part of the scheme, the national identity database. So the Tories still have a weapon with which to continue their attacks on the project.

In his first big decision since becoming Home Secretary, Johnson signed the scheme's death warrant by announcing all attempts to make the cards compulsory had been dropped. Even the first phase, to force airside workers and some pilots at airports to carry them, has been abandoned.

So the entire £5bn project, which the Tories have pledged to scrap if they win the election, has become an entirely voluntary scheme. Johnson has even abandoned all the old rhetoric about the cards being a powerful weapon in the fight against terrorism, saying it was a mistake for the government to allow that impression to grow. Instead he seems to be suggesting they will be useful for youngsters who want to be able to prove their age in the local pub.

If voluntary take-up is too low, the government will doubtless abandon the scheme altogether. In the more likely scenario of the Tories winning the next election, it will be scrapped anyway.

This is, of course, all part of the government's attempts to clear the decks of difficult policies before the general election. In the past two days Royal Mail privatisation has gone and Trident has been put up for review.

There will now be intense pressure on Johnson to go the extra step and consign the database to the growing scrap heap of government policies too.