Such dogmatism. And it most certainly isn’t untrue as I know a hell of a lot of social liberals like me who used to vote for Labour and could not consider doing so now, until the party reforms itself, which at present seems unlikely.

The world wide recession and the lies of the billionaire led media were the key factors in Labour’s loss

Actually I think all those things helped Labour, as indeed the temporary ‘bounce’ after the bank rescue showed. The electorate often cleaves to the ‘devil it knows’ in times of crisis, as it did in 1992; and that phenomenon was certainly in evidence in 2010, as the Tories failed to get an overall majority. What made the difference was that Labour had made itself anathema to a relatively small but vocal and influential element of its erstwhile core support.

The principal losers via ID cards are those who found them particularly useful when traveling to the EU

I fail to be imprssed by that argument. That is what a passport is for.

The world wide recession and the lies of the billionaire led media were the key factors in Labour’s loss.

The principal losers via ID cards are those who found them particularly useful when traveling to the EU.

ID cards will return here, I hope they are British rather than american

However that is all now past history, as one of the first acts of the new government was to announce the repeal the ID Cards Act and the physical destruction of the National Identity Register. This should become law by the end of the year. And quite properly to. The only opposition to this entirely sensible measure has been from those with a vested interest in the scheme, to make money from it, or from the tiny, tiny, tiny number of people so ideologically obsessed with national registration that they got one of the 10,000 cards issued over the last 12 months. Such opposition is utterly insignificant.

Quietzapple, one reason why we have a Coalition government is because millions or former Labour voters, such as me, would not vote for a Labour Party that had a pathological mistrust for civil liberties. It remains to be seen whether Labour can reform itself in this respect or whether we will have to find another party to vote for in 2015.

As for the tiny number of ID Card registrees who are not getting compensation, well no one can say that they weren’t warned. When Labour made the Brocock air pistol illegal in 2004, over 75,000 had been sold legally in this country. Even though the former owners had paid for them in good faith, the labour government confiscated them without compensation. Many thousands of people lost hundreds of pounds of property through no fault of their own. So excuse me if I feel less than sympathetic for the loss of a mere £30.

It is one of irony.

There are myriad tory MPs and others banging a dubious tambourine with liberty misspelt on its side.

The new Home Secretary will no doubt decide the relationship between the register and passports in good time. A number of possibilities must be decoded between I would have thoguht.

The Identity and Passport Office also says:

“However, you may be aware that the Home Secretary recently made an announcement about the National Identity Service and this is available at: http://www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/100.htm.

“You can also find out more on our online information service, through the DirectGov website, which is available at: http://www.direct.gov.uk/identity.”

That”s an impressively elliptical remark. Let”s make things simple. Is registration on the NIR voluntary or not. It is a direct and simple question and surely Mr Johnson can answer it.