Absolutely no politician - or, come to that, policeman - has the right to lock me up without recourse to a judge and jury. I'm protected by Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights. Every MP who supports Charles Clarke's 'house arrest' Bill must be removed from office at the earliest opportunity. And it matters not one iota to which party these power-hungry lunatics belong - their constituencies must deselect them forthwith.

It is worth remembering that Adolf Hitler began his ascendancy by the same politcally dubious route. That Clarke should feel able to present his Bill to Parliament is the result of a politcal party having an overwhelming majority, a politically neutered House of Lords and a weak monarchy which seems concerned only with its own image. Barrie Draper, Axminster, Devon. Daily Mail, 24/02/2005

WWW silentmajorityspeaks.com

ID cards costing £63,000 every day

ID cards are costing the public £63,000 every day as the Government desperately tries to get the controversial scheme off the ground. Despite widespread opposition to the project, as much as £32million has already been ploughed into the cards since spring 2003, figures have revealed.

Critics last night (February 22, 2006) rounded on Labour for spending taxpayers' cash before ID cards have even won Parliamentary approval. Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesman Alastair Carmichael, who uncovered the figures, said: "The Government is spending money which it has no right to spend. It is unacceptable to forge ahead on a scheme which will radically alter British society without the approval of MPs".

ID cards, introduced during World War Two, were abolished by the Tories under Winston Churchill on February 21, 1952. The war had ended in 1945 but Labour's Clement Attlee retained them throughout his six years in power, ending in 1951.

Let's vote on it

The introduction of ID cards splits opinion, with many implications. In particular, it represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between state and individual. With a General Election coming up, presenting the issue in a referendum to the nation will allow people to decide in a democratic manner.

If we can hold a referendum on the tepid subject of regional assemblies, it is only fair to hold one on ID cards.Letter to The Mail on Sunday from Clarence Barrett, Cranham,, Essex - January 2, 2005

If a suicide bomber can infiltrate an American army base, a relatively small area where vetting would be intense, who honestly believes that ID cards will prevent a similar atrocity among our vast population. Some security.Letter to The Mail on Sunday from Peter Thorndyke, Dickleburg, Norfolk, - January 2, 2005.

... One correspondent wrote last week how he was given an ID card at the age of five in the Second World War so that the Home Guard could distinguish him from a Nazi storm-trooper. My wartime ID was issued when I was two weeks old. As I still possess this document - by the way, I was never confused with a German parachutist - can I continue to use it and save myself the cost of buying a new card?Letter to The Mail on Sunday from A Franklin, Blamdford Forum, Dorset - Jan. 2, 2005

This whole business of ID cards is, without doubt, the product of an obsessive-neurotic mind. A £1000 fine for forgetting to tell the Government when you move home? Is that a joke? What about Gipsies? Or are they exempt?

A National Identity Register, complete with iris prints and all the rest of it, with up to ten years in chokey for forgers, will cost in the region of £3billion to set up. An expensive toy. They should have given it to John Prescott to play with. Without doubt the computer will crash within a week and there will be thousands, millions, without passports, without driving licences, without identities.

Any more bright ideas, Mr Blunkett? At least he may have put paid to the saloon bar ID card mantra: "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear." Blunkett had everything to hide and now he should have everything to fear, although his boss seems to think otherwise.

What about those rail tickets though: "A minor matter", we learn. There was a time when people were kicked out of the Cabinet over such minor matters. And is anyone - besides Mr Blunkett - trying to tell me that giving his mistress a £180 rail warrant was a "genuine mistake"?

It was a mistake, all right. For heaven's sake, he has been in Parliament for 17 years. Can he really have thought that free rail travel included ministers' mistresses? No moral censure, though. Just pay the money back and we'll say no more.Keith Waterhouse on ID cards - Daily Mail,December 2, 2004

I know I'm me - why do I need an ID card?

"Sorry, officers, I don't have an ID card. I never applied for one. It seemed a bit steep at 300 quid. I do have my free passport, my driving licence and my London freedom travel pass, each with my photograph. I have my NHS medical card, with its lengthy number, given me at birth, my RAF service book with my Armed Forces number, and a chit authorising me to wear a few gongs -including a General Service Medal with Malaya bar, for fighting communist terrorists on behalf of my country, or so they told me.

"I've also got various credit cards and store cards, all with my signature on the back, generally good for buying the everyday requrements for life as well as the odd luxury. If you decide to arrest me, I suppose I'll have to be photographed and given another number, besides my PINs.

"I'm afraid I haven't got a pension book; it was taken away."

"By thieves, sir?"

"No ... well, not exactly. By the Government. By the way, may I see your warrant cards please, gentlemen?"

