Why cards are a risky ID-ea

Richard Butt
25/ 6/2008

I RECENTLY found myself in the Merseyway shopping centre in Stockport looking for a leftie to argue against ID cards.

I went into the town to gauge public opinion as a government minister went to Manchester to sing their praises.

In spite of the fact that the Labour party is lower in the polls than a limbo-dancing snake, most people seem to agree with the government on this one. They want prats in hats to have the right to demand they prove their identity.

(OK, if I’m not allowed to be biased on telly, can I please be biased here?)

Just one of the people I spoke to didn’t want ID cards. He spoke very articulately about why they’d infringe privacy and civil liberties – and how they were un-British.

Hear, hear!

As I’ve written here before, it’ll end up as a permit for anyone who wears any sort of uniform to lord it over the rest of us. The ID card will be a jobsworth’s charter – and although they’ll officially be voluntary, at least in the beginning, they’ll become compulsory if you want an easy life.

"We do take credit cards, sir. But we just need to check your ID card first."

"You might look 41, sir. But I have to check your ID before I can sell you any beer. Orders from head office."

"You’ve been standing there for a long time, sir. I appreciate it is a bus stop. But I need to check your identity. After all, if you were a terrorist you might have the resources to synthesise ricin and the desire to blow yourself up, but you’d never be able to do all that with an ID card."

Anyway, back to Merseyway. Virtually everyone used the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument about identity cards but some baulked at the thought that getting one could cost them a lot of money.

Although I wanted to accurately reflect opinion, I also wanted to have a story in which there was variety of opinion. We had one person who said No. But I needed more to give the story more variety. Hence my search for a leftie – some sort of civil libertarian who knits his or her own muesli, hugs trees and questions the power of the state at every turn.

Perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction. After all, David Davies MP reckons the ID card is an abomination and he rarely appears in the press without the epithet ‘maverick right-winger’. He has resigned his seat in order to make the ‘Big Brother’ state a big news story.

In fact, the whole Conservative party is against ID cards – and, it seems, against public opinion on this issue.

Yet in my youth, the Labour party (when it was in opposition, of course) was always banging on about people’s liberties, voting against the Prevention of Terrorism Act and generally saying anything the government backed was a bad idea. So if the tables turn and the Conservatives get back in Downing Street, will we see a difference, or will they rekindle an authoritarian streak?

Would a government with David Davies in it really start ripping down CCTV cameras? Would it give terror suspects more rights and the police fewer powers? Would it abolish the identity card?

Actually, perhaps that’s not such a daft thought. After all, Churchill’s Conservative government in the Fifties got rid of the identity card that was a hangover from the war – and this was at a time when we were looking for Reds under every bed.

Public paranoia was high over the Communist threat, just as it is now about Islamist terrorists, yet public opinion – after years of actually having the wretched things – was very different.

By the way, I never did find that leftie. And I’m not allowed to interview myself.