Well Taught

British ideals of freedom and fair play appear as rampant as ever in our former colony of Uganda, where ID cards are being utilised in a manner almost worthy of the master race. On the mainland, the last Labour government to win the approval of Rupert Murdoch spent several years attempting to introduce an insanely elaborate biometric ID card scheme for the benefit of private companies; and the present administration has plans to throw out something or other to deter the lesser breeds from dirtying our democracy. In Uganda, where almost everyone is ethnically minor, it seems the emphasis has been more on the equally patriotic goal of depriving people of access to banking, social benefits and healthcare. Errors on the ID cards are nearly as widespread as one would expect from a firm chaired by a ministerial chum, and the registry of births and deaths has forgotten about eighty-seven per cent of births during the past year. Some of the money saved by refusing assistance to elderly people is contributed by none other than Her Majesty's Government, which will doubtless take pride in protecting the British taxpayer from financing anything that smacks of foreign efficiency.