I really don’t mind the idea of a British ID card scheme.

I know what you’re thinking. Sorry. Let me explain. You see, I already have an ID card. Unfortunately, it’s one of the most irritating documents in the known universe, and ripe for replacement.

I refer, of course, to my passport. A slightly clunky paper document which resides in the bottom of my man-drawer, poised, ready to spring into action the moment I finally actually decide to take a trip abroad. This diminutive booklet was my faithful companion as I travelled around the globe, and upon its middle-aged (for a passport) pages it carries the stamps of the numerous countries I visited – proof, marked in ink on paper, that I was there, that it was really me.

Let’s be honest, though, it sucks. It’s rubbish. It’s always getting lost at precisely the moment its needed, it’s battered, it’s ugly, it doesn’t fit properly in any of my pockets, the picture barely even resembles me (and looks a little like a terrorist, if I’m honest) and even the colour of its cover is somewhat un-endearing. I’m fairly sure when I was young my Dad had a Volvo in exactly that same shade of dull maroon, and that says just about all that needs to be said.

In contrast, of course, there is that other identifying document which the vast majority of us own: the driving licence. I say without shame that I adore my driving licence. This sleek sliver of pristine pink plastic is my constant companion, with pride of place, front and centre in my wallet, behind only my Maestro card.

And I don’t even have a car.

This may be, to be entirely fair, partly a result of the fact that my driving licence was reasonably hard to attain – I was not a first-time passer and have never been a particularly accomplished driver. It’s also, however, because the thing is so darned convenient that no matter what the situation, at a moments notice I can almost definitely produce it instantly – often with a swashbuckling flourish for good measure.

So, when I first heard the basic idea of Britain having a national ID card, I was rather excited at the prospect of being able to eschew my maroon monstrosity of a passport and find myself with a pristine, modern – nay, futuristic – chip and pin passport.

Admit it, that sounds pretty good, right? For once, a Government initiative which might actually make my life easier!

Over time, as always with our beloved country, my illusions have gradually been heartbreakingly shattered. The ID card that the government is trying to foist on the good folk of Manchester appears to bear little relation to the one of my naïve imaginationings. It sounds more, in fact, like a white elephant.

Instead of extending the passport system and replacing paper passports in order to make life easier for us and fall in line with the international demands for biometric content, it transpires, this whole scheme seems to be a stupid attempt to create a monumentally stupid and potentially dangerous identity system alongside the current, fairly stupid, passport system – and then to gradually replace the one stupid system with the other stupid system in a number of discreet, individually stupid steps. Paying for this gradually achieved stupidity is a bunch of stupid bureaucrats in Whitehall (by extension, of course, the stupid taxpayers) who are in fact only borrowing the money because they are (stupidly) expecting the stupid taxpayers to repay themselves the money they stupidly lent to themselves by walking into a stupid Snappy Snaps and stupidly forking over sixty stupid quid for the thing.

To put it another way, it’s stupid.

Thus, we’re left in the bizarre situation where the almost entirely useless and stupid ID cards have to be entirely voluntary, because we can’t be forced to buy them (they have to be either voluntary or free), and so if you don’t want to buy an ID card, an old passport or driving licence will do fine anyway. Just to make the story that little bit more surreal, we’re being told that this is a particularly useful thing for the people of Manchester.

I want an ID card. Please. I want a photocard which replaces my passport, just like i have a photocard to replace my driving licence. Is that so much to ask for? Really?