Tuesday 16 June 2009

A Challenge to Gordon

Gordon has penned an article in the The Times in which he explains just how important a broadband connection is to us all:

a fast internet connection is now seen by most of the public as an essential service, as indispensable as electricity, gas and water.
Now, I'd be the first to agree that broadband is important. The current xkcd comic did ring some bells:

But "as indispensable as [...] water"? Seriously? Does Gordon expect us to believe that?

Time for another letter, I think. Here's text of the one I've written to Gordon:

Dear Mr Brown,

I read with interest your article in today’s issue of The Times, in which you state:

"a fast internet connection is now seen by most of the public as an essential service, as indispensable as electricity, gas and water"

Your comment is somewhat hedged (“is now seen by most of the public”), but you are essentially asking us to accept the contention that a broadband connection is a basic human need. I find this somewhat difficult to accept. I would therefore like to invite you to prove your point experimentally. I propose that, at a mutually convenient date, the two of us take part in a comparative test. I will go without broadband (in all forms) for one week. Over the same period, you will go without water.

Please let me know when you would like the challenge to take place.

Yours sincerely,
I'll let you know if I receive a reply.

2 comments:

  1. Did he reply?
    Today he threatens to turn off my lousy AM radio band by 2015 and leave me with the worse DAB signal.
    The man has just slapped 50p onto my{and everyone else's} phone bill in order to pay for broadband.
    I am already paying for broadband!
    £14.99 from AOL..why am I paying extra for something that i already..oh I can't even begin to be angry.
    I've just done £483.28 on a repair, £250.99 + £76.99 on computer repairs and upgrades of nearly new equipment, and another £112.00 on the renewal cost of the insurance that should have paid for all this but lapsed, unnoticed, 8 weeks ago.
    McMentals new £6.00 internet tax is not going to make my day any worse.

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  2. I've had a reply! Here it is:

    Dear Mr [patently],

    The Prime Minister has asked me to thank you for your recent fax.

    Mr Brown is grateful to you for letting him have your views, which he was interested to see.

    Yours sincerely,


    Pathetic.

    Anyone with half a brain can see that I didn't "let him have my views", I challenged him to an experiment to see if his view had any merit. Which is obviously why no-one in No:10 noticed that.

    Anyway, I'm very pleased to have received an evidently standard reply to my question which took no account whatsoever of the comment that I had made. This means that Gordon treats my questions in the same way he treats David Cameron's every Wednesday lunchtime.

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