Thursday 6 October 2016

Foreigner Identification Badges (1974)


From 1974, all foreigners (as well as citizens friendly to foreigners) were required by law to wear identification badges. The image above is just one page from a hefty, six volume guide distributed to local councils and border officials. The glossy guide and badges were so expensive to produce that they were manufactured abroad because the dwindling UK print industry no longer had adequate resources.

Additionally, the first print run of the guide had to be recalled after a typo was discovered: A foreign typesetter had accidently rendered every instance of the word 'British' as 'Brutish'.

14 comments:

  1. I hope that you're just really quick at making these as the alternative is that you have a file full of "Scarfolk ideas for if the UK government gets *really* fascist" and you're just picking them off the shelf.

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  2. Wow, can I have permission to knock up a few of these for me and my friends? I suspect there's a fair few sympathisers amongst us and we may want to visit one day (assuming we're welcome)?

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    1. We are working on making these badges commercially available..

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    2. If this document adorned a t-shirt, I for one would buy it pronto.

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    3. If this document adorned a t-shirt, I'd buy it pronto.

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  3. A few of these in the traditional felt would be great.

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  4. I have a nosebleed can you use my tissues or shall I bin them.....

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  5. I would wear my Foreigner Sympathiser and Foreign Cuisine Infiltrator badges with honest delight.

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  6. was this funded in any way by donald trump?

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  7. I came here expecting satire and I find a subversive website revealing secret government post-Brexit plans. Not cricket, old man, not cricket...


    ...though they are very funny. :-)

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  8. Could you please create a set for America? We'll need them by early January. Don't forget that Freedom of Speech will have a limited shelf-life after the inauguration.

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