Blair's Modern World

In the Telegraph, Tony Blair writes about the 'need' for ID cards

The case for ID cards is a case not about liberty but about the modern world [...] I know this will outrage some people but, in a world in which we daily provide information to a whole host of companies and organisations and willingly carry a variety of cards to identify us, I don't think the civil liberties argument carries much weight.

I think I've heard this before - The Jam, in 1977

This is the modern world that I've learnt about
This is the modern world, we don't need no one
To tell us what's right or wrong -
Say what you like cause I don't care
I know where I am and going too
It's somewhere I won't preview
Don't have to explain myself to you
I don't give two fucks about your review

If Blair is explictly pitting modernity against liberty, Evelyn Waugh's closing of Scott-Kings' Modern Europe seems apposite: "I think it would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world."

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