UK spends billions on high-tech IDs, forgets to buy card readers

I think the key sentence in the article is: While it would make sense to get a few IDs out there first and then follow up with the readers after six months, perhaps, that was not at all included in the budget and in fact the readers' manufacturers haven't been convinced it's 'worth their while' to make the things.

Deferring deployment of the readers until a reasonable size population cards is a reasonable step to take.

Leaving the readers out of the budget so that the project looks cheaper than it is, is a dirty trick that frequently gets done. I saw it done for some of the projects related to the public office I ran for, and this was part of why I ran.

But this is even worse than that - the folks who would be making the readers aren't even making them.