Get online, NOW!

The goverment is determined to get a further 7.5 million people using the internet by 2014, it has said today.

Its particular targets are the older generation and the less well-off (that actually includes most of the UK population at the moment!!)

Included in this scheme is the Home Access Plan - which is costing the taxpayer £300m by suppling over 270,000 families with school age children with a PC or laptop.

How is it going to achieve these targets?

I've always believed in a live-and-let-live approach to life. If you are desperate to access a computer, and cannot - then of course you should get help.

But forcing people to get online is not really the answer. What will happen next -an internet police force? Anyone spending less than three hours online by 2014 will be thrown in jail?

Although this is great news for IT suppliers in general - I just don't see what business this is of the government's in the first place.