Plus ca change

Friday, 25th June 2010

In the dying months of the last government, a lot of money was thrown at daft projects. Well, agreed, a lot of that was done for New Labour’s entire lifetime but they did become demob happy with our cash when they realised they wouldn`t have it to spend for much longer and one of the most irritating and pointless jobs they dreamed up was given to Martha Lane Fox, who started up and sold for a fortune the internet travel company Last Minute.com. I had better declare an interest here – if indeed that is what it is – as I have known Martha since she was 8. She is clever and charming and I always wish her well. but that did not prevent her taking a daft job by Gordon Brown on a salary of £30,000 a year she did not need. Her mission was to promote use of computers and the internet among the poor and disadvantaged. Quite why they needed promoting in this way I have no idea.

Computers are available in libraries and schools regard them as almost an extra limb for their pupils. Otherwise, they are expensive – though nothing like as expensive as they were - they cost quite a bit to run, and people don`t need them. Want them or find them handy, possibly. Need, no. I don`t know whether the government’s next move would have been to provide free laptops and electricity to every person on benefits – probably. But then Labour was out and I presumed Martha LF had gone with it. Silly me. The Tory government, in spite of saying everyone must share the pain of the cuts, has wasted no time in inviting Martha back, though with a slightly different brief. She is being employed to encourage ‘use of computers and the internet among the elderly and those in rural areas.’ Oh give me strength.

Listen, I am getting towards elderly and I live in a rural area. My husband is 80, which he does not believe counts as elderly though most would disagree, and he uses the internet like nobody’s business, for work and play, has done for years. He’s got an iphone too. My village, and all those for miles around, have village e-newsletters and local websites and I would say that 80% of the homes of the retired are connected to the internet. But I know older people – and indeed, middle-aged ones too – who do not have computers or any idea how to get onto the net and do you know why ? Because they don`t want to. That’s all. They could. They have children and grandchildren and neighbours who would get them set up, even buy them a computer for Christmas, and there are free lessons to be had in the library and even a computer club for older people too. But some are just not interested, don`t want it, don`t see the need, any more than they want to go swimming or crochet or play bridge . Others do and spend half their lives on Skype to grandchildren in Australia and booking Saga cruises. That’s their choice. But will you please tell me why Martha Lane Fox or anyone else is appointed government to try and persuade the over 65s and those living in the country to do what they prefer not to ?

Ah, you say, but they would find it so valuable once they were connected, they would wonder how they ever lived without it. Ha. For the last couple of years I have had two internet free days a week, when I use my laptop as a word processor only and write books and blogs on it. I do not connect up except once a day to reply to e-mails because business has to be attended to.

And I’ll tell you something else. Having been disconnected for two entire weeks, which ought to be a form of cold-turkey, I realised that I did not miss the internet at all. I needed to be reconnected to access e-mails in an efficient manner – a mobile phone just does not cut the mustard – and of course to send in this blog. Otherwise, two weeks internet-free was a liberation.

I can understand why New Labour thought it a good wheeze to persuade the poor and disadvantaged to get online, because that is what they were like, but I had some vague idea that we had got away from that sort of nonsense. Clearly not. They just set Miss Lane Fox onto those of us who are ‘elderly and live in rural areas.’

While I was offline and fighting with BT on an hour by hour basis, someone innocently asked me why I didn`t get myself onto fibre optic cable for the internet and TV. ‘So much more reliable.’

Fibre optic cable? We don`t even have gas or main drains and where is the Martha Lane Fox of the gas pipe and sewage world when you need her?

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Sir Graphus

June 25th, 2010 4:53pm Report this comment

The govt wants off-line people to be on-line, so more people can get their benefits/pensions/tax returns business done on-line, which is a lot cheaper to the govt (the tax payer) than mailing hard copies.

It should save money.

SUSAN HILL

June 25th, 2010 7:23pm Report this comment

If this is the only reason then it can be done via a library or internet cafe for a small fee. I purchase my car tax disc online. The other side of the coin is that if everyone did this it would put a nail in the coffin of the last of the rural post offices and that would cause problems for many, mainly the elderly in rural areas. But that's a story for another day.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

June 26th, 2010 1:15pm Report this comment

Susan, perhaps you know the answer to this. It was once possible to pay water biils, where there is a booklet provided by Thames Water, at Post Offices. This was stopped, and one has to go to a Paypoint. Do you think this is a deliberate attempt to deny trade, and therefore profits to the Post Office? To me, it seems like a government directive, that obviously either Cameron hasn't altered yet or doesn't intend to.

JohnAnt

June 26th, 2010 8:06pm Report this comment

"Quite why they needed promoting in this way I have no idea."
They don't Susan: it's all smoke and mirrors - but the Tories and LibDems need re-election and are competing for rural and elderly voters in rural constituencies!
Your point about infrastructure is a good one. I have a friend who runs a business in Essex, near a large-ish town, and his business unit has no broadband access. BT refuse to run an overhead cable - ever: 'not worf it'.
So how is it that the UK has selective broadband based on proximity to large population centres, while most of small-town Europe is broadbanded and e.g. Papua New Guinea has been networked with underground cable since the late 1980s, when we were struggling with BT's blighted System-X?
Infrastructure is one area - perhaps the only area - where there's a genuine argument for government control and banging-heads-together. But the British government hasn't yet been invented that can do that and not make a pig's ear of it.

SUSAN HILL

June 27th, 2010 1:36pm Report this comment

JohnAnt
I should count myself lucky then that, troublesome though it may be, I do have a wireless brosdband connection. The problem is, as I am going to blog about soon, BT still has a monopoly outside areas with cable. It has competition as an ISP but not in line provision and ownership.
Your friend may have to move his business.

Tom

June 29th, 2010 12:14pm Report this comment

Susan,

Martha has stated repeatedly that she is not taking the salary.

Ken Bishop

July 3rd, 2010 11:53am Report this comment

Ann: Why do you refer only to Thames Water? Almost all the UK is outside the Thames region. I courteously suggest that you are as guilty as many Speckie columnists in thinking that the rest of us are somehow less real than you. Remember Rory Sutherland's hilarious explanation that the UK was "small and crowded" because the enormous empty bits didn't count?

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