back to article Boris Johnson's promise of full fibre in the UK by 2025 is pie in the sky

Likely future UK prime minister Boris Johnson has pledged to bring full fibre to all homes by 2025, a claim that telecoms experts have widely dismissed. Writing in his £275,000-a-year weekly column in the Telegraph, Johnson said he addressed the issue of better broadband at a meeting with the Lincolnshire Conservatives. "[W] …

  1. Rich 11

    Rural rage

    an unprecedented degree of tolerance of roadworks and transport disruption

    And the farmers will be the first to complain when they can't get their tractors and trailers -- or the hauliers can't get their lorries -- past a digging crew on Lincolnshire's narrow, ditch-flanked rural roads.

    1. thosrtanner

      Re: Rural rage

      That'll be their 2nd complaint. The 1st complaint will be over the description of their hands. That's a very patronising city-boy description of farmers

      1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        Re: Rural rage

        Surely their first complaint will be they're not receiving any subsidies and are having to compete with tariff free imports?

        1. BebopWeBop

          Re: Rural rage

          Why compete when they will not have any cheap labour to exploit?

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Rural rage

            >Why compete when they will not have any cheap labour to exploit?

            "cheap"? When you can have free - welcome to the Boris serfdom act

    2. Tom 7

      Re: Rural rage

      Why dig up the roads when you can just put it in the bottom of the ditch. Last time I looked you could lay fibre at the bottom of an ocean - I doubt some Lincolnshire ditchwater would present much of a problem. The farmers in projects like B4RN will often lay the cable for you - which is why that costs about 1/10th the equivalent commercial service. Oh hang on I've just seen where I went wrong there.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Rural rage

        Ditches get cleaned out periodically. You need a Russian nuclear sub to do that with transoceanic cables.

        1. Sulky

          Re: Rural rage

          Hahaha, not where I live they don't! But we did have fibre dug into the verges about 3 years ago and I've had 1Gb to the property since then. If they do ever decide to clean the ditches we might be fucked, but I'm hoping Boris makes that promise as well, then I know we'll be safe!

      2. Wilseus

        Re: Rural rage

        Is there any reason we can't run fibre above ground using existing telegraph poles?

    3. ridley

      Re: Rural rage

      It won't be a problem in the super "no deal" UK economy there will be no farmers to complain.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        "It won't be a problem in the super "no deal" UK economy there will be

        no farmers to complain."

        Not strictly true.

        The pig farmers are expected to be the last ones standing in the worst case analysis fo the Horticultural & Agricultural Development Board

        Oik, Oik.

  2. Pen-y-gors

    What is a BloJob promise worth?

    As a general rule of thumb, whatever de Piffle promises will not happen. He has said UK will leave EU on 31st Oct, "Do or Die". Well, the UK won't be leaving on 31st Oct, so can we look forward to attending his funeral and pissing on the coffin a few days later? Can we hell! Not to be trusted.

    If he promised the sun would rise tomorrow I'd assume he'd spotted the massive asteroid heading for London.

    The only reliable promises he makes involve him and his friends getting richer, and the rest of us getting poorer.

    1. Ben Tasker

      Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

      To be fair, when he said "Do or Die" he wasn't talking about his own death so much as the death of the Conservative party as a political entity.

      Which is a price I'm more than willing to pay not to Brexit and screw the country up.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

        Which is a price I'm more than willing to pay not to Brexit and screw the country up.

        Let's face it, any price is worth paying to stop Brexit for anti-democratic Remaniacs such as yourself!

        1. MJB7

          Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

          Not quite sure any price - but I'd certainly be prepared to pay quite a lot. Mainly because I still expect it will cost less (in money and freedom) than Brexit will.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

            Not quite sure any price - but I'd certainly be prepared to pay quite a lot. Mainly because I still expect it will cost less (in money and freedom) than Brexit will.

            I just struggle to understand the concept of how a country tied to the EU is more free than one that's independent, but I guess that's just one of the many tortuous mental hoops you have to jump through when consigning democracy to the dustbin!

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

              This desperate barrel scraping excuse about democracy is wearing a bit thin. There is no threat to democracy except by a load of cry-wolf bullshitters trying to use it as an emotional shield.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

              I just struggle to understand the concept of how a country tied to operating as part of a large bloc such as the EU is more free than one that's independent bends over any time the US tells it to.

