For reasons best known to themselves the proprietors of the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail have elected not make the contents available on-line. As a result I cannot link to this story, so thanks are due to Dr.Chris Tame for posting it to the Libertarian Alliance Forum:

I went to a cafe in central London to meet a stranger.

I handed over £1,300 and a mere 48 hours to assume the new identity of 'Odette Hinault' complete with fake EU passport, driving licence and French ID card, together with a genuine National Insurance number. Within a day of becoming 'Miss Hinault' she had opened a bank account, registered with a GP, obtained a phone number and had claim forms for housing allowances and council tax benefits.

There was nothing to stop her plugging into an entire system of state handouts that would have more than repaid her £1,300 outlay within weeks.

So says a Daily Mail reporter called Sue Reid who went undercover (presumably) and succeeded in obtaining all manner of forged official documents.

Two of the many oft-floated (and disposable) justifications for establishing a national ID card system are that it will a) stop illegal immigration (or, at least, make it a lot harder to do) and b) stop cheats from defrauding the welfare state (or, at least, make it much harder to do).

Ms.Reid's investigations prove pretty conclusively that both claims are manifest rubbish.