How exactly is the witch defining 'voluntary'? Is she using the meaning that you and I are familiar with, or is it the special 'it's your choice, you can either volunteer for an ID card or never get a job, healthcare, insurance, open a bank account again etc.' kind of meaning.

The completley optional ID card, well optional if you don't want a passport of course.

Also it makes me shudder when the government uses the word "citizens". Way too 1984.

Anyone want to bet against them coming up with some kind of bribe for anyone leading the charge for cards?

Maybe a free second identity?

I suppose one good thing about this is that if there are any actual volunteers (using the accepted definition of the word rather than Jacqui's interpretation of it) we will at least know who to get rid of when the time comes to remove useless DNA from the gene pool...

Why anonymous? Well I don't want to suddenly find myself 'volunteered' do I?

Can I pre-register my disinterest?

to the effect that only those folks with ID cards will be permitted to work on Government contracts.... Next stop would be a regulation in terms for contractors and agency worker. A simple way of filtering out the messy protesters - particularly in IT. If you've got one ('cos you need one to put food on the table) then you've got no legs to stand on and can just shut up or be called a money grubbing hypocrite!

Criticisms just evaporate like fog in the warmth of a spring morning. It also helps with evaporating all this foggy thinking about ID cards. What reasonable person could argue against such a simple requirement? Now what was that about the cost of the card again...

Does anyone know the cut-off date when renewing my passport will enable me to be the lucky voluntary recipient of an ID card?

A bonfire - where the ID card scheme should be consigned.

Presumably anyone stupid enough to volunteer for one of these cards in late 2009 will be stupid enough not to realise that their pride and joy will likely be defunct within 6 months. I'm tempted to set up my own "ID card" service to part these cretins from their money.

"No sir, that's not an egg box, it's a state of the art fingerprint scanner disguised as an eggbox to fool the terrorists - see how it's wired directly into the computer- it's a secure hacker-proof link."

If enough people refuse to carry them, there is no way the courts could deal with the situation. I for one won't be carrying an ID Card. 'Into my cold, dead, hands!' etc

Let Jacqui and her cronies sign up first. No? Didn't think so. What's wrong Jacqui? If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, innit?

"The first ID cards are scheduled to be issued to non-EEA foreign nationals next week (25th November)"

...and half of which will promptly have been 'lost' by 26th November. That won't be a problem though as I'm sure that most terrorists, illegal asylum seekers, dole scroungers, non-NuLabour voters and everyone else that us decent nothing-to-hide members of the public should live in fear of, will happily trundle along to the nearest police station (or wherever) and apply for another card - "What's that Mr Bin Laden? You've lost your ID card? Well just fill this form out and we'll have you on your way ASAP"

Mine's the one with a one-way ticket to anywhere-but-here

Perhaps Mr Brown could combine his plan of assumed consent for organ donation and the identity card scheme, anyone who wants to opt out carries an ID card.

I would certainly be happier with the idea of bits of me living on longer should I happen to die, rather than having to carry an ID card.

The peeps at www.no2id.net will know the answer, if you can't find it anywhere else.

Presumably the ID Cards will be the "licence" to buy alcohol for anyone who looks to be under the age of 25.

"Also it makes me shudder when the government uses the word "citizens". Way too 1984."

Quite right. We are not citizens. We are subjects of Her Majesty.

that Wacqui has hired someone competent to head up this effort - given the number of errors in the CRB data, perhaps my ID card will be for Elvis Presley after all!

We need a suitably Orwellian graphic for stories like this - perhaps a boot stamping on a human face?

Meanwhile, mine's the one with the multiple IDs in the pocket.

***"Also it makes me shudder when the government uses the word "citizens". Way too 1984."***

More like Revolutionary France.

Just waiting for wacqui to start installing the Guillotines.

As those who "can't wait to get an ID card" are no doubt, in a comfortable little room (padded of course), and have nice-but-big "carers" in white suits, will there be any point to this trial as they don't usually get out much?

