All that was originally needed was a cleanup of the national insurance number list. That was the problem that needed to be fixed, the NI number quoted for benefits like unemployment and health wasn't reliable. Somehow the fix morphed into a massive identity scheme.

Subsequent lobbying of the EU added the Biometric requirement to passports and ID cards which Britain then claimed was a requirement that came from the EU..... not true, they policy washed it through a naive (and also complicit - they wanted more power) EU leadership.

You try to set the agenda here, adding vague requirements that a card is supposed to fix. But is there a real problem there? And is the problem bigger than the costs of fixing it?

Do 50 little problems add up to one big one? Or only if you keep the discussion vague. Like online credit card fraud became 'identity theft' to imply that somehow having an ID card in your pocket would be a fix for someone using your credit card number on the internet.