Queens speech

Fair enough. I'd like to volunteer please, to have a small video camera implanted into my forehead. After all, one day I might be involved in a criminal act and so by acting now the authorities will be able to track me at all times and know when I do something that they have decided is wrong. You'll all need to have one as well, of course.

If we give away our civil liberties it will come back to bite us.

Nobody's answered yet about what ID cards are actually for. Not Voter ID, actual ID cards.

A very small step from issuing everyone with an ID card and then requiring them to carry it at all times. I've lived in countries where this happens; it's a complete PITA. Plus, of course, once your card can be withdrawn, it's a huge step towards a police state.

I wonder how actively the sentinent animals thing will be pushed. The last straw for fox hunting and the like, his landed cronies won't be pleased...

Photo ID is open to all sorts of abuse. I looked at my bus pass today (photo from 9 years ago) and I have dyed hair and look young and vigorous whereas in real life I am grey and withered! Polling officers, not liking the look of my political opinions, say I was wearing a Labour rosette, could turn me away on the grounds that I looked nothing like my photo.

What’s PITA?

PITA = Pain in the A***

It would be up to you mouse to have an up to date photo in any photo ID, just as you would a passport.
Other countries seem to manage well having ID, and at times we all have to present it, passport, bus pass, library card etc.
I can’t see a problem at all.

Driving licence as well.

Alegrias1

Nobody's answered yet about what ID cards are actually for. Not Voter ID, actual ID cards.

What do other countries use them for? Many countries have them, care to look it up?

I know how Google works.

I'm wondering what people here think they are for.

Police checks, and in Europe, for crossing borders in and out and for flying to other EU countries- no passport required.

Police checks. That's a good start.

Show me your papers.....what are you doing around here?

Kali2

oh but everyone has a Driving Licence, don't they !!! (not)

My late mother never learnt to drive as she was epileptic, so she had no driving licence. She didn't have a pasport as she hadn't been abroad since being widowed. I guess her bus pass would have done the trick but if she had been disenfranchised she would have been up in arms, and her protests would not have been silent!

I didn't ..in Labour run Wales

Can’t see a problem with ID cards. As other posters have already said we have to have them for driving licences, passports etc.

What are the ID cards for, please?

Still asking. So far, answers are just Police Checks and as an alternative to passports.

Not convinced.

There was absolutely overwhelming support for voter ID amongst those who came to vote

Did they say why they supported it?

Gwyneth

Can’t see a problem with ID cards. As other posters have already said we have to have them for driving licences, passports etc.

Driving licences, passports have a purpose. They hold essential information about the holder.

Producing ID to collect parcels, letters etc. has a purpose, at the least it protects the sender, particularly if they're a business, in the case of any dispute about non arrival. ID for starting a bank account is a bit obvious, too.

But voter ID to supposedly protect against fraud, which hasn't happened on anything but an utterly miniscule scale, is not necessary. No fraud, no need for them. I've been voting for 50 years. Never heard of any massive fraud (and it would have to be huge to affect a result) arising from in-person voting. There is absolutely no justification for it.

On the other hand, undemocratic practices, such as targeted 'dark advertising' needs to be stamped on. Don't notice our Vote Leave government who benefitted so much from such practice, trying to stamp that out...

ID cards are used whenever proof of identity is required. Over here we show our passports or driving licences. I have never understood this fear of ID cards. I guess it depends on your attitude. In countries where they have been used for many years they are seen as a convenient form of identification – not as a tool for 'the enemy' to check on you!

As regards voting I'd be surprised if there were a lot of fraud at our elections. But if people turn up withouth identification how do we know to what extent this goes on? Perhaps we just trust that only honest people turn up to vote. At the recent elections my daughter was unwell and didn't vote. I was staying with her at the time and could easily have gone to the polling station and given her name and address. Who would have known?

How will we identify ourselves when we are too old to drive and too old to travel abroad? Utility bills don't come with photos.

How will we identify ourselves when we are too old to drive and too old to travel abroad? Utility bills don't come with photos.

Why will we need to identify ourselves then? If a utility bill really isn't sufficient then there is no reason why an out of date passport of drivers licence shouldn't suffice. We don't change our feature with age.

With respect, I really don't care what 'other countries' do, Greta. Voter ID is unnecessary. We don't need it.

As far as voter ID is concerned, it seems like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Numbers seem to be vanishingly small.

I don't understand how people are supposed to be abusing the system. If I vote and I am ticked off the list, no-one else can vote as me, can they? Or do they think that people are turning up at the polling station and using the vote of someone else who is not bothering to vote? If it's neither case, how exactly is it supposed to be happening?

The Queen's Speech mainly showed how the government is changing the rules to suit itself. The coalition introduced fixed term elections because it was supposed to benefit them, and this government wants to abolish them because it wants to be able to call snap elections when it's riding high in the polls. They want to reduce the judiciary's power to intervene when politicians act unlawfully, since they got their wrists slapped when they prorogued Parliament. How is it democracy when you tilt the playing field to give yourselves an advantage?

Reminds me of the time when the GLC, under Ken Livingstone, was a thorn in Thatcher's side, so she abolished it.

The Police and Crime Bill will massively erode the right to peaceful protest. As for up to 10 years inside for damaging a statue... Oh, for God's sake. Our local paper recently reported the sentencing of a man who had been sexually abusing a young girl since she was six years old. He got five years in prison. So you could get twice as long for damaging a statue than for molesting a little child. It's insane.

The Health Secretary is also going to get more power over the NHS, which will undoubtedly hasten it down the privatisation route. The new provisions will include no requirement for contracts to put out to tender, which has been happening throughout the pandemic anyway. More contracts for people like Hancock's mate who runs a pub but somehow got a contract to supply Covid tests.

It was also reported, at the time of the election, that the government is considering plans to change the way that voting is done to elect mayors, because Labour candidates like. Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham keep winning. The level playing field is a thing of the past.

When I lived in South London during the 70s and 80s the SUS Laws, which were enacted in 1824 as part of the Vagrancy Act, were frequently used by police to target ethnic minorities. The Laws permitted the police to stop and search, and even arrest, anyone found in a public place if they suspected that they intended to commit an offence.

In order to bring a prosecution under the act, the police had to prove that the defendant had committed two acts:

the first, that established them as a "suspected person" (by acting suspiciously), and
the second, that provided intent to commit an arrestable offence.

Two witnesses were required to substantiate the charge, which were usually two police officers patrolling together.

Obviously the word of 2 policemen would be accepted over the word of the person being searched.

The SUS Laws were believed to be a contributory factor in the race riots of the early 80s in Brixton, Bristol etc.

It is for the above reasons that I am opposed to the introduction of ID in the UK. We use passports or driving licenses in order to prove that we are who we say we are when collecting purchases. There is nothing wrong with that. The police don't ask to see your passport or driving licence if they decide to stop you whilst walking along the street. If the carrying of IDs was to become law it would give them plenty of opportunities hassle people if they didn't like the look of them.

Thank for for answering my question Greta, I'll stop asking now.

I do agree with MaizieD and Dinahmo though. We don't have ID cards here and we've managed to cope with identifying ourselves with the means that we've got, when required. A (compulsory?) id card is a way of the government checking on us, whatever hue that government takes.

It just seems rather perverse to me that most of those decrying the (apparent) loss of our democracy that voter I.D. would cause, are the same ones who have spent the last 4 years trying to undermine the result of the democratic vote of the nation to leave the European Union.