Thorpe and Scott

[Devil Wincarnate]

What happens if Norman Scott gets his NI card and is never heard from again?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

The NI card was a really just an excuse for Scott to retain links with Thorpe; if Thorpe had managed to produce one, Scott would almost certainly have ensured he mislaid it again.

[timrollpickering]

In fact didn't Thorpe (or his circle) do precisely that and Scott equally do that?

[spqr]

This thread reminds me of a joke I read in last week's Spectator, told to Geoffrey Wheatcroft by the barman in his local pub:

"Tell me, Geoff, why is Jeremy Thorpe like William the Conqueror?"
"You tell me, Dave."
"'Cause they're both fuckin' Normans."

(Sorry.)

[tonyhill]

I've never quite understood the salience of the NI card. Given that there were tens of millions of them and that human beings are careless/unlucky/forgetful/disorganised then tens of thousands of them must have gone missing every year and there must have been offices full of low ranking civil servants whose job it was to issue duplicates.

[J.G.Harston]

Jan 11, 2019 19:59:08 GMT tonyhill said:

I've never quite understood the salience of the NI card. Given that there were tens of millions of them and that human beings are careless/unlucky/forgetful/disorganised then tens of thousands of them must have gone missing every year and there must have been offices full of low ranking civil servants whose job it was to issue duplicates.

Particularly for anybody under 60 who have to have it explained that "National Insurance Card" was actually a sort-a savings account passbook with contribution stamps stamped in it. My natural response was "eh? doesn't he know his national insurance number by memory, like anybody else, I lost my national insurance card within weeks of getting it?", until explained here.

[cj]

Jan 11, 2019 19:59:08 GMT tonyhill said:

I've never quite understood the salience of the NI card. Given that there were tens of millions of them and that human beings are careless/unlucky/forgetful/disorganised then tens of thousands of them must have gone missing every year and there must have been offices full of low ranking civil servants whose job it was to issue duplicates.

It was all done by the Longbenton office in Newcastle, where all the back copies on P46's would go. You won't get a card any more, you'll get a letter with the NINO on it they ditched the cards (along with white paper for letters and payslips to staff) as a money saving measure to pay for all the rebranding when they created HMRC

[john07]

I don’t ever recall having an NI Card with stamps on it. I started work in 1964. I can only assume that it was all dealt with by my employer or it had been automated by then. I did used to get annual statements regarding the likes of graduated pension accrued.

I do remember my mother having an NI card. She was self-employed and had to stamp her own card. You could buy ‘self employed’ stamps or ‘non employed stamps. The latter were cheaper but offered less benefits. She used the latter because she could get all her benefits (pension etc) from my father’s contributions.

I also recall a row between my grandmother and my aunt regarding a ‘missing’ stamp on her card.