              Do these slight amendments help you?

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

              I just struggle to understand the concept of how a country tied to the EU is more free than one that's independent

              Because as part of the EU - the largest economic trading bloc in the world - we have leverage over other large economies such as China and the US. Outside the EU we're tied to the WTO rules with much less influence over them. We also have to negotiate new trade agreements with everyone. Everyone. But without the clout of that trading bloc we just left.

              So we accept shit food from the US in return for what? Trump isn't going to give us anything. Why do you think he tried (in his tactless and transparent way) to try and get Macron to bend over and take it up the backside ... sorry I meant ... leave the EU as well?

            4. Teiwaz

              Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

              the concept of how a country tied to the EU is more free than one that's independent

              At leas the EU is not busy trying to weasel out of any recognised Human Rights agreements because they are inconvenient barriers to a police state.

              1. codejunky Silver badge

                Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

                @Teiwaz

                "At leas the EU is not busy trying to weasel out of any recognised Human Rights agreements because they are inconvenient barriers to a police state."

                To this I do want to mention that a proposed solution to the migration crisis in the EU is to make detention centres (effectively prisons) in foreign countries to hold the migrants until they can be processed.

            5. strum

              Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

              >I just struggle to understand the concept of how a country tied to the EU is more free than one that's independent,

              One defintion of 'freedom' is the capability to those things you want to do. But the power to do it is a severely limiting factor. Our shared power (in the EU) is massively greater than our national power, outside.

              Take our ability to restrict the power of big tech. UK can't do anything much, on its own. EU can. Ergo, freer inside than out.

              You could make a 10 y-o child more independent by turfing him out of the home. Free to die.

            6. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

        "screw the country up"

        Well given a choice of Boris or the Corbot, I think I'll go for Boris

    2. simonlb Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

      Well he all but promised everyone a rainbow shitting unicorn if the Leave campaign won, so this promise is pretty trivial really.

      1. IceC0ld

        Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

        so a political type lies again, colour me surprised ................

        1. Velv
          Mushroom

          Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

          This casual attitude to accepting politicians lies is why were in this shitshow in the first place.

          It's time they were held accountable

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

            No, Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay Brothers say that would be restraint of trade.

          2. Pen-y-gors

            Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

            The whole Brexit farce will only be finally over when the last Brexit campaigner dies in their cell on Dartmoor / West Falkland (delete as appropriate)

          3. Adrian 4

            Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

            "This casual attitude to accepting politicians lies is why were in this shitshow in the first place.

            It's time they were held accountable

            "

            Bug report : el reg only allows me to upvote a comment once. Please adjust to +1000.

    3. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

      Don't worry, nothing is happening and Hy Brasil is definitely not sinking. The self-deluded piffle-waffling "politician" said so. Here's a previous politician saying much the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJh6EQ5gv7g

    4. Rich 11

      Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

      He has said UK will leave EU on 31st Oct, "Do or Die".

      I think that was a slip of the tongue. He meant 'Do and die'. As some people inevitably will when there's less money for the NHS and he uses that as an excuse to try to sell chunks of it off to the Yank exploit-people's-illnesses industry.

    5. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

      "If he promised the sun would rise tomorrow I'd assume he'd spotted the massive asteroid heading for London."

      To be fair, that probably would not stop the sun from rising. Whether anyone would be around to see or care is another matter :-)

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

      The only reliable promises he makes involve him and his friends getting richer, and the rest of us getting poorer.

      I complained about a very specific part of the way the congestion charge was levied in terms of fines when you forgot to pay, and Boris Johnson sorted the problem out and because of the changes he made I no longer got any more fines. That's just one example.

      So to me your rant looks like the rant of somebody that blames everybody else for your problems. 'Friends getting richer' ? Do me a favour. Left wing are we?

      1. Rich 11

        Re: What is a BloJob promise worth?

        I'm glad that you are £3.50* better off. But as a Londoner, just how much did the Garden Bridge failure cost you?

        *Joke. Provide your own figure. Then justify it.

  3. deive
    Facepalm

    Another completley rational promise by Borris.

    1. Hans 1
      WTF?

      BroBo

      He promised 350million/week more for the NHS, promised Trump the NHS was for sale, promised us more jobs, lower taxes for the rich, more state aid for the poorer ... and now fibre in an unlrealistic time frame ... yeah ... rational thinking is not Brobo's forte.

