Identity Politics

We are rubbish at big IT projects in Britain, so believe in voter ID when you see it, and that is just as well, because if it ever came into effect, then we would have American-style denial of the results at every election for evermore.

But requiring photographic identification to vote is not about electoral fraud. It is only partially about even voter suppression. This is about identity cards, which have been the Home Office's solution in search of a problem for as long as I can remember.

And identity cards, which are once again Labour Party policy as well, obtained from whom? The Passport Office and the DVLA, documentation from one or other of which is now required in order to exercise the franchise, are about to be privatised. Who is going to buy them? Infosys? The foreign states that have bought the utilities and the rail companies? Who, exactly?

We are heading for a hung Parliament. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not.