WHY is it whenever anybody talks or thinks about identity cards for UK citizens, out comes the Big Brother brigade who scream: "Foul!"?

Let me tell Vernon Clarke (Letters, February 9) that every day of our lives we are watched by community cameras and every transaction we make is recorded electronically and I, for one, do not care.

I say all our particulars should be recorded at birth, including DNA. I have nothing to fear from Big Brother. Long may he reign. When you consider how violent our society has become, we need to offer the powers that be every possible tool to fight crime.

The claptrap attitude about totalitarian monsters has helped the idiots in our community get away with every crime one can think of.

So Mr A Fisk (Letters, January 31) I am with you 100 per cent. Yes, please, compulsory ID cards for all and the 'smarter' the card, the better.

Let's track all of our population so everybody can be made to pay what is due and maybe our overall personal expenditure may actually come down, not up, as Mr Clarke suggests.

BILL WEIR, Belfield Road, Accrington.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.