By Mark Andrews

Copyright expressandstar

Sir Tony Blair is being mooted as a possible interim leader of a postwar Gaza state. I suppose he was always the obvious candidate, given the splendid job he did in Iraq.

Hasn’t that region suffered enough? They must be wishing they’d let Greta in, and made her queen instead.

According to reports, Sir Tony’s appointment is Donald Trump’s idea, which says it all really. Then again, we can hardly mock the Yanks when we were daft enough to elect him three times.

I’m not sure this plan will increase the likelihood of a ceasefire though. I imagine both sides would ponder the prospect of rule under the smiling old silver-haired rogue, and conclude that they would rather continue the fighting.

Still, could have been worse, I suppose. At least the Donald didn’t suggest Liz Truss.

The lure of cut-price groceries has yet to convince me that it is worth my handing over the details of my every purchase by signing up to a loyalty card. Every time I go to the bank, I flatly resist the high-pressure sales pitch for online banking. When I go to the football, I report to the ticket office and ask them to print me a paper ticket, because I won’t use the app.

This probably makes me sound a bit stubborn, but the bottom line is I don’t trust big tech. And as far as I’m concerned the less of my personal data that is stored on corporate databases, the better.

Well, this week the Prime Minister announced that anybody who wants to work in the UK will soon be obliged to carry a ‘digital ID card.’

I don’t know exactly what that entails, and suspect he probably hasn’t really thought about it either, but I’ll wager it will involve civil servants linking up lots of personal data that I would prefer they didn’t hold, monitoring our habits and, before you know it, seeking to influence our behaviour.

I don’t recall being asked to vote on any of this. And while I may not be happy with Tesco storing all my data, I trust big business a sight more than I do big government.

The other burning question is whether compulsory digital ID will effectively exclude anybody without a smart phone from the workplace?

You might think with the raft of equality and inclusion legislation brought in by successive governments, that there might be some sort of protection here, but I won’t hold my breath. I suspect the best we can hope for is a rather patronising offer of ‘education and training’ for those who aren’t into the tech.

It’s the return of the closed shop, only with the tech bros rather than union barons running the show.