I am not a number....!

ID cards - oh dear, what a mess! I'm from a generation which had ID cards during the war - indeed, I've still got mine - so I've no beef with the basic idea. So what's the problem? Well, firstly, cost. Whether we are going to be expected to pay for them ourselves, or through general taxation, we need to be convinced that we're going to get value for money - in other words that they are going to do the job they are intended for, and I think that's far from clear. They certainly wouldn't have stopped the London bombings, and I think organised crime will have no difficulty in getting hold of forgeries good enough to pass any but the most intense scrutiny. Secondly of course there is the "Big Brother" aspect. I'm old enough (that's to say, close enough to the end of my life) not to be too bothered about this, but if I were in my twenties or thirties, I think I would be very concerned about the way things are going, and the way in which my behaviour and movements are becoming scrutinised and recorded on a daily basis, and I would see ID cards as yet another step in the same direction. It's all very well to say "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear", but most of us value our privacy, and that's what's in question.