For next May’s local elections, all voters must bring along ID specified in this list. If eligible residents don’t have accepted photo ID, they can apply for a free voter ID document, which is known as a Voter Authority Certificate. The deadline for this is 25 April. If they use postal voting, there is no voter ID requirement.

The government slipped out quietly last November the regulations listing acceptable ID documents that will allow people to vote at elections. These had not been included in the shameless voter-suppression bill that passed through parliament earlier that year as the Elections Act 2022. The list includes all kinds of acceptable ID that will already be held by the majority of older voters but not by the young or the disadvantaged. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the whole purpose is to make it harder for young people, poor people and those who often move home to vote.

One wonders why a Transport for London Oyster card for 60+ travellers is acceptable, whereas a near-identical Oyster 18+ card isn’t. Voters who don’t have a driving licence or passport or various forms of disabled person’s ID – all of which are more likely to be held by the old – can apply to their local authority for a free plastic voter ID photo card. But how many will bother to do that?

The ridiculous part of this legislation is that it is Postal Voting that has seen some serious electoral fraud but virtually no voter impersonation at polling stations – just one case in the 2017 general election. The cost of imposing the new ID – extra staff at polling stations and councils issuing it – will be up to £180m a decade, according to the Cabinet Office.