I Pledge Allegiance to The Queen...

The former Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith has recommended that school children should pledge allegiance to the Queen, as one of many measures to try to re-entrench 'Britishness' into civil life. Silly me, I wasn't aware that it had ever left, there must be a moral panic afoot. Nick Clegg is right in trashing the idea - developing a sense of belonging for young people can only come by allowing them an active role in society. Yet soon they'll require ID cards merely to get student loans...

As much as I love the United States, I have no comprehension why this country is so totally obsessed with becoming the 51st state. Their pledging allegiance to their flag isn't something which can be copied for a whole litany of reasons, nor should it be desirable in this country. The nationalism which that engenders can currently be demonstrated in Iraq. Of course this is merely an attempt to get young, disaffected Muslims 'back on board' with their British identity, but how reciting an oath could reverse a disengagement with society (the reasons for which are well known and often documented) is beyond me. This government is stupid. Rather than empowering young people to form their own identity and determine allegiances which work successfully for them, they might instead be required to pledge their allegiance to nobility?!

Someone point me out the Minister for Children and Young People. No? Acknowledge the findings of the UK Youth Parliament? No? Withdrawing ID cards? No? At least saying 'sorry' for Iraq? No? Genuinely creating more opportunities for ethnic minority young people and educational opportunities for all poorer young people? No. A prescriptive oath of allegiance will fix everything.

Lib Dems Message for 08

The Lib Dems' Nick Clegg sets the scene for '08 adequately on one hand, and very well on the other.

"we should campaign tirelessly to stop the expensive, invasive and unnecessary Identity Cards scheme in its tracks."

It's of course impossible to disagree. For me Clegg's point is undermined through being founded on the government's incompetent loss of data at Revenue & Customs. Whilst it obviously proves that no government, especially the current one, can be trusted with private, personal data which it doesn't need, that's ultimately a sub point.

What we must all remember is that the individual determines the state, not the other way around. It is the fundamental cornerstone upon which all liberal democracies are founded. The government's ID card plans would involve a complete inversion of that principle. You can argue till you're blue in the face that technology has made that irrelevant - the inversion has already taken place. Well maybe - our surveillance society has made true privacy from the state almost impossible in this country - but no technology is one way. To suggest an inevitability about a technology is not to understand the way in which it works. Google can monitor huge amounts of our internet habits, but even Facebook was forced to back down in its attempts to monitor and manipulate its users.

Do you really want some chav temping in the Passport & ID Agency to tell you that you aren't who you say you are? ID cards won't make any difference against terrorism, they won't make any discernible difference against ID fraud and there hasn't ever been a government on this planet which hasn't misused power of this magnitude over its population. And don't forget if this plan comes to pass, your power over the government (which at the moment is supposed to be absolute) will fall away. That must not be allowed to happen. A good start by the new Lib Dem leadership - using Iraq as a touchstone issue changed everything for the party - this too will retain a unique selling point for them.