      If he owned a bread shop, you'd come in and he'd offer you a fiver if you took a loaf and another if you mated with his wife. Somehow, as a baker that does not work too well, as a politician it works miracles, you end up Prime Liar.

      1. Peter2 Silver badge

        Re: BroBo

        To be fair, the NHS is not an organisation, it's a franchise and a billing structure. Your GP is a private for profit business that bills the NHS for work done on an agreed rate.

        US providers are already able to come over here and do NHS work at the agreed rate. It's crucially important that they don't figure this out though. Let them win this as a concession in a trading relationship. It's the definition of giving something for nothing.

        If they want an agreement that we will let them buy land, build hospitals, import their own staff and then run a hospital their way then frankly given that they can do it already at the moment you might as just trade this point for something they think is valuable whilst trying hard not to laugh at them.

        If they do then build hospitals and import their own staff & equipment then one of two things happens.

        1) Their processes are more efficient, and we cut waiting lists while paying no more than we are already. Our hospital managers then quietly copy what they are doing, and the NHS improves.

        2) They can't make a profit at it, and go bust. Leaving a new hospital full of state of the art kit, plus a lot of extra doctors etc who have relocated to the UK to run it. They won't want to leave it empty since they'd have to pay council tax (which is based on the building floorspace; quite extensive in a hospital...) so they would be under a lot of pressure to lease it to somebody, anybody who'd take it on and pay the council tax. The only person who'd be interested in leasing a hospital plus equipment in the UK is the NHS, so the NHS would then improve via acquiring a new hospital plus new equipment, and also by offering jobs to the staff brought over. (since most people given the option would be quite happy switching employer rather than paying to move to a different country to then look for a job)

        I can't see the harm in letting American's try and run NHS services frankly, as so long as they are still responsible to the existing quality control measures that are in place (ie; the CQC etc)

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: BroBo

          They can claim that having a free NHS is unfair state aid and UK hospitals need to run on proper profitable US grounds - unless the free and independent UK wants to go on the same banned list as certain Chinese telcos

          1. Peter2 Silver badge

            Re: BroBo

            Shortly after WW2 the NHS was just setup as a billing structure. The reason for this is that the GP's already existed, as did the hospitals. All that was needed was to say that "The NHS will pay $X_Amount for $Y_Service, and you have to agree to be inspected by somebody occasionally to check your work is to spec. Failing quality standards means we won't accept anymore invoices from you."

            This system is fundamentally what we have today, although the GP's who used to do house visits to their privately paying patients have long since realised that a better business model is to own a building and just have a frigging huge que of patients waiting to see you as it eliminates travel time and you get paid the same.

            As any provider can be paid for a set job, a level playing field exists already.

            If the American healthcare providers want to try and sell insurance in the UK then they are welcome to join the existing UK healthcare insurance market, which is used by <10% of the population. How is that going to harm the NHS?

            Honestly, I think that your barking in the wrong forest with where your looking. The biggest issue is going to be things like the US saying "well, now your no longer part of the EU, how about you accept drugs approved by the US FDA for use in the NHS without requiring us to get them certified by the EU's EMA?" Which isin't actually utterly unreasonable, and probably not actually *that* problematic given that the standards are pretty similar.

            What'll be problematic is the US will probably lean on the government to drugs for the NHS through US providers rather than EU providers. But frankly, given that the EU has threatened to cut off supplies of needed medicines anyway i'm rather inclined to say "screw them then" as long as the prices we pay are pretty similar. (and given how badly some EU firms screw the NHS with multiple thousand percent price increases then buying from US suppliers when commercially viable would serve them right, and save the NHS quite a bit.)

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: BroBo

              The NHS is healthcare free at the point of delivery, not £200 a week entry level insurance for old folk.

              Any government that messes with it will fall.

              Unfortunate after Brexit, when the UK has the begging bowl out it will be handing control out to the highest bidder.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: BroBo

              how about you accept drugs approved by the US FDA for use in the NHS without requiring us to get them certified by the EU's EMA?" Which isin't actually utterly unreasonable, and probably not actually *that* problematic given that the standards are pretty similar.

              How's Hancock getting along with setting up a UK approval body given that we're going to need one of our own?