Unless of course, the wacqui witch of the west has such delightful accommodation in mind for all of us...

I seem to remember the (quaint?) idea that once a person had done their time they were considered as "having paid their debt to society." If'n that's still the case, why and how does her Majesty's government think they can single out such people for mandatory ID cards? Class action? Could be interesting...

The volunteers are of course the crims who want to take a look at them in order to start working out how to forge the things. This relentless charge towards ID cards is quite irresponsible considering that an election is inevitable and a total rimming by the Tories is more than likely. The Tories have pledged to scrap the whole white elephant so every penny that Labia spend on this is a finger up to the over taxed and financially crippled British public.

We need a Twat-O-Tron icon.

"renewing my passport will enable me to be the lucky voluntary recipient of an ID card?"

My passport ran out last year so it looks like I'm never going to leave this f*cking sh*thole ever again then! If one comes with the other then I'm not going to have either!!

Black helicopter because one day they WILL come for me!

"Um, no. At the moment you've got until 2012 before they slapping ID cards on you."

Phew. Mine runs out in 2010, so it sounds like I can safely leave it till then to renew it

Hey kids, do your parent give you no respect?

Well Mrs Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary respects you. You can join her club and get your very own ID club card, just like the one given to pilots in Jumbo jets.

And best of all, your parents can't stop her! So why not do something rebellious today and get your new ID card, especially if your parents are against them! You can wave your card in their faces and if they complain Jacqui will take them away to her special house where she puts lots and lots and lots of people who disagree with her!

"Mine's the one with a one-way ticket to anywhere-but-here"

So which of these countries are you going to move to since these are about the only ones that don't have identity cards:

Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, India, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States.

Nearly all the rest have identity cards, although a few are non-compulsory.

No, no, my friend.. ...it was the *people* who rolled out madame guillotine, not the rulers of the day; though they were the first to experience it in public use...

...perhaps we ought to start looking into obtaining the schematics?

- Paris, 'cos she likes some head from time to time as well....

> How exactly is the witch defining 'voluntary'?

Quite. Which is why I propose that Trial by Ordeal for witches is a solution emminently compatible with dialectical materialism. Even for those who have metaphorically substituted the greasy pole dance in broad daylight for the broomstick.

The card isn't the problem. It's the database behind it that's the problem.

The database will contain your biometric data - 'you'. And then they will link it to all sorts of things, and then sell that data to anybody who wants it. You will be profiled by the Government. Other countries have non biometric cards without the database. Sort of like small plastic passports, or at least how they used to be. Nothing wrong with those at all, as there isn't a sodding great big database which every civil servant down to to secretaries could get into. Nothing against secretaries of course.

Tin foil hat time.

Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil'. Anyone else remember it? It's the one where a fly in the computer centre gets squashed by the printer and the resulting mark on the printout results in a man called 'Buttle' being arrested and interrogated instead of a man called 'Tuttle'. Tuttle is a 'terrorist', guilty of subverting 'the system' as a rogue heating and air conditioning engineer performing unlicensed work on government-supplied equipment; Buttle dies under questioning. Our hero, Sam Lowry, spends much of the film trying to work out what happened, and why, and in the process gets tarred as a 'terrorist' himself. The final scene, where his mind breaks as he sits, strapped down, in an interrogation chair, is particularly poignant.

Given this government's abject incompetence where anything resembling an IT project is concerned, coupled with the totalitarian tendencies now coming to the fore... how long is it before this scenario, or something like it, becomes horribly real? Because you know the system will be 'infallible', so it can never be wrong: you will have no escape and no recourse.

Whats the point of having a national ID card system if it's voluntary ???? If you think its going to be voluntary', think again.

Thanks for that.

//Mines the one with the passport application form in the pocket.

The government is your friend.

They're here to help you.

Someone has to be in charge.

They're just the same as you and me.

It's for your protection.

It's to save the children.

The ID cards and CCTV will let us help you anytime, anywhere.

The leaders don't need this because they would never do anything wrong.

The leaders don't need help because they have their own private security.