The Wiki Man

24 April 2010

A fortnightly column on technology and the web

Well, someone who can write convincingly about these things is the person who composed the Conservative manifesto. I downloaded all three manifestos recently and was scanning them for words such as ‘broadband’, ‘digital’ or ‘internet’ simply to see where their emphasis lay on matters technological when, to my surprise, I found myself reading for pleasure. The Tory work is by far the most digital of the three, and contains the clearest vision of what a technologically enabled society could be like.

As with the others, it is too vague in its promise to roll out high-speed broadband to the whole population — given how modest the cost would be. If anyone believes it is a better use of £3 billion for London to host a series of minor sporting events for two weeks in 2012 when the same money could give the whole country superfast internet access in perpetuity, they are strange indeed. A nationwide high-speed broadband network would be one of the ways in which we would benefit from being crammed on to an over-populated little island.

But the rest is good. There is sound stuff on data protection, on DNA, on smarter electricity networks. The only thing we need first is for Cameron to show that he is as much a master of old technology (television) as he is of the new. It’s worth remembering that Ronald Reagan was over-rehearsed for early TV debates — something which was quickly put right.