Cato at Liberty
By: Walter Olson
Date: 8 August 2014
Boris Johnson on National I.D. Cards
The intelligence and entertainment value of national British politics are likely to rise now that Boris Johnson, the euro-skeptical, cosmopolitan Conservative mayor of London, is looking to re-enter Parliament. A steady critic of the European Union’s regulatory and welfare schemes precisely because he believes in an outward-facing and trade-oriented Britain, Johnson may well be the most quotable British politician since Margaret Thatcher. As former David Cameron aide Alex Deane makes clear in a piece in City A.M., Johnson, like Thatcher, is unafraid to speak in terms of individual liberty derived from classical liberalism, even if (also like Thatcher) he has not always lived up to his preachings in office. (Or as the outspoken mayor once himself said: “My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.”)Reading the Deane column, this quote from Johnson caught my eye from nine years ago when national I.D. cards were under debate:
I will in no circumstances carry one and even were I compelled to do so, I would take it out and destroy it on the spot were I ever asked to produce it. It is a plastic poll tax that will do nothing to assist the struggle against terrorists and will hugely expand the powers of the state over the individual.Bring back that Boris.
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