Want to check how many seats they won before half the backbench got booted for defending something dangerous like, I don’t know, free school meals? Let’s pull up the Wikipedia article.

Oh, hang on… we’ll need to verify our ID first.

Can’t have children accidentally learning about something subversive like austerity. Not after Wikipedia was designated a “Category 1” site under the Online Safety Act.

They fought it, of course – took the government to court back in 2025. But after a year of legal ping-pong and mounting fees, they gave in.

Now you just need a passport, facial scan, your National Insurance number, and town of birth to access an article about the 2024 General Election. All in the name of protecting the children.

Anyway, silly me, I just remembered it’s Sunday. Time to visit my parents, as I do every week.

I figured I’d take the newly renationalised railway. It’s more environmentally friendly, and the pride of the country. Trains were invented here, after all. Thank you, George Stephenson. Silly me.

Oh wait. Half of Northern’s timetable has been scrapped again today for “essential maintenance”, including the train I had a ticket for.

The one that did show up just sort of gave up outside Rochdale. You can’t really blame it, it’s over 30 years old. No apology, just a poor railway worker left to deal with the backlash, quietly pointing us to the Delay Repay website.

Which I tried to use. After all, I paid £275 for my super-duper-extra-amazing off-peak train ticket that got me… precisely nowhere.

But naturally, the Delay Repay, and the complaints form is now behind an age verification wall too.

Apparently, writing stern feedback about train delays contains harmful or upsetting content, even if it is an AI model behind the system, rejecting each and every claim. And of course, under-18s aren’t allowed to claim Delay Repay without adult supervision – it’s quite dangerous to let young people claim compensation.

Please verify your age to proceed.

You can even link your biometric ID through the government portal now. Streamlining the process into one seamless, surveilled funnel. Talk about efficiency!

After all, you shouldn’t be allowed to do anything online unless you show your ID to everyone along the way.

And don’t even think about using a VPN — that gets you five years in prison now, doesn’t it?

To the reader at home: if I showed you this in 2023, you’d have laughed.

“There’s no way the government would go that far,” you’d say. “They wouldn’t strip away civil liberties, remove anonymity, or block access to information behind an ID wall.”

Sure. Some things should be regulated; actual illegal activity that causes harm. But me, trying to check Wikipedia for the results of the 2024 general election?

Really?

* Prem Raghvani is the North East Regional Chair, for the English Young Liberals