Bossy-boots Blunkett’s plans must be resisted, says Paul Robinson, who has acquired five new cards in recent months, and it’s been a pain in the pocket for him
I recently had my fingerprints taken for an identity card. If our autocratic Home Secretary, David Blunkett, gets his way, this will in the next decade or so become a universal rite of passage. Mr Blunkett has made it clear that he considers the issue of ID cards a ‘defining moment’ in Britain’s future. I agree, for his plans will define a new Britain which has turned its back on its traditional freedoms and adopted a new persona entirely out of keeping with that we have always held dear.
In the past few months, I have acquired no fewer than five new identity cards, three passports and three driving licences. My experiences have convinced me that ID cards are not only wrong in principle but also pointless in practice.
To be fair, my situation is not entirely typical. I am a dual British and Canadian citizen, who works in Hull, but who commutes to a family home in Brussels. For that reason, I have both British and Canadian passports, and for long-winded reasons a diplomatic passport, which is a pleasant bonus. In addition, since Belgium does not recognise Canadian driving licences, I have had to supplement my British and Canadian ones with an international driving licence. I have also had to acquire a Belgian identity card and a small pile of other photo ID pieces from various organisations.
The result is that I now need a small suitcase to carry these things around, but since I have relatively few of the other bits of plastic that fill up everybody’s wallets nowadays — credit cards, debit cards, customer loyalty cards, club membership cards and so on — I don’t think that I possess significantly more pieces of identification than anybody else.
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