              1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

                Re: BroBo

                "How's Hancock getting along with setting up a UK approval body given that we're going to need one of our own?"

                Do we really need one? At least in the short term? We already know how the EU and US standards bodies work and anything produced here and sold in other markets has to get approval in those markets already. We could just carry on accepting the standards we already have.

                1. H in The Hague

                  Re: BroBo

                  "We already know how the EU and US standards bodies work and anything produced here and sold in other markets has to get approval in those markets already."

                  Well, then you're adopting other folks' standards which you do not have any control over. And I rather think that "Taking back control" and not "having to abide by rules set by unelected bureaucrats" were key messages of the Brexit campaign.

                  At the moment UK businesses can export to the rest of the EU under common rules, which the UK government and UK MEPs have had a say in. In future they will still have to operate under those rules but no longer have any influence over them. Same as has always been the case with exports to the US.

                2. strum

                  Re: BroBo

                  >Do we really need one?

                  We do have a rather large pharma industry of our own. If we can'r accredit its products, we'll just have to trust the other guys' word on it.

              2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

                Re: BroBo

                UK approval body given that we're going to need one of our own?

                We (kind of) already have one - NICE authorises drugs and appliances for use in the NHS and, after negotiating with the supplier, specifies the cost of said drugs and appliances.

                Which is why some very high-cost drugs that are only useful in a handful of cases don't get authorised for use in the NHS - NICE does cost/benefit analysis on the drugs and, not having an Yggdrasil-like money tree, has to decide where their limited budget gets spent.

                NICE doesn't do research or results validation but it could be added onto their existing remit - but since this would increase the cost of the body I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it.

                1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                  Re: BroBo

                  "it could be added onto their existing remit"

                  As in totally change it. NICE is in effect a purchasing department for the NHS. It doesn't even have any say in what's sold over the counter.

                  As others have said, we could simply accept other validation bodies without having any say in them but, hay, we'll have taken back control.

        2. Pen-y-gors

          Re: BroBo

          @Peter2

          iThe NHS...t's a franchise and a billing structure.

          To be fair, who do we have to thank for that? Oooh, I know, the Tories! Just out to make money for their chums, at our expense.

          The sooner all Tories & Brexit supporters are consigned to the political darkness the better, then we can get back to building a society that works to make life better for all, not just a few greedy bastards. Rethinking the NHS as a public-service organisation will be a good start.

          1. Peter2 Silver badge

            Re: BroBo

            To be fair, who do we have to thank for that? Oooh, I know, the Tories! Just out to make money for their chums, at our expense.

            Um. Labour set it up this way under the National Health Service Act 1946? If you don't know that much about the NHS then quit relying on the Daily Guardian for all of your knowledge.

        3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: BroBo

          >Your GP is a private for profit business

          Didn't he also say fuck business?

        4. Teiwaz

          Re: BroBo

          I can't see the harm in letting American's try and run NHS services frankly, as so long as they are still responsible to the existing quality control measures that are in place (ie; the CQC etc)

          Are you kidding?

          They'll be wanting chlorination in the Operating Room!!

        5. Rich 11

          Re: BroBo

          I can't see the harm in letting American's try and run NHS services

          I think you may not be aware of all the attempts at backdoor privatisation which have failed. Arguably it's happened at scale in the elderly care 'industry', which is shameful. More specifically you could look to the failure of Circle Health. Also try the shortsighted privatisation of specific services such as knee ops and kidneys ops, which resulted in the NHS having to pick up the failures -- there was of course an expected failure rate, but its resolution wasn't covered by the contracts -- and to make things worse the removal of junior surgeons from associated complex tasks meant that fewer surgeons could reach consultant level due to their lack of broader experience!

          Any interference in healthcare is going to carry consequences. Look at the 2012 reorganisation, now generally considered a total waste of money at a time when less money was available. Do you really trust politicians to get it right by opening up NHS services to yet more private providers, most of whom will come from a regime where profit is all and shafting the customer is the reason d'etre of the legal department?

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: BroBo

        rational thinking is not Brobo's forte

        Nor fact-checking. As in the latest kipper fiasco.. (No Boris, the EU doesn't require coolbags for smoked fish. However, the UK does (under some circumstances).

        And since the original complainant (if he exists) was from the Isle of Man (neither UK nor EU) the point is even less moot.

        But it made a good soundbite for the slavering tory faithful.

