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Telegraph | Opinion | Howard preferred ridicule to being thought soft on terror:

Until Michael Howard flunked the test yesterday and forced his reluctant frontbench Tory colleagues to endorse the looming multi-billion-pound ID card fiasco, the Tories had at least one promising vote-winning issue for next year’s election campaign.

A question could have been put to the electorate along these lines: do you think that government has become over-mighty in the past eight years; and, if so, do you want to have to get into the car with your wife or husband and drive to the police station, stand and queue while your car is clamped outside, submit to a reading being taken of your iris or fingerprint, provide a signature sample and your home address, and then write out a cheque to the government for £170?

You might have a couple of children at university - that’ll be another £170 for them - and don’t forget the ageing parents, for they are not exempt either. Those parents might be of an age when they can get cranky and refuse to submit to some silly jobsworth, but be careful. If they refuse to allow their details to be stored on the new identity databank, they will be liable for a £2,500 fine. And if an elderly relative has to be moved into a nursing home, don’t forget to tell the Home Office or you may be liable for a £1,000 fine.

One of the characteristics of the ID card Bill that makes it recognisable as a piece of New Labour legislation is that it creates 31 new powers for the Home Secretary, seven new civil fines, and eight new criminal offences.
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“It is not difficult to see how this ID card scheme could become New Labour’s defining fiasco. People will resent the cost and the intrusion, but the serious trouble could come when the police are required to enforce it in areas with high Muslim populations, where many might prefer not to register. The Government and the Conservatives seem blithe about what this might do for race relations in this country.

The Tories have failed to see that this debate is about much more than a piece of plastic. It is about our attitude to government, and its attitude to us. I would not expect New Labour to understand that point, but if the Tories do not understand it either, there is no point in someone like me voting for them any more.

In selfish terms, I was relieved to see Michael Howard take the easy way out and endorse ID cards, because it freed me of any sense that I should have to vote for his party. No longer will I have to profess enthusiasm about Tory policies, or pretend that I see the green shoots of a Conservative revival.

For the first time I shall vote for the Liberal Democrats, because they do understand that the identity card debate is about the just role of government, and I suspect tens of thousands of instinctive Conservatives will do the same next year.”