The first step to ration cards and social control is a universal and compulsory ID Card system
For most of us our "National Insurance Number" will do just fine.
Sure, at some later date an enhanced version of the NIN will become
the National ID Card (papers! make sure you use a totalitarian voice)
but in the beginning a rationing effort won't require such.

After all, if the Inland Revenue can find you, and they can, then you
might as well accept one of two outcomes: submission or rebellion.
Frankly, those are the only two options.  To pretend your vote counts
is to share the same delusional lifestyle as any heroin addict.  So,
what's it going to be, I ask myself?  Do I bite the bullet and say to
HM Government (whoever the hell "they" are) "fuck off," you're not my
feudal lord, or do I meekly accept the oppression and vow to fight the
system from "within?"

Why is it that as little as a century ago I could ramble about the
Earth and never be asked for my "papers?"  Sure, there were a few
places some uniformed official might do that, but by and large, I
could move from place to place with little or no obstruction.  Can you
imagine if our ancestors had been required to "papers!" as they made
their way from Africa to Europe to North America?

Moving on, sadly, the road ahead is clear, come to terms with at least
Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Overshoot and die off, or die off.  If
one can at least grab these by the horns, make the adjustments
necessary to ensure one's genes make it into the "new" gene pool, then
one's life will be a success.  For those who "can't see won't see,"
genes like those don't serve the species in any case.

jimbo
;-)

Yes, this brings up several 'brain teasers':

  1. ID Cards  NI numbers are theoretically all thats required, but it is believed that in excess of 1 million numbers above that actually required are sloshing around in the system.
  2. ID Cards with picture and bio-data and info can be easily read by a portable card reader.
Handy for apprehending those caught out after curfew...
3)UK Population Overshoot: Over the last 30 years, the phantom carrying capacity of Britain created by hydrocarbon wealth has probably enabled the UK to ramp up population to 65 million plus. Just as Saudi wealth has enabled Saudi Carrying Capacity to ramp up (but not for the
same reasons). So what will UK carrying capacity be be between 2020 -2050? If we get lucky, then the carrying capacity shall be nearer to 1900 levels. And that assumes that the prior source of energy (coal) can be matched.
4) Like many looking into a post peak future, I have teenage kids. So what do we suggest is a way through the bottle neck? What way of life, ways to earn a living be appropriate in the next decade, and note well: They see peers following the path of the last 30 years of conventional wisdom....