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    See those flying Pigs?

    I thought not. That's what Boris is basically promising. It won't happen.

    FTTC was a walk in the park compared to FTTP.

    Typical Politician. Promising things that they know sod all about but it makes a great soundbite don't it eh?

    1. macjules

      Re: See those flying Pigs?

      Well, once Reichsführer Rees-Mogg is in charge of Immigration importing slave labour then there will not be a problem.

      Of course, by then we shall have restored The Empire to its former glory, so there will be no shortage of skilled American colonial slaves.

    2. Tom 7

      Re: See those flying Pigs?

      Perhaps the flying pigs could tie some fibre to their tails and drag it to where its needed!

      I reckon one loop round Borises neck and then off to Mars should do it.

    3. Tom -1

      Re: See those flying Pigs?

      FTTC in the UK was an utterly shambolic mess for a long time, but it's certainly bpossible that FTTP will be even worse. BT records often showed cabinets as having fibre connection to the exchange when they has only copper - and found out repeatedly when they "upgraded" customers to "faster" (actually 0 bits/sec) broadband access trying to use fibre connections that didn't exist - and sometimes rediscovering the same problem on the same cabinet severl times, because discovering that there was no fibre connection to that cabinet didn't always get the records corrected. Affected customera had typically a week without any internet connection, and didn't get compensated for that. But then, BT these days (unlike 40 years go) is pretty useless compared to Spain's Telefónica.

      Boris is clearly too dim to realise that what he is promising is way beyong what there is any chance at all of BT mnaging to achieve by his suggested dates.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

    what's a mere 300K when we're getting 350 MILLION a week for NHS! And the bestest (...) deal of a Millenium with Mr Trump! Only a week to go, OMG, trembling with excitement!

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

      unusable water cannon for the police,

      Only "unusable" because Toxic Theresa banned them to spite Boris, preferring to leave the police with only Tasers and CS gas, neither of which is great in crowded city centre situations.

      1. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

        "The home secretary, Theresa May, has rejected an attempt by Boris Johnson to deploy water cannon on the streets of London and refused to authorise their use by any police force in England and Wales.

        May heaped further humiliation on the London mayor by telling him that the three 25-year-old German water cannon, which he authorised to be bought last year by the Metropolitan police, have no fewer than 67 faults that need to be dealt with before they can be used."

        Don't buy stuff that isn't currently authorised, without checking that it *will* be authorised.

        And this kit was old German refurb (read: The Germans are selling it because they don't want it either) with a number of faults.

        The prime reason though was endangering "policing by consent". I can't say that I disagree on that matter.

        1. Tom 7

          Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

          I always felt Boris had seen the Poll Tax riots and realised that he could kettle^ a few demonstrators and be a hero for stopping what he started. I hope Brexit goes that way!

          * its called kettling by the Police because its about bringing things to the boil.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

          The prime reason though was endangering "policing by consent".

          When even May realised that you should have known some was wrong.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

          Yet pushed the snoopers charter - where's the consent in that then?

          Got sold for scrap as Sadiq Khan wanted to show how caring and sharing he was, and look whats going on - XR allowed to hold the city to ransom for ELEVEN days straight, Knife crime at an all time high, and worse.

          Can't have on the mainland, but its fine to deploy them in NI along with plastic bullets (which have proved fatal) at civilians......yet we're all equal in this United Kingdom.

          Don't care much for Boris, but its doable with effort, but as usual the doomsayers waffle about it not bing possible, 100mbps is more than enough for our British needs etc.

          BT spending billions on training, explain then why there are so many graduates and skilled labour stocking shelves in Tesco etc for minimum wage? Answer its waffle.

          The stumbling block is vested interests in industry wanting to drag this process out as long as possible, those averse to building any infrastructure to continue the "managed decline of the UK" and the snobbery from those in urban areas that those living rurally wouldn't know what to do with fibre broadband so why bother....

          Our forebears built a raiway network that we still use today in many areas often by hand with no mechanical aids. So why now is it impossible?

          Example I'm uk.gov and I tell a fibra manufacturer that I want enough fibre to connect every premises in the UK and its all got to be done by 2025, are they going to say "no not possible", no they are going to say "we can do it but we need a guarantee as we'll have to expand out facilities"

          Concrete batching plants can and do turn over their entire product capability to one high volume customer to the exclusion of everyone else, I think Cemex would even turn over everything and run it flat out if uk.gov came a knocking.

