It always amuses me that given this is supposed to be a forum board for mil / ex-mil that so many are opposed to carrying an ID.
Nothing to hide....nothing to fear
As pointed out, it carries far more than a simple ID card, and when you can buy genuine passports off some dubious staff, the system is open to abuse, and that will allow people to hide within the system.
You have to remember the likes of Japan had already rejected the previous system we were going the adopt as unworkable.
Yes I carried a 1250 in the RAF and thought a Nationwide system would have been good at the time, but the older and maybe wiser I get the less i think it is. It is eroding our Civil liberties bit by bit.
I also objected to the Government spending £300 million of public monies on the previous fiasco when the money could have been used elsewhere and then expecting every Cititzen to put their hand into their pockets and pay some £300 to buy the compulsory card, I could afford it, but a lot of folks wouldn't be able to, that was setting a precendent for the future stealth taxes, because that is what it was.
I am getting totally fed up with the Goverrnments bywords for slipping through further restrictions on the publics rights to Civil liberties by spouting off the usual rhetoric " It is needed to counter terrorism"
Horse Crap.... No foreign visitors including long term students on visa's need to be carrying an ID card, and the terrorists involved it the Murder of Trooper Rigby and the London bus and tube bombings would have as said before been legally entitled to an ID card. It's simply another way to attempt press through greater restrictive legislation on the populace under the of thinly veiled "prevention of terrorism"