Land of freedom
Jonathan Glancey writes in the New Statesman on why government policy on ID cards is an insult to our national heritage.
The example of Shakespeare’s King Lear suggests that identity cards go against our national heritage and culture. Such an illiberal measure could not be supported by any half-decent British politician, and certainly not one who had fought the identity-card-loving dictators of half a century ago. When Britain was directly under threat at the outbreak of the Second World War, there was a country worth fighting for: a country that had, however clumsily, and often despite illiberal politicians, bred, nurtured and exported notions of liberty and democracy. That Britain – a very old Britain stretching back to the days of Lear and Edgar – would have given short shrift to ID cards.