          1. Claverhouse Silver badge

            Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

            Time for your medication, Mr. C.; I can turn the TV off, and then it's time for a nice nap.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

            Got sold for scrap as Sadiq Khan wanted to show how caring and sharing he was, and look whats going on - XR allowed to hold the city to ransom for ELEVEN days straight, Knife crime at an all time high, and worse.

            Yup, that's what will sort the knife crime problem - a bunch of clapped out water cannons.

          3. Aitor 1

            Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

            Hate boris, but it is doable.

            If you have copper, in most places you can put fiber.

            Start with high density places, not farms, and you will get 70% coverage quite fast.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Rural Broadband

              That's the approach that comms companies have taken since the GPO first started laying cables for phones. It's a great approach if you live in a metropolitan area, not so good if you are a tech support manager in Lincolnshire. I used to get sick of comms companies /mobile providers sitting in front of me and telling me that they covered 95% of the population in the UK when there were black spots over the whole county and I would have to pay to get fibre pulled every time I needed a fast connection. Things have improved substantially in the past 10 years but don't roll out the old tropes based on population. Its ground coverage that's required in counties like Lincolnshire. I've lived in rural areas most of my adult life, In Cheshire you cant go more than 1/4 mile between farm houses, its a dairy county with smaller farms and fields, in Lincolnshire the driveway to the farmhouse on a large arable farm is often more than 1/4 mile and the next farm may be five miles down the road. As already mentioned the roads are narrow with deep ditches both sides, these are cleaned regularly as they are there for a reason, not decoration. Cleaning involves a couple of guys and a JCB using the bucket to dredge out the bottom of the ditch then compacting it on the verge, god help any fibre in either area.

          4. Adrian 4

            Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

            "XR allowed to hold the city to ransom for ELEVEN days straight"

            And someone gives a shit about that (other than the frankly irrelevant sity coin-clippers) ?

            Good for XR, I say.

            Nothing good ever came out of letting the City have control.

        4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
          Unhappy

          Yup, BS Boris once again.

          Bu***hittted into the student union.

          Bu***hittted stories when he was the Brussels correspondent for the Torygraph.

          Bu***hittted as London Mayor

          Bu***hittted his way through being Foreign Secretary.

          Still bu***hitting as prospective Conservative party leader/ Prime Minister.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

        Only "unusable" because Toxic Theresa banned them to spite Boris, preferring to leave the police with only Tasers and CS gas, neither of which is great in crowded city centre situations.

        I get your point. Those thrice weekly mass riots that we need the water cannon for are far more important than anything else the money could of been spent on.

        Twat,

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

          Twat

          Thank you for that well-argued and insightful reply. Now grow up.

          1. Adrian 4

            Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

            "Twat"

            Ad hominem always loses. Now go away.

      3. strum

        Re: unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

        >because Toxic Theresa banned them

        They were banned long before May came to power.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Calm down people it's a politician trawling for votes, they always lie.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. MonkeyCee

      Lies versus incompetance

      I don't think he's lying. I think he genuinely has no idea how to get anything done.

      The problem with a ruling class with PPEs is that they honestly believe that all the have to do is make a rule, and have the right attitude, and then all the details will get sorted out by the plebs.

      Alas, the quality of the British civil service has gone down since the days of empire.

      It's almost like all the people with drive, ambition and vision left the UK to build the empire, wheras all those who either didn't want to leave, or thought it would be better to parasite the work of others stayed.

      It's ridiculous how talent less the current crop of UK politicians are. Is there ANYONE who is competent at any of the skills required:

      - Statesmanship - Gove and Corbyn haven't made any major fuck ups, but not impressive. BoJo's tenure at the FO was one long fuck up.

      - Party discipline - Hahahaha. Yeah. Both major parties have huge fractures, enough that they should really split. But group has the upper hand, and no-one wants to be the "new" party. Not sure if the Tory swivel eyed loons vs reality, or Labour's reds versus Blairites has the most bile, but both are pretty impossible to reconcile.

      - Popularity - HAhahahahahahahahahahaha. Again, not only are the current leaders not popular, they also have pretty high rates of hatred.

