Don't get me started...

I heard on Radio 4 this morning that Gordon Brown's Government is planning to give away free laptops to low-income families.

I was fascinated.

According to the report I've just checked out: "More than 270,000 free laptops with broadband will be given away to low income familes under a new Government scheme."

How lucky for them. My wife and I both work full-time yet only last week I was contemplating cancelling my broadband because we were trying to trim costs and there seemed little point having something that our six-year-old computer struggled to cope with.

The only reason for keeping it was that my wife and our two boys need it to access information from work, school and college. Apparently her work, and their school and college all rely on people having an internet connection at home. So what happens if you don't?

Does she get fired for not having access to emails? Are they kicked out of school for not being able to download their course notes? Probably not, but I don't see either the schools or places of employment offering to pay to keep them connected.

Thankfully, of course, we could now give up our jobs and get a free laptop and broadband, but we'd have no jobs with which to maintain connectivity.

I'm all in favour of helping low-income families, but shouldn't the help be offered in a more prosaic manner, rather than in the form of what really should be considered a luxury item?

Next thing we'll be hearing that as they struggle to get to job interviews they'll all be supplied with a 4x4.

The Labour party should remember the premise behind its formation. Admittedly there are a lot of low-income families at work, or wanting to work, but there are also a lot of people who simply can't be arsed. Why should they get the chance to watch an unbuffered BBC iplayer when I don't...?