All the DVLA are trying to do is get their records straight. They were in a hell of a mess, and now with continuous liablity and the computerised MOT system, they are slowly improving the information they have.
Much of the data held on record about legitamate cars that is wrong is due to them being given the wrong information in the first place by the car dealerships registering new cars. I & 1, 5 and S and 8 are easy to get wrong, and if you have 5 cars that need registering, it's easy to mix up which chassis number goes with which registration number. One of my school holiday jobs in the '70s was to drive cars around between dealerships (what a great job for a kid!) and fill out all the registration documents & take then to the vehicle tax office. Nobody checked what I did!
There aren't 1.2 million untaxed cars in the system, it's many millions more than that. Most of those vehicles have been scrapped, but before the continuous liability rules were brought in so DVLA have no way of knowing. There is an objective to try and get this lot sorted out over the next few years, so that eventually all vehicles will be either taxed and on the road or SORNd...nothing else will exist. They will still allow a 'barn find' to be re-united with its original number (if it's still available and you can prove it belongs), and make it non-transferable in the process to stop profiteering.
So there will be cock-ups in the process, but that's all it is. You're dealing with low paid poorly motivated clerical civil servants who are following a procedure...it's bound to go wrong occasionally. But Big Brother it certainly isn't. Don't sweat the little stuff, there are far more sinister things happening in the world than road tax and car registration.
And I don't think that old Blighty is the only place concered with rules and taxes. There is zero tolerance for speeding in Melboune, where chums have had fines and points for doing 62kph in a 60kph limit. I've had a gun shoved in my face for speeding in California, combined with a chunky fine. But here I was caught doing 133mph on a dual carriageway a couple of months ago, and after a 20 minute discussion and review of the video I got 3 points and ?60 fine...and I'm not a copper or a mason and I don't work for the government!!
I do firmly believe in cock-up rather than conspiricy, and I know that 99% of us are of no interest whatsoever to the authorities. The better the information they have, the more focused they can be on the 1%, which should in turn improve the lot of the 99% What a positive outlook
Mark