Burnham letter to MPs on ID cards

Andy Burnham, Home Office minister in charge of the ID card scheme has sent a letter to colleagues (1.2 MB pdf), which proports to be a "detailed note about the costs of the Identity Cards scheme."

It's actually nothing of the sort and goes nowhere near providing a detailed account of the costs. What it does do is heavily misrepresent the LSE Identity Project report, which has been such a thorn in the government's side on this issue. For example, he states that "The LSE also added an inflated £1 billion marketing budget..." There is simply no such allocation in the LSE estimates. This is a complete fabrication on Mr Burnham's (or, more likely, his advisers') part.

What is really interesting, however, is what it doesn't say. It does not provide detailed costs as it claims. Also, following Simon Davies' letter to the Prime Minister threatening legal action for defamation if he or his ministers continued their ourrageous claims that Davies was a biased, sole author of the LSE report, Mr Burnham's letter does not include a repetition of the slur.