 Even once we escape the COVID-19 pandemic, there are multiple urgent challenges facing our government in Westminster. That includes regional inequality, climate change, a social care crisis, and the list goes on. However, in the Queen's speech, which is a chance for the government to put forward their legislative agenda for the coming year, the most headline-grabbing announcement has aimed to solve a problem which doesn't exist. Yes, Boris Johnson's government has confirmed it will be legislating to make photo ID a requirement for voting, even though only six cases of fraud were recorded in 2019. Here's Matt Hancock defending the policy. There is some concern and it's surely you would agree legitimate concern about some groups in society about not having the relevant photo ID at the moment. I mean that's surely going to disenfranchise people, won't you? I mean look, the figures say 47% of black people don't have a driver's license compared to 26% of white people. I mean there is a real danger, isn't there, that you could ultimately prevent sort of key constituents in society from having their say. No, it's about fairness. It's about making sure that when people do something as important as voting then they are who they say they are and that we've piloted this, we've looked at it in great detail, we're committed to making it happen and I think you know people across this country want to know for sure that elections are fair and this is just one measure to make the country a fairer place. But apparently only six cases of voter fraud in the last election? Well I think that six cases too many and I think that you'll find there's very very strong support for the principle that our elections should be robust. It's just but it's just one example of important changes to improve the country to make it fairer. Now that argument is just so so ridiculous. For one this idea, oh six is too many, apply that to any other area of policy which the government writes. The austerity which the British Medical Journal said killed 120,000 people or led to 120,000 unnecessary deaths. Six examples of voter fraud is a real problem. 120,000 people who die unnecessary deaths because of austerity, well we're just cutting the deficit, we're just balancing the books. The other part of that argument which I think is I mean bizarre, it's not bizarre because I can see what he's doing, it's incredibly cynical, is decided voting is very very important so we should make it hard. The conclusion should be the precise opposite. Voting is very very important which is why we should make it very very easy. We should make sure there are no barriers to voting whatsoever because even in these proposals they're saying it won't just be a passport or a driver's license, there might be other ID which is acceptable and also you will be able to apply to your local authority for a free you know piece of ID you know so that they are trying to remove some of the barriers from it. I think only to make this acceptable so they can pass it through Parliament. But what you are creating undoubtedly and inevitably is a barrier to voting and if you create a barrier to vote that by definition makes it harder to vote which means by definition less people are going to vote. You can look at the data about how this is disproportionately going to affect different sections of society and we should that's incredibly important but the most obvious thing to say here and the most irrefutable thing to say here is this creates a barrier to voting why would you want to do that when there is no problem to begin with? I think it raises an interesting question which is that if the Conservative Party or the new party of the working class which is what a lot of the hot takes have been saying in the past week then why are they pursuing a policy which will make it much more difficult for low-income voters to cast their vote? Hmm it can't be that we've got this like really weird idea of working class which is coded as older homeowner and we've stopped thinking about working age people on actual low incomes have we and maybe that's that exact cohort of voters who Labour have been invisibilizing and traipsing after you know there's older homeowner voters. I just think that what this speaks to is the fundamental paranoia at the heart of the modern Conservative project because on the one hand they are absolutely riding high in the polls they dominate the legislature but they're looking at a generational cliff edge where they know they've lost the bulk of working age people and they cannot attract the support of people who are actually on low incomes and don't have asset wealth to fall back on and so that's why you see this measure which disenfranchises low-income people disenfranchises first-time voters and disenfranchises disproportionately people of colour as well. It's because they look at the shifting demographics in this country and they're scared. This isn't the bold swagger of a confident Boris Johnson who's you know striding around the red wall like a colossus this is a deeply paranoid and afraid political project.