Leader: Can Tony close the digital divide?

The UK government, with its new-found momentum on high-tech matters, is taking on the digital divide in its attempts to make the UK a connected nation.

The digital divide is symptomatic of any government's greatest challenge – uniting the haves and the have-nots within society – a problem usually exacerbated in party politics by a requirement often to service only one side of that equation.

Whether it's education, poverty or in this case technology, society will always be divided along those who have and those who have-not. The government's job across all such areas is to ensure the divide is closed as much as possible by tackling the issues which created it.

Among the initiatives launched is a £10m prize for the first local authority able to demonstrate universal online access to local public services.

But services need users and users need computers they know how to operate. Those are the key issues in closing the divide.

To that end the government is providing a low-cost national laptop and PC leasing scheme.

Ofcom is being involved too with a request to take broadband to the masses and ensure the whole country has a fast reliable and affordable connection to the internet.

But of course Ofcom doesn't own the infrastructure or provide the services so it's going to have to legislate its way out of this one, working with companies who must run as profitable businesses first and foremost.

Schools must also play a key role in evangelising the benefits of technology because it is not just have-nots that need to be empowered but a case of also having to overcome apathy.

We can't make people take the PCs and we can't make them connect to the internet. For every child that comes back from school with a new-found love of technology there will be parents disinclined to listen. But overcoming this issue becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as one generation replaces the next.

And we must talk in terms of generations. These are all long-term goals. It will certainly take serious investment of both time and money but it's all a step in the right direction – even if there must be a healthy amount of cynicism surrounding any initiative announced in the run-up to a general election.