Show me your papers comrade...Meg HIllier(LAB) MP on internal passports/ID Cards.

Quite what country is it that we are living in? Cuba? The former USSR? Well some in the New Labour government seem to be having wet dreams about getting us heading that way.

An so here is the rather telling remark by Home Office Minister Megg Hillier in front of a parliamentary committee last week.

"You should see an ID card like a passport in-country."

The day of us "free citizens" here in the UK having to show our papers to the police, government officials and anyone - in order to get anything done - are creeping ever nearer.

For those who can't see what the problem may be, let me clarify what an internal passport is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_passport

Internal passports were used in the Soviet Union for identification of persons for various purposes. In particular, passports were used to control and monitor the place of residence by means of propiska, a regulation in the Soviet Union designed to control internal population movement by binding a person to his or her permanent place of residence. Officially, propiska was introduced for statistical reasons: since in the planned economy of the Soviet Union the distribution of goods and services was centralized, the overall distribution of population was to be monitored. For example, a valid propiska was necessary to receive higher education or medical treatment. Also, since there was no private ownership of real estate, having a propiska for an address meant that you had the right to live there.

The context was her saying that 80% of people already have a passport, and she immediately qualified it by saying that ID cards weren't "entitlement cards" merely "an easier way to access services" - but, that is just a very small step to take.

A step the New Labour communists will take, for security reasons if for no other reason. A first it will be over zealous officials demanding them as ID, then they will be the only acceptable form of ID.

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