Identity & Passport Service in suicide bid?

All is not well - as we suggested might be the case this morning - at the Identity and Passport Service. Matter of fact, it may have just killed itself.

A sad little note posted today by IPS reads: "Both Parties that now form the new Government stated in their manifestos that they will cancel Identity Cards and the National Identity Register. We will announce in due course how this will be achieved."

But all is not lost. Yeah, right… "Until Parliament agrees otherwise, identity cards remain valid and as such can be used as an identity document for travel within Europe. We will update you with further information as soon as we have it."

Actually, IPS may have something here. It's possible that the CleggCon Alliance won't see the harm in letting people who've already got ID cards carry on using them as passports in those few cases where the carrier has heard of them, and now they're collector's items. At last, a reason to apply for an ID card…

No specific word on the UK Border Agency's eBorders scheme yet, but a note on the site suggests things don't look good there either. "All new stories published before April 2010 have been removed from this website, as has information about our strategies and aims under the previous government." Nothing to do with us, e.gov? ®