PAUL Blanchard (Letters, December 30) offers us his view about the "realities" of ID cards. Apparently a recent poll shows high levels of support, but public opinion based on ignorance or propaganda should not be the weathervane that guides us on such matters.

As yet there has been little well-informed public debate about ID cards. Instead we have been treated to recycled urban mythology that if repeated often enough becomes credited with the status of fact.

Hence ID cards are now portrayed as helping us tackle every threat to society from littering to terrorism.

Before giving the go-ahead for identity cards, we should be offered a properly-reasoned case and an opportunity of airing all points of view. Above all, we need time to reflect on the matter, perhaps to listen to the informed counter-argument made by respected groups such as Liberty.

The case for ID cards is far from established. At the very least, the practical details remain sketchy and troubling. But as for the suggestion that biometric ID cards pose no threat to our liberties? That fiction would be laughable were it not so dangerously resonant of totalitarian regimes against which this country once stood firm.

One reality remains undeniable. Once we had them it would be far harder to abolish ID cards and far easier for the State to misuse them.

That alone should give us pause for thought.

Paul Kind,

Sefton Avenue, York.

Updated: 09:46 Tuesday, January 04, 2005