My Observer fellow-columnist, Henry Porter, has been conducting a valiant campaign to stir people’s interest in the ID Cards Bill that the Blair regime is trying to force through Parliament. He’s written another excellent piece this morning…

I would feel a bore and an obsessive if I hadn’t pored over the ID card bill last week and read Hansard’s account of the exchanges in both houses.

One of the most chilling passages in the bill is section 13 which deals with the ‘invalidity and surrender’ of ID cards, which, in effect, describes the withdrawal of a person’s identity by the state. For, without this card, it will be almost impossible to function, to exist as a citizen in the UK. Despite the cost to you, this card will not be your property.

My only quibble is that, technically, UK inhabitants are not ‘citizens’; they’re subjects of the Crown.