Martha Lane Fox wants to get millions more online

INTERNET EVANGELIST Martha Lane Fox, the apparent poster girl for getting people online, is back with a vengeance. Or, to be more precise, a manifesto.

Fox wants everyone of working age to be online by 2012, which if anything we think will be a distraction from their day jobs. And, as well as this, she wants to get the old, unemployed and disadvantaged online, making us wonder why she didn't just announce plans to get 'everyone' online.

Fox said that there are ten million people in the UK who have never been online, ever. And she explained that they are scared of the Internet and some other nonsense.

This may be hard to believe, but yes, apparently, somewhere in the UK people are still missing out on the net completely and are being forced to writhe around in the mire of filth that is the high street.

According to the document rural and coastal areas with lots of old people are particularly laggy when it comes to getting online access and Fox reckons that cash should be flung at them.

In case anyone needed any more convincing that the Internet is a useful tool the document even includes a couple of floating quotes designed to illustrate the positive benefits of the net. Of course they did nothing but irritate us.

"I never realised I had an enquiring mind until I went online. It opens up a world," said Lynn Williams, who is sixty and went on the web five years ago and possibly has never been exposed to books, radio, the television, libraries, or anything that anyone has ever said out loud before.

"It literally turned my life around," added Heather Hawkswood, a nineteen year old carer.

In addition to this infuriating banality, Fox and friends have also come up with some statistics, thirty seven per cent of which we found to be of interest.

One stat roughly pulled out of the sand barrel tells us that, "If the 1.6 million children who live in families without the internet got online at home, it could boost their total lifetime earnings by over £10 [billion]". Here we appreciate the nice use of the word 'could', as well as the lack of explanation for the claim.

Another adds, "If just 3 and a half per cent of unemployed non-internet users found a job by getting online it would deliver a net economic benefit of £560m."

We'd like to suggest that they qualify this even further. For example, how would riding a donkey to the job centre impact on net economic benefits? Or wearing a hat. Or riding a hat-wearing donkey?

Fox said that that many people need some encouragement before going online - presumably she is not talking about non-violent physical persuasion - and chucked the broadband hot potato in the direction of David Cameron and his cabinet and asked them to do something about it.

These people, who can barely manage to drum up enough public support to get their political party elected, will be expected to encourage people to put down their Jeremy Kyle, their pot noodles, their chips and their knitting, and pick up a mouse.

Good luck with that. In the meantime, we'll leave you with the words of the not-very made up sounding name, Frederick Briggs, who is 72 and added, "What 's your email address? Let me send you a copy of the digital photos I took. Look on Facebook. Find us at web page www. This is the world we live in, and as an individual not able to understand or apply these terms I felt like a dinosaur."

Quite. µ