"You should see an ID card like a passport in-country".

There was a time when we in Britain could feel superior to countries like South Africa or the Soviet Union because they had such things as pass laws and internal passports under which the State monitored and controlled what its people did. No longer, I'm afraid. I hope the Tories make much much more of this. The civil liberties angle is one where they would get a lot of support from those who hate and despite the authoritarian tendencies of this Government.

The point is the surveillance database that lies behind the card. T
You will carry it, all of you, because in time, without it you'll be unable to buy petrol, or a drink in a bar, or an airline ticket, or a train ticket, or open a bank account, or enter a major public building such as a council office, or obtain any benefits, or get your pension from the Post Office, or get treatment in a hospital. And lots of other things I haven't thought of or haven't space to put down.

And every time you produce it on those occasions, it will be swiped, and the fact of its having been swiped will go into the database, marked with the location, the purpose, the time and the date. And who knows what else. YOU won't know, because everything on the card will be encypted so that only the State (and criminals) will know what's on it.

THIS is what makes our rulers salivate, this is the bit that was missing from the wartime scheme, which the judge so rightly demolished, and this is the piece you are all failing to spot. It is the whole justification, it is worth any price to them. Especially since the price, however high, will be paid by the surveillees themselves.

The first general use to which the new document was put was for the conscription of white children into the South African Defence Force. I was sixteen when I was called up.

Not long afterwards, for the same reason, a law was passed allowing thirty days detention without trial. And not long afterwards, for the same reason again, that period was increased to ninety days. The echoes are disturbing.

Such tactics are the methods of governments that later become vilified by history. And pure ignorance of lessons from the past is demonstrated in the callow and overbearing current Labour Government.

Britain's fourth and equally doomed venture into Afghanistan is the most perfect example, but the further case of their identity card scheme indicates a depth of sinister intent . It is clear that Mr Bean, although exposed as such in all his ineptitude, is still trying to be Stalin.

This changes the fundamantal relationship between citizen and state. I do not need to prove my innocence nor will I. The state needs to prove my guilt before a jury of my peers if they believe me guilty of a crime. I do not need to prove my identity and I never, never will.

The state is not my master, as labour believe, it is supposed to be my servant.

It is heartbreaking for people like me on the sidelines watching my country being taken slowly to pieces while "spivs" and crooks and overpromoted nincompoops take every single advantage of the situation.

Nevertheless – very well said!

Reply: Yes, I do talk to David Cameron and George Osborne. The Tory front bench made many of the important points about trying to find out what the taxpayer was buying before thinking of purchase in the debate this week.