Earth to Epstein: voluntary exchange is not theft

The Register reports:

Angela Epstein, the Manchester-based columnist and ID cards poster girl, has written a furious lament for the scheme - and she's so angry she's started a Facebook group.

"I never wanted to be a poster girl for the ID project," Epstein rages in her latest treatise for the Manchester Evening News.

...

Epstein is occupied mostly as a "real life" reporter for voyeuristic gossip magazines, cold-calling bereaved parents and such. However, she shot to notoriety in December as the first member of the public to voluntarily lay down £30 for an ID card, even as the scheme was obviously doomed.

The Manchester Evening News article linked above is equally amusing (and depressing at the same time).

Epstein notes that

this was always a voluntary scheme, which I personally embraced because it suited my life

but now that the scheme has been cancelled, she insists

I want my money back. Otherwise, it is simply tantamount to theft.

No dear. You made a foolish investment, and that is all.

Epstein is well aware that the money paid by ID card holders (which she estimates at £450,000) does not come close to covering the cost of the ID card scheme ("around £257m to set up").

The real victims of theft, as usual, were the hapless taxpayers.