So that’s it, despite no-one wanting them, despite an Express.co.uk poll showing 80% against and despite a petition with almost a million signatures slamming them, Sir Keir Starmer is imposing digital ID cards on you.

By coincidence, the number of people against the ID cards in the Parliament.co.uk petition (838,834, but climbing by the second!) is almost exactly the same as the number of migrants – legal and illegal – we were told today entered the country last year. Make of that what you will.

But at a thing called the Global Progressive Action Conference this morning, our leader said, with absolute cast-iron conviction: “This Government will make a free-of-charge digital ID mandatory by the end of this Parliament.”

So, if I was you I’d nip down Ladbrokes and stick a tenner on a complete U-Turn by the end of October.

Trust me, it’s not going to happen.

As ever, this lumberingly idiotic Government has listened hard to what the people of Britain want, then done the polar opposite.

It’s got spectacular climb-down written all over it.

And so it should.

Look, on one level, this driving licence with knobs on might seem fairly innocuous, even a good idea, if it at least tries in some way to tackle the small boats.

What did you post to your social media today? My guess is it was something far, far more intimate and revealing (and geographically precise) than what the Government digital ID is suggesting.

As luck would have it, I’m currently writing a book, and the premise is that Orwell was wrong; that the all-seeing, all-powerful Big Brother isn’t the state, it’s the people. The people who have been willingly co-opted into giving up their freedoms, their rights, and their privacy for a two-second dopamine rush on social media to benefit a handful of hyper-rich mega corporations. It’s the modern equivalent of Native Americans handing over Tennessee for a few shiny beads and a bottle of scotch.

But I digress, I would draw your attention to the very recent Afghan data scandal that we all seem to have forgotten about way too quickly.

Just three months ago we were told 19,000 top secret names had been accidentally leaked by the Government (the last one… ) and were now in the process of being tracked down and presumably killed. It was not a one-off – between 2023 and 2024 there were 569 known cases of Government data leaks, from just one department (the MoD) in one year.

Feeling digitally comforted and safe and secure yet?

And we live in a world where the hackers are so many steps ahead of the authorities it’s just not a fair fight – just ask Jaguar Land Rover or indeed the nursery chain Kiddo.

I just don’t trust the Government to keep us safe.

Then there is the bigger issue. Why should Government inability to tackle a pretty simple border security problem (and it really is.. Marginally re-word human rights legislation, then turn the boats around, keep Rwanda in your back pocket..) mean I have my rights and freedoms impinged?

It’s like telling women if they wear a skirt above the knee everything is their fault. We legislate for the criminal not for the victim.

Then there is that awful 1940s “papers please” Nazi Germany feeling which just refuses to go away, and the obvious fear of the whole thing being expanded allowing the state to probe into every corner of our lives.

No, not for me thanks.

But, like I say, it’s not going to happen.

And it’s pretty obvious Keir knows this.

That’s why he left it until the dying seconds of a 20-minute speech to make the announcement.

The rest of the speech was to butter us up, make us think hey, maybe he’s a good guy, maybe he’s one of us after all.

But even the most credulous Labour patsy would have seen through this dreadful focus-group, dog whistle stuff – flying the flag, something called “patriotic renewal”, and “restoring pride”, blah blah blah.

In fact, for a minute I could have sworn I was back in Birmingham with Reform.

Starmer said: “ The worst thing we can do is to defend the status quo, it hasn’t worked for working people.

“We must be determined to deliver change for their interests, patriotic renewal, restoring pride where people live and work. We fight for our values, decency, tolerance, respect and most importantly we focus on the countries we can become through renewal, national renewal.”

Which all seemed fine but then he went and ruined it all talking about “difference under the same flag” which sounded an awful lot like the now discredited credo of multiculturalism rebranded for a new tranche of suckers.

Nah he didn’t believe a word. A more cynical reporter than this one might even be minded to think he’d just lobbed a hand grenade into the room and was about to leave Andy Burnham to pick out the shrapnel.