Not just a little bit against it, either. I am eye-swivellingly, limb-twitchingly, mouth-foamingly hostile to the enterprise. And, as will become starkly obvious, pretty unpersuadable to boot.

I like to think that I am not usually anything close to this dogmatic. On the whole, I have been through my Club 18-30 stage of ideological purity, when I could quote virtually the whole of the courtroom scene in Ayn Rand’s epic libertarian tract, The Fountainhead, from memory. I now tend to hug the political centre as if it were Anna Kournikova. On this one controversy, however, I can summon from the deep and articulate all of my old certainties. I can make a case entirely based on absolute principle. Woody Allen, when asked if he had ever taken a serious political stand, replied: “Yes, I refused to eat grapes for 24 hours.” ID cards are my grapes.

It is not that I want for practical points that could be mobilised. I could easily contend that the cost is bound to be exorbitant, that the benefits will be far smaller than the advocates claim, that the technology either will not work as promised or will work far too well in capturing too much information, that ingenious forgers will doubtless crack the system and render it futile or that the exercise was attempted in Australia and then abandoned after it became a political embarrassment.

But I won’t mention any of these practical issues (well, all right I have but I won’t do it again). Because even if the so-called “technical objections” could be overcome, my position would not waver. It seems to me that there are three basic arguments against introducing ID cards in Britain which are so compelling that they should immediately end any discussion on the subject. These are “whose body is it anyway?”, “why should I have to?” and “it’s not British”.

The “whose body is it anyway?” thesis is in many ways the simplest. The cards are not the problem with this proposal, it is the implications they have for identity. The State exists because we individuals choose to permit it to exist, not the other way round. I might volunteer data to the authorities but bureaucrats and politicians are not entitled to obtain access to my personal details.

I am against ID cards for the same reason that I am vociferously opposed to the idea, put about by the donor card lobby, that parts of me should be whipped away on death unless I opt out of their beloved programme. It is my identity and I have every intention of keeping it.

The “why should I have to?” assertion is no less powerful. ID cards are, in theory, a weapon in the War on Terror. Now I am well aware that a small set of fruitcakes out there have convinced themselves that if they blow me up while I travel on the Central Line into work, then they will secure some kind of “Get Into Heaven, Free” pass. I think we should be draconian with them.

Let Mr Blunkett’s men follow them around, tap their telephone calls, lock them up without charge and throw away the key (although, admittedly, al-Qaeda’s de facto allies in the legal fraternity may well release them).

Forget the Magna Carta when it comes to Osama bin Laden and his lackeys. I do not, though, see why the existence of these fanatics should compel me to carry, and at all times, a piece of plastic, possibly containing a photograph, which, if the mug shot accompanying this column is any indication, is hardly destined to be flattering. There must be a better way of dealing with terrorism.

Finally, the real clincher, “it’s not British”. ID cards occur in dubious continental countries whose constitutions keep collapsing, which have been democracies for about 20 minutes and where the policemen wear funny-shaped hats and carry firearms. They do not happen here.

I have been told that we once had them during the Second World War, but we had Vera Lynn then too and no one has suggested making carrying her compulsory. Honestly, Mr Blunkett, you will be having us eating horsemeat next or yodelling while dressed in ludicrously small and tight leather shorts. It is not on.

So my sincere advice to the Home Secretary, who in most regards is a quite splendid chap, is to abandon this legislation. If you cannot move me on this matter, a person who is otherwise a model of moderation, pragmatism and sanity, then your chances of convincing an utterly unreasonable bunch of headcases such as the House of Lords that this is a decent idea are minimal.

Furthermore, do not take at face value opinion polls which imply that 80 per cent of the electorate favour ID cards. What they mean is that eight out of ten voters believe that other people should have to suffer the inconvenience of carting them around. As far as I am concerned, the letters ID stand for the place that this draft Bill should be directed. In the Dustbin.

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