> The UK is odd when it comes to IDs, you don't need to carry one around at all.

why should that be seen as odd, as opposed to being civilised?

What's particularly civilised about it? In the current system we often have to use driving licences as 'ID' — which is especially odd considering not all of us drive. It seems obvious that having a standard form of identification would make all sorts of things easier and include the benefits mentioned above.

i think this is my point - i don't have a driving licence. i don't see why i should need to identify myself to anybody, or why a driving license/id card/passport even reliably does that. it is just bad methods of control from them not even competently in-charge.

I can't speak to other parts of the Commonwealth, but Australia and New Zealand also don't require photo IDs, you only really need them if you're young and want to go to age-restricted venues (e.g. bars) or buy alcohol (or similar things that have age restrictions around them). Usually you just use your drivers license, but you can also get proof of age cards (or you used to, not sure what they do now with phones, maybe there's an alternative).

There have been attempts to introduce a national ID (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Card was the main one), but it keeps being rejected (and for a bunch of like healthcare and tax there's specific IDs for those).