Oh dear, they've disappeared. E. Harry Gumer, Romford, ESSEX - Daily Mail, June 1, 2005

CD loss sends a chill down the spine

Your ID card details will be sold to banks

Youth card torn up for not being smart enough

I'd rather go to jail than carry one of Blair's ID cards

Blair's ID card plan undermined by security breaches

Whitehall: £15bn ID cards project heads for scrapheap

Tories promise to scrap ID cards and build more jails

Now the bungling Home Office steals our good names

ID cards of 'limited value' in terror war - Blair's adviser

Cameron calls ID cards 'unBritish'

Ex-head of MI5 attacks ID card scheme

ID cards will lead to 'massive fraud'

ID cards a plastic Poll Tax

What if I don't buy an ID card?

ID cards are a 'Dog's dinner'

Will I D Cards increase your security? NO, says Home Secretary Clarke, after 7/7

ICM interviewed a random sample of 1022 18+ adults by telephone on December 1/2, 2004. Interviews were conducted across the country. Results weighted to the profile of all adults.

Will your freedom be threatened?

ID Cards 'a step on the road to a police state'

by James Chapman, Daily Mail Political Correspondent - August 17, 2004

Plans to bring in identity cards and a population register were attacked yesterday by Britain's information watchdog. Richard Thomas warned of the dangers of 'sleep-walking into a surveillance society'. He pointed to the former Soviet Union and Franco's Spain as dangerous examples of what happens when officials know too much about their citizens.

The information commissioner was backed by Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, who accused ministers of continually 'moving the ground'. "The danger of that is we end up with a system which has got no protection, no defences and can be abused by anyone in government," Mr Davis added.

The strength of the criticisms will dismay the Home Office and Downing Street, which is backing the ID card scheme. Mr Thomas is responsible for enforcing and overseeing the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act. He is also concerned about a register of the entire population planned by the Office for National Statistics and about the setting up of a database of every child from birth to the age of 18.

"I don't want to start talking paranoia language," he said, "but data protection has a strong continental European flavour. Some of my counterparts in eastern Europe and in Spain have experienced in the last century what can happen when government gets too powerful and has too much information on citizens. My anxiety is that we don't sleepwalk into a surveillance society where much more information is collected about people, accessible to far more people, and shared across many more boundaries than British society would feel comfortable with."

The Home Office kept quiet about the failure of the national automated fingerprint computer database NAFIS during recent debates in Parliament on the ID Card Bill.

Do you have a problem with ID cards?

Letters to the Daily Mail - November 29 to December 27, 2004

YES

W. Skinner from Dorking, Surrey writes:

As a 77-year-old British citizen, I resent the need and the cost of yet another form of ID. Government had no problem in identifying me for call-up in 1945. The Inland Revenue and my local council find no problem in identifying me for their tax purposes.

I am more than adequately recorded without the need for fingerprint or eyeball scanning to distinguish me from a terrorist or illegal immigrant.

Only in a police state would I expect to be stopped with the demand for 'Papers please' - and I hope we're not heading in that direction.

J.James from London, W9 writes:

Will it be the case that one cannot have a passport unless one buys an ID card? Time for the revolution! In a democracy, the Government should be answer-able to the people, not vice-vresa. I'm more worried about the effects on the eyes of 'iris scanning' than terrorists or weapons of mass destruction.

A Labour voter usually, I shall in future be voting for a party which says it will drop this idea.

From Jenny Kennedy, Abergavenny, Gwent.- 29/12/2004

I recently moved from South Africa and my prime reason for emigrating was the rampant crime. There were 47,000 violent crimes in South Africa in 2003, only 10% of which reached the courts. My youngest son was held up at gunpoint while playing golf. The turning point came for me when a young mother, grandmother and baby were hijacked on the way back from celebrating the baby's first birthday at a restaurant. All were raped and killed but the perpetrators weren't convicted because of 'incorrect paperwork'.

Everyone in South Africa must, by law, carry an identification card. Has it stopped crime?

VOTE HERE

Peter Scott from Disley, Cheshire writes:

What's the problem with having to carry an identity card? Only people with something to hide would feaar them. It would cut down on benefit frauds and illegal immigrants. The money saved on not paying these cheats would help in funding any such introduction. My own problem would be the combined cost of £85.

Susan Field from Oxhey, Herts. writes:

I can't understand why people are concerned about having to carry an ID card. Proving ones identity when you have nothing to hide is not a problem. America has had them for years and they are used when flying internally. For many I worked in an environment where ID cards were compulsory and found it very useful.

Rita Southgate from Limassol,Cyprus writes:

I find it difficult to understand all the fuss about the issue of identity cards in Britain. I've lived in Cyprus for four years and I am very proud to carry an identity card. Cyprus realises it helps national security.

From A. Newsham, Poplars End, Berks. 29/12/2004

I fail to understand the fuss about ID cards. Other European countries have had them for many years without problems. I dare say they would make life a lot easier for police and immigration officers and therefore benefit us all.

