Cash is freedom and independence which is why ‘progressives’ want to abolish it. In a card-only society, the State will know EVERYTHING about us, says PETER HITCHENS

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As the crowded train groans and struggles through the usual signal failures, points failures, emergency track inspections and trespasser alerts, a cheery voice announces the approach of the refreshment trolley over the loudspeakers.

But it adds in stern tones ‘Regretfully, we are not accepting cash today. Contactless payments only’. They lie. They don’t regret it all. Cash is a fiddly nuisance to them. Also, it is not just today they are not accepting money. 

They never accept money. No explanation is offered for this restriction, but I know from experience that it is an iron law, not open to debate.

Well, it could be worse. On a recent visit to the Netherlands, I found myself anxious to use the lavatory in a giant railway interchange.

It is time for a campaign to make everyone accept cash again, says PETER HITCHENS

Having located the facility, I was confronted with a gleaming, unavoidable electronic turnstile that took only a type of contactless card, which I do not have. No coins allowed. No card – no loo.

Anyway, imagine having to wield a credit card for such a thing. I remember when these cards were only for extravagant purchases you could not really afford, marketed under the slogan ‘it takes the waiting out of wanting’. Which is exactly what compulsory credit card use did not achieve for me at Rotterdam railway station.

You might think that you can insist on paying cash in this country for anything. But you cannot. English law says cash must be accepted in settlement of a debt. So cafes that hate cash, for instance, are careful to put up signs saying they are card-only establishments. 

That way, you cannot contract a debt in the first place. We could – and should – change this. It is time for a campaign to make everyone accept cash again. It can be done. I am glad to say that in several states of the US, traders are obliged by law to take cash. 

And in France, whose people maintain a wise suspicion of authority, banks and practically everything else, Article 642-3 of the penal code states that traders cannot refuse cash payments. Stern penalties apply.

Without this, the rapid disappearance of cash from our lives will grow worse. The near-superstitious fear that cash might spread Covid, and the retreat of millions to their homes, away from shops and streets, greatly speeded up this trend. 

If you objected, you were a wicked, irresponsible spreader of pestilence. Banks close. Time and again I seek out a cash machine I have used for years, and find it has been removed and obliterated. And I live in a busy city. Millions now live in cash deserts, without a bank.

Someone doesn’t like cash. Social ‘progressives’ have all but abolished it in Left-wing Sweden. We’re told it invites money-laundering, though I am sure that electronic fraud is a million times worse. No, the ‘progressives’ hate cash because they cannot control it or the people who use it.

Non-progressives, by contrast, like the feeling of independence and freedom granted by the jingle of coins in the pocket, and the comfort of notes in the wallet. 

And think what you will lose if cash is entirely pushed out of use, as the authorities plainly want. 

No more uncles and aunts pressing a banknote into the hand of niece or nephew. No more cash into the homeless man’s hat. No more impulsive cash bets. No more slipping a private tip to the waitress who (you suspect) will not be getting much of the restaurant’s compulsory service charge. These and other pleasures and liberties will henceforth have to be conducted with cards and card-readers, or not at all.

But without cash, as we already know, everything is bound to go wrong. Back in 2012, more than seven million NatWest customers spent three days unable to buy groceries, pay bills or transfer money. Some lost house purchases or were stranded, penniless, abroad.

In 2018, five million TSB customers were likewise locked out of their accounts after the bank botched an IT upgrade. 

And surely one of the most frightening implications of the Post Office scandal is that even a working computer system cannot be trusted with our money. And when it goes wrong, it may take years for its errors to be put right. During which it will be us, not the banks, who will be accused of wrongdoing.

The death of cash is the death of privacy and an enormous increase in the power of the state. 

How long before the state knows everything our banks know about us, especially of Sir Anthony Blair’s revived plan for electronic identity records comes to pass. If every transaction is electronic, then every transaction is recorded. 

The computer will know what you bought, where and when you bought it. And if it knows, then it can tell others. 

Your bank, and those who have access to its systems, will actually know where you are, often to within a few yards, every hour of the day. It is not that we are ashamed of what we are doing – it is just that don’t want other people to know all about us.

And we are wise to feel that way. Governments ceaselessly increase in power. And they care what we do and what we think. In this country, we have seen people ‘de-banked’ because they failed to be the right sort of person. How, in a cashless society, could a de-banked person actually survive?

We have had a sort of hint in the scandalous treatment of the pro-Russian blogger Graham Phillips, sanctioned by British Government decree. 

Just imagine, you went to pay for groceries at the unmanned checkout and your card is refused

I don’t care whether you like Mr Phillips or not. I don’t like him myself. But his treatment, for expressing opinions about Ukraine, which are unpopular with the Foreign Office, is grotesque. 

The courts won’t help him. When he applies for ‘licences’ to do perfectly normal things, they don’t help in practice. He is an unperson, as hopelessly trapped as a character in a Kafka novel. 

Mr Phillips cannot earn money or spend the money he has. Others cannot pay him. He is, insanely, banned by law from paying his council tax. But he has never been tried for or convicted of any criminal offence.

Do we really want government to have this sort of power, which it would have over anyone in a cashless society? 

Just imagine, you went to pay for groceries at the unmanned checkout and your card is refused. The same thing happens at the pub. You get home (on foot) and your inbox is full of messages from people complaining that you have not paid your bills. Then your electricity and broadband are cut off.

How far could this go? In China, an elaborate system of ‘social credit’ can be used to prevent people targeted by the state (allegedly for non-payment of fines or taxes) from travelling within the country. In 2018, it stopped 17million people from buying air tickets and 5.5million from taking long-distance trains because they had low ‘social credit’ scores.

Such power is more or less limitless, once it is operating. Combined with perpetual surveillance, it is the Beehive State in action. By the simple act of refusing to give up cash or to let it be abolished, we can stand in the way of this dismal danger. So we should.