Why stop at the frail -- lets tag everyone

When I am 85, if I last that long, I fully expect that I shall be tagged.

Quite how “bewildered”, “frail” or “forgetful” (or whatever other euphemism my loving relatives choose for my incipient Alzheimer’s) I turn out to be, doesn’t matter very much. It will simply be more convenient all round for people to know where the old dear is. I’m sure I shall have given my consent . Between a little electronic chip and the kind of constant vigilance that means you’re only allowed out on the town when someone gives you permission, or worse still takes you, the choice is obvious.

Frankly I’m more worried about losing it (the tag, I mean). If the plan is that the chip doesn’t need to be in a criminal-style leg-band, but can just be slipped into my mobile phone…well, I lose that enough now at age 52. What will I be like at 85? Perhaps it would be sensible to go for the subcutaneous variety that people put in their dogs.

That’s me sorted then. But I have no doubt that it wont be long before the plans for tagging (sorry, “tracking” is the new word of choice) Alzheimer’s sufferers, proposed by the government science minister and now backed  by the Alzheimer’s Society, will be taken up elsewhere.

The case for tagging children is surely even stronger.

We all regret how little freedom they get now, compared with the good old days when we would go off all day with a picnic lunch, to wander down disused railway lines, dodging all the health and safety hazards and the local paedophiles . . . Well, that kind of childhood fun could all be brought back, if the little dears were equipped with an electronic chip so that Mum would know exactly where they were.

Isn’t it the ideal compromise between liberty and control? Just as “empowering” for the children as the Alzheimer’s Society says the scheme would be for the oldies. And cant you already hear someone realising that if Madeleine McCann had been tagged, then we would now have a much better idea of what had happened to her.

In fact there really isn’t any reason to stop with kids. Wouldn’t it just be simplest to get the scruples over with and tag everyone. Then we could get rid of all those horrible CCTV cameras. The case for identity cards would be seriously diminished, so that particular scheme for burning money could be binned.

We could then all just get on with our lives, safe in the knowledge that someone knew where we were all the time. Welcome to 2008.