BRITAIN

Wow! Britain is to get a national ID card. I thought only the Europeans went in for that sort of thing. When the Hawke Labor government tried to bring one in for Australia there was a huge outcry that finally knocked the idea on the head. Though I must say that I cannot see what honest people have to fear from it. But at least the new UK legislation will include a further clampdown on the appeal rights of rejected asylum seekers and measures to tackle those who destroy their documents on arrival in Britain.

This EU constitution that Britain looks likely to adopt will essentially make Britain no longer an independent country and will remove from its Parliament most of its powers in favour of dictates from Brussels. If the British accept that they deserve what they get. An Indian reader has emailed me with the claim that Indians under the British Raj had more rights and independence than Britain would have under the new EU constitution. No wonder Tony Blair does not want to put the thing to a referendum. He knows it would be rejected.

All that antiterrorism experience in N. Ireland may come in handy: "Coalition chiefs plan to send 5,500 British paratroopers to Baghdad to save US troops from losing control of the Iraqi capital."

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