The public in general believes the card to be a convenient form of ID, useful in everyday interactions with banks, insurance companies and so on. If the card was merely ID, ie: name, address, national insurance number, blood group, organ donor etc, then there would be no real issue.

The problem is the database behind the initiative, in which massive amounts of sensitive information will be gathered by stealth through an audit trail generated by interactions with the State. None of this has anything to do with ID. It is surveillance, pure and simple. The scheme will be sold to the public on the premise of "convenience" and "security", when it is clearly a mechanism to facilitate State control.

People need to ask themselves why the Government is gathering so much information (that it cannot even keep safe) and for what purpose if, as the Government says, the card is merely ID. I have nothing to hide in my personal life, so why should I be treated as though I have? Together with ever more draconian "snooping" laws implemented by councils, I am convinced we are being softened up to acquiesce to the dictates of authoritarianism.

Unfortunately, with the apathy and ignorance of the general public, our liberties will be eroded sooner rather than later.

From: Ian Harrison, Eldroth Road, Halifax.

WHENEVER the subject of identity cards and assorted intrusions are raised, we are treated by New Labour and their sycophants to the platitude: "If you're doing no wrong you have nothing to fear".

Well, Mr Brown, tell that to Mr Watson (Yorkshire Post, August 29), an industrious Yorkshire landlord trying to make an honest living in a beleaguered ancient trade. His crime was to screw down a gazebo to prevent it from blowing away. York city planners, predictably, are demanding that he take it down, or apply for planning permission or be heftily fined.

Coincidentally, Bernard Ingham's excellent article appeared bemoaning the state of the nation as a result of increasing levels of nannyism and political correctness and lack of basic common sense.

There's nothing new here of course and Sir Bernard will recall that 140 years ago Karl Marx pre-empted York City Council (and many others) by observing that "the extraordinary productiveness of modern industry allows the unproductive employment of a larger and larger part of the working class".