Which teenage problem matters more to you?

Have you ever visited Postman Al’s website?

Postman Al Johnson runs the Home Office, and a quick trip to his crazed online realm is all you need to know what’s wrong with things in BloatoLand.

This is the lead story on the site, dated a month ago (they must be so busy, busy if they can post that rarely):

Identity cards will be rolled out more quickly under new government proposals.

Residents of Greater Manchester will be able to apply for an ID card before the end of this year, and residents in the northwest will be able to apply from early next year.

From 2011-12, ID cards will roll out to the wider population on an entirely voluntary basis.

This accelerated roll-out will benefit those people who need the cards the most. ID cards will be particularly helpful for young people who need to prove their age, and will empower businesses to ensure that they aren’t selling items such as alcohol and cigarettes to those who are underage.

What is all this drivel about? Why does it matter? And by the way, wouldn’t it be a good idea to shoot people who use the word “empower” – immediately after crucifying the ones who write “accelerated rollout”?

Well, there is a line much quoted by politicians which I think Louis XIV said first: “To govern is to choose.”

Wouldn’t any half-competent economic manager – let alone the brilliant “I saved the world from financial meltdown” Toadocrat – say: “Hmmm. Let’s divide all expenditure between that which is essential and that which isn’t, then take the money we’re pissing away on the latter and allocate it to the former”

Does that take too much brain power? As a congenital ditherer I am sure I’d be useless as a governor, but isn’t it obvious?

Nobody wants these cards. All available reports suggest they will achieve nothing. And since nobody has to have them they’re pointless anyhow. Yet the cost of introducing them is somewhere between £5.4 billion and (says one report) £18 billion.

How the hell they could cost anything like that mystifies me, though I bet the phrase “thieving consultant” comes into it.

But how the hell it can possibly be a sane investment mystifies me even more.

Is that money wisely used in making sure businesses don’t worry (as if they give a shit) about selling booze to kids – which it won’t, as the stupid cards aren’t compulsory? Wouldn’t it be better spent on proper equipment for those kids’ friends fighting unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Surely some choices are easier than others, even to the collection of crooks and village idiots running Britain.

What also amazes me is the equally alarming inability of Cameron’s bunch of expense account clowns to choose between what matters and what doesn’t – and speak out.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

2 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    Drayton,

    you really don't understand do you.

    Sadly people enter politics now not because they have some deep inner burning desire to do good but to have an easy life and be remembered. You've covered the point yourself, the wish to be immortal, what greater glory can there be than having your name saved for eternity in the history books ? And which will get you in the history books quickest, introducing pointless, unwanted and unnecessary ID cards or spending the same amount of money saving Army lives ? It was to be the ID Card.

    fw

  2. Anonymous

    Drayton you have missed your vocation.

    Please run for PM!

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