This is the second piece of government or state-related literature that in the past few days has equated Internet access with access to clean water and electricity. (The first was that French court ruling.) That Digital Britain report that I’ve been mentioning for the past few weeks finally came out today. The big headline: Yes, the Internet is Really Important Now. I suggest you at least read the executive summary [PDF]; that’s what it’s there for.
There’s really not much to add to what’s already been written by Gordon Brown, the prime minister there (for now!), in the Times. There’s a bit of the ol’ “Britain was once great, she shall be great once again, thanks to the Internet,” so be on the lookout for that.
Credit to the Government there, though, for undertaking the effort.
You can find the full report here.
Sounds to me like people are just starting to take “simple” things like clean water for granted, and assigning artificially high value to the luxuries they consider “essential”. Try letting them live WITHOUT clean water for a little while, see how quickly the ranking would change…
I suspect the real reason the current British govenment wants ubiquitous internet access is for surveillance – both for the music/movie mafias and for Big Sister Jacqui.