Well, David Blunkett has got his way on ID cards with his plans to introduce the scheme included in the Queen's speech yesterday.

"The home secretary believes identity cards will help tackle international terrorism, identity theft and help the work of the UK immigration services."

Laudable aims, you would think but let's look at some of the planned verification uses of the ID cards that civil servants in the Home Office are working on:

Preventing underage sales of DVDs, cigarettes, lottery tickets and alcohol (also laudable but do we need a compulsory national ID card for this?)

Enforcing parking fines

Banking service and mortgage applications

TV license and car tax applications

Applications for benefits

Applications for driving tests

Access to public services such as GPs or hospitals

Applications for gun licenses

You can just hear those frightened international terrorists - uh oh, we better not try the UK, they'll make us pay our parking fines and we might find it hard to get a TV license. This would be amusing if it wasn't so serious.