Sir, The public should not, as you suggest, “relax about a privacy issue that, in contemporary card-carrying Britain, is entirely irrelevant” (leading article, Feb 13).
None of the cards we carry now is carried by compulsion. We carry them, by choice, to obtain things we want. We only require passports if we want to travel outside the UK, again a matter of choice.
We can and should debate the effectiveness of ID cards in combating crime and
terrorism, but whatever benefits there may be can only be realised if it is
compulsory to hold a card and to carry it at all times. The Government is
perfectly aware of this and appears to anticipate a gradual move towards
requiring citizens to hold and carry
the card — a policy of compulsion by stealth. The moment compulsion is added a
fundamental freedom is removed. To require us to carry an ID card whenever we
leave our homes would change fundamentally the relationship between the
individual and the State.
It is a concession we should not make and is certainly not one about which we should be relaxed.
NICHOLAS J. G. GREEN
Le Vesinet, France
AND
yet still no one - the BBC the "press" the "reporters" will demand this 3rd form second rate group of scum governing us answers this question:
HOW will ID cards protect us if YOU CANNOT ESTABLISH PRIMARY ID?!!!
Masha Jazwahab comes trucking on in without papers from Afghanistan all trained up by Al Qaida to bomb us sideways on the tube.
He arrives at Dover without papers (a WOP) and says he is Terkel Djingoat from Somalia
as we have a bazillion Somalis here he is given a free house car money food and sent to Somalistan in Glasgow.
No questions asked.
So why should I, a man who was born here within a family of which both sides are
traceable to 1100 AD have to have a ******* ID card Mr Blair when you let the 2
million illegal immigrant terrorist containing community into the UK without our
desire will or permission?
Answer: I will not have one. Stick it up your fascist *******.
Peter Watson
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Sir,
For the first time in the history of the British People, our elected government
has passed a Bill forcing us to prove we exist. We will soon have to carry ID
cards if we wish to function within this totalitarian Police State which is
gradually being build around us.
And on the first terrible day of lost freedom, the BBC shrugs off this
fundamental shift in the relationship between People and State as though it
scarcely mattered.
On the day of reckoning when the British People awake and finally shake off
their apathy, those responsible for this outrage - including the BBC - WILL be
brought to account. There will be no place deep enough or dark enough for any
of you to hide.
Josephine White
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No call for my ID on D-Day
Letters
Feb 25, 2006
Having been born in Evans Street, Whitmore Reans, in 1921, mother a Wolverhampton girl and father emanating from Abberley in Worcestershire, I always considered myself to be English.
More so when a few years ago my nephew traced my father's ancestry back as far as the Bishop of Worcester's diary of 1279. English with just a tad of substance I thought. That was until the last census and more recent happenings with the building societies.
At the census I was requested to declare myself as Caucasian! Wot's that ar kid? Now recently the counter clerks at the building societies, who knew me by sight and name have asked me to identify myself.
"Well you know me and who I am."
"Yes but we now need documentation. Driving licence?"
"Sorry, I can barely see the ground I walk on so have had to give up the car."
"Passport?"
"Oh yes, here we are"
"Sorry, sir, that's years old and out of date, can't accept that!"
"I've got my old wartime army paybook or my 1950s identity card"
"Afraid not sir" With a forehead gesture, turns towards the heavens, he who must be obeyed requires recent identifications like a bank statement, a utility bill and your national insurance number.
Looking back I find it strange that on that certain day in June, 1944, on Gold Beach at Arromanches, with the beachmaster in his blue dungarees, cajoling me to keep to the narrow track between the flags where those wonderful royal engineers had earlier cleared the mines, luckily, he did not ask me for similar identification now required by "he who must be obeyed" or any identification for that matter.
Had he done so, with a negative answer from me, he may well have ordered me to go back from whence I came.
Well it's a long swim back from Arromanches to the river Orwell at Ipswich, which is where our landing ship sailed from on the afternoon before H4 D Day, our destined time of arrival. Anyway I could not swim and I still can not now.
Me, English, yes? In 2006? You can not be serious!
Bill Glassard, Suckling Green Lane, Codsall.