I must admit, I am a little fuzzy on how ID cards will stop terrorism myself. I think it is a little naive to assume that a suicide bomber intent on causing death in the name of Jihad, will think "Well, I was going to do it, but I am afraid, I haven't got an I.D card, so that's me scuppered... Unless they'll accept my Library card instead? It does have a couple of books overdue, will that matter?"
There seems to be some kind of collective belief shared by the powers that be in this country, that if we have the details of everyone on a computer somewhere, we will live in a Miltonian paradise. It is utter nonsense. While I can understand the use of CCTV in certain areas to combat unrest, violence and crime, the I.D card system to me seems simply a waste of money. It is not going to stop the root cause of terrorism, nor asylum seekers. The cards will be copied, the system will be flawed, loopholes will be created and the abuse of the system will continue. There are already supposedly safeguards in place to stop this, which don't work properly if at all. The I.D card will be exactly the same, only waste more public money in the process to set up.