IT'S been a topsy-turvy old week for David Blunkett - from identity cards to marked cards in fewer than seven days.

Its pinnacle came on Monday, when the hooligan-busting Home Secretary gleefully unveiled controversial proposals to cajole people into carrying unpopular ID cards.

And it ended with the authoritarian Mr Blunkett, who has spent the past few years doing his damnedest to torch the civil liberties' book to fulfil his Government's pledged to be tough on crime, facing the axe.

For Mr B, who has enjoyed reams of sympathy for overcoming blindness to climb the greasy pole to the Cabinet, found himself in a sticky and highly embarrassing contretemps.

He stands accused of "fast-tracking" a visa application for the Filipino nanny of adulteress Kimberley Quinn, the married US publisher with whom he had a three-year affair. The couple have a son, William, two.

Unlikely lothario Mr Blunkett, condemned for helping wreck a family, has been given the full support of Prime Minister Tony Blair - who, frankly, needs a minister who can't keep his trousers up like an elephant needs a trouser-press - while an independent inquiry probes the visa application.

But the right-wing media has scented blood. And its determination to uncover the full truth behind Mr Blunkett's romances and romps have overshadowed his bid to introduce Britain's first national ID card for 50 years.

The ID-cum-passport, containing information on a person's fingerprints and an iris scan, would cost about £85 per person. Implementing the scheme will cost £3.1 billion.

First cards would be issued in 2008. If Parliament decides, in 2011 or 2012, to make them compulsory, people can expect a £2,500 fine if they refuse to own one.

Mr Blunkett claim the cards will tackle immigration abuse, prevent

exploitation of health and welfare services, flush out terrorists and crack down on fraud.

But critics are outraged by what they see as a blatant infringement of civil liberties: Why should, opponents ask, innocent people be forced to prove to the state who they are?

In a heated House of Lords debate this week, Lord Thomas of Gresford fumed: "I must ask myself, what, in Mr Blunkett's hell, are his particular demons?

"Are they the immigrant, the paedophile, the drug pusher, the yob and the terrorist?"

He mocked: "Therefore, let us all carry with us identity cards so that we can prove to the police and to the civil servants that we are all good Anglo-Saxons acceptable to the Daily Mail."

Another political commentator suggested the ID card was "a rag-bag, eye-catching initiative" which in many ways deliberately confounds the paranoia of Mr Blair's War on Terror with the public's justified anger about a breakdown of law and civility on Britain's streets."

In short, an ID card ain't going to stop a terrorist flying a jetliner into

a crowded building. But it might convince the great British public, millions of whom live and work nowhere near London, the prime target, that crime is being tackled while keeping them compliant.

Mr Blunkett flatly rejects claims that the Government will use the

state-of-the-art cards to store personal information.

But it would be easy to introduce a system where a hi-tech microchip in the card can tap into a person's bank details, employment history, medical records, criminal records, shopping habits, church visits, train journeys and so on and so on.

And from there it is just a short technological leap for the Government to keep tabs on where every member of the population is, all of the time.

Maybe that is why Mr Blair is so keen on the all-singing, all-dancing ID card.

It might not thwart terrorists. It might not prevent those pesky refugees sneaking into Britain on boats, lorries, trains and planes. It might not stop yobs smashing up bus shelters.

But at least he would know which bedroom his Cabinet ministers were sleeping that night.

Updated: 10:58 Friday, December 03, 2004