Young people in London are getting the chance to get their hands on an ID card, the lucky so-and-sos.

The next stage of the Home Office's attempts to get the cards accepted is to target those privacy-disregarding, Facebook-obsessed youths in the capital. People aged between 16 and 24 years old who hold a current or recently expired passport can apply for a card from 8 February.

Using the same lines as in Manchester, where the pilot was started, young people are told the card will help them buy booze, cigarettes, mucky movies, travel to Europe and even open a bank account.

Of course there are other ways to prove you are old enough to buy booze without handing over £30, all your personal details and a promise to always keep them up-to-date.

But the Home Office is today blaming partying youths for wantonly throwing their passports around while out drinking. Half of all passports belong to people under 30, we are told, and "a tenth of those are lost by people using them as ID on a night out." That works out at 15,000 lost passports a year, according to a Home Office spokesman.

Here's hoping London youths have more luck using the cards than recent travellers, who were prevented from boarding ferries and planes because their card was not considered good enough ID. ®