VOTE HERE

Letter to the Mail on Sunday from Clarence Barrett, Cranham,, Essex - January 2, 2005

The introduction of ID cards splits opinion, with many implications. In particular, it represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between state and the individual. With a General Election coming up, presenting the issue to the nation in a referendum will allow people to decide in a democratic manner.

If we can hold a referendum on the tepid subject of regional assemblies, it is only fair to hold one on ID cards.

Do you want an ID Card?

Mrs Anna D'Arcy from Cadiz, Spain, writes to the Editor, Daily Mail (Friday, April 30, 2004):

"Wake up, Britain. What are you doing/ I'm a 29 year old mother of two, currently studying in Spain, a country often used as an example of somewhere with ID cards. Despite the good weather and easy lifestyle here, the Spanish are nannied so much by their Government that people just shrug their shoulders and can't be bothered to do much about it."

"I've always taken great pride in the fact that Britain is a "grown-up" country which doesn't need ID cards. I've been looking forward to returning to Britain and being treeated like an adult. I'm now hearing wild claims that ID cards will stop illegal immigration, prevent child murders and halt terrorism. But those inclined to do these things will find a way around ID cards. If you can't do anything about people like Abu Hamza, how is an ID card going to help.

The Government is foisting this idiotic idea on Britons simply because it has failed in tackling illegal immigration. I have numerous cards: credit cards, passport, and a driver's license - but I'm not required to have them and, for me, this is the fundamental issue."

"Your Government is answerable to you, not the other way around. If this sacred issue is thrown away so easily, what next? Please, fellow Britons, fight for your freedom."

Read this before you vote or print it for reading at your leisure

IS MRS D'ARCY RIGHT - OR

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STOP PRESS

Blair' plans to impose identity cards on us in the UK has been severely criticised by Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner. He said that the plan to force everyone over 16 to buy a £40 high-tech card could seriously undermine individual liberty and privacy.

Mr Thomas said the scheme was 'unprecedented' in international terms, telling a Commons Home Affairs Select Committee's inquiry into the draft legislation on the cards that it could bring about far-reaching changes in Britain's society. "This is beginning to represent a really significant sea change in the relationship between State and every individual in this country," he said.

The Commissioner is appointed by the Queen as an impartial arbiter armed with powers to protect British citizens from intrusion by the State. Critics see the proposed ID cards as an enormous extension of the power of face-less bureaucrats. They also question whether it would be the weapon Blair claims it will be to fight terrorism, benefit tourism and crime.

What we do need is a system to photograph and fingerprint all foreigners entering the United Kingdom, as have the Americans. Don't we the British and citizens of Northern Ireland deserve the same level of protection from our Government that the Americans get from theirs?

Current and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running for election could share a platform at public forums in every constituency. They would be presented with the results of polls on this issue expressed by voters in their constituency.

The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters. Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged and the results published on this web site.

Here is another powerful strategy for using your vote effectively in the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and prospective MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your vote. This example deals with the proposed EU Constitutional Treaty.

Your letters would end: "If you do not answer this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the Government line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General Election."

Blair's defiance of the will of the majority of we, the people of the UK, over the invasion of Iraq must be exposed by voters as a matter or urgency, and not just in the two by-elections we have had this July and the European elections in June 2004. But how can this be done?

The most effective way of getting our deceitful PM to resign would be to mobilise the army of Labour MPs currently in the House of Commons and get them to demand it, the loss of their seat to be a penalty if they did not. All voters in Labour-held constituencies need to write a letter along these lines to their local Labour MPs:

Here's one to get Tony Blair to resign:

Dear

Despite his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year of the serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction', Prime Minister Blair has admitted, that the threat was non-existent. For that critical error of judgement and for his gross incompetence in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable thing and resign without delay..

I would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and help mobilise a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in Mr Blair which, despite Labour's huge majority, would leave the PM with no option but to resign.

If I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue to support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances I shall not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election.

Signed:

Simple, non-violent, protest letters along these lines on a variety of issues could be the basis for re-vitalising our democracy and increasing voters' interest and participation in politics. Download a printable copy of the above letter here.

Or why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the candidates in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to questions of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).

Download a printable example of the questionnaire.

It is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our representatives in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the majority in their own constituency, even if this means going against their personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency, they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view of those who elect them.

It will be argued by politicians of all parties that most voters don't have the knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important subjects at issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy. We should argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters do have ready access to such information as is necessary to form an intelligent opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of Opposition Parties in our Parliamentary Democracy.

Most important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their latent interest and obligation to cast their vote,, knowing that the candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be the result.

Contact your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005. You should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of your choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject being debated in Parliament will more accurately be reflected by your representative in that assembly.