The UK, outside of its border checks, used to be very liberal as regards the carrying of identity or ‘authorisation’ papers. For example, if you were stopped for say, a speeding offence, and couldn’t produce a driving licence or valid insurance certificate then and there, then you usually had a reasonably long period of grace before which you had to ‘produce’ it at a police station. I can remember going to Highgate, Holloway and Bishopsgate police stations more than once.
Electronics and data management, along with demands (often voiced very loudly on this site) for the police to crackdown on everyone for anything, put a stop to that happy way of working. UKGSer is often a good barometer of the nation’s misfit. Regular demands for more police, more checks, more surveillance and more security ‘stuff’ and a parallel horror of a simple plastic identity card, as it would be an infringement of some dreamed up ‘right’….. and that’s before the real loons start shouting that it’s all about control (their italics, not mine).
Electronics and data management, along with demands (often voiced very loudly on this site) for the police to crackdown on everyone for anything, put a stop to that happy way of working. UKGSer is often a good barometer of the nation’s misfit. Regular demands for more police, more checks, more surveillance and more security ‘stuff’ and a parallel horror of a simple plastic identity card, as it would be an infringement of some dreamed up ‘right’….. and that’s before the real loons start shouting that it’s all about control (their italics, not mine).