      I'm a (small r) republican, but at this point I'd be quite happy if Liz stepped in and took control.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lies versus incompetance

        My father's view - which to a degree I share - is that the EU meant that the quality of politicians we needed took a nosedive because very intelligent and motivated people in Brussels were doing all the hard thinking. So British politics went back to entitled ex public schoolboys playing at debating, while intelligent people realised there was much more fun and even profit to be had in banking, law, medicine, Internet technology, and STEM generally.

        I think it's more nuanced than that, but Johnson's father is a highly intelligent man who worked for the EU for years, and Johnson certainly seems to be working his Oedipus complex out on the EU. Though none of his mistresses seem in any way to resemble Jocasta.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Lies versus incompetance

          You are correct. PPE was supposed to replace Classics once people who might need to hang out with foreign diplomats no longer needed to be fluent in languages.

          Johnson got a 2.1. Apparently when his younger brother got a First, his sister phoned Johnson to rub it in.

          All one happy family.

        2. Hans 1
          WTF?

          Re: Lies versus incompetance

          What has the conservative-Daily-Fail-fueled repeated anti-semitism charge against Labour have to do with BroBo who lies more than anything ?

          PS: Conservatives are undergoing an islamophobia investigation.

          PPS: I probably dislike Labour as much as you, yet, I feel the same about Conservatives and Farage's stand-up act.

          1. CountCadaver Silver badge

            Re: Lies versus incompetance

            I feel the same about ALL of them - Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, UKIP, Brexit Party (apologies to those whose parties I've failed to name, don't worry I hate your lot also)

            Bunch of self serving low lifes the lot of them, with no more talent or brain power than your average middle manager and in Holyrood all too often failed local authority cllrs with no critical thinking ability and all too keen to spend public money like dishwater to quieten some single issue group without looking into the implications.

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Lies versus incompetance

              When I read a comment like this it always leads me to reflect on why the commentard doesn't go into politics. After all if they are so principled and nobody else is wouldn't they make such a better job?

              Could it be that they wouldn't want to be slagged off by generalising commentards such as - well, such as themselves?

              1. CountCadaver Silver badge

                Re: Lies versus incompetance

                Because the system is designed to exclude those who are not part of a party - £500-£5000 deposit required

                Because then you become subject to various archaic rules governing elected members

                Because the system dislikes those who ask "awkward questions" and the system has plenty of connections with the media and will ensure that "nuisance" is silenced / discredited.

                Your argument is no better than "If you love France so much then go live there then!!"

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Lies versus incompetance

                  You can start with local politics. There are a few places that have non-party town councils.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: Lies versus incompetance

                    not mine sadly, most of the "independents" are closely allied with the conservatives, virtually all of them voting identically to the conservatives on every single issue.

            2. strum

              Re: Lies versus incompetance

              >no more talent or brain power than your average middle manager

              More talent & brain power on a single HoC bench than in the entire Register comments circus.

              Nearly every MP goes into politics to make thing better (or, at least, stop them from getting worse). But politics is difficult, complicated and boody hard work. You can't get anything done without power. You can't get power without aggregating yours with lots of others. You can't keep power unless everyone involved gets what they want (or appears to). And then you come up against forces that don't give a shit about anything but profit.

              Why does it look so corrupt and chaotic - well, sometimes it is, but quite a lot of our perception of politics comes from the Fourth Estate, who resent politicians having all that power and are convinced they could do so much better, if only they could be arsed to get off this bar stool. So they spend their time slagging of their betters.

              1. CountCadaver Silver badge

                Re: Lies versus incompetance

                "their betters"??? Get a grip, its not 1519 anymore....days of folk doffing caps to politicians are rightly long gone.

                Most of them went to university to study politics, signed up to a political party, posted leaflets through doors, became paid researchers for the party, then aides to candidates, then canididates themselves, then parachuted into safe seats.....none of them having done any real work in their lives and nearly all completely divorced from the experiences of "normal" people. The days of "normal" people with work experience entering parliament to make things better are LONG gone, most if not all go into politics as they believe they have some birthright to lead others, the rest want to shove an agenda down the rest of our throats (road pricing, ID cards, Snoopers charter, plastic straw bans, <insert other vanity projects>) again as they have been told they are genius their whole lives and its only going to get worse, what with the crop of kids coming through who've never failed at anything, who've never been told NO, who've never been brought down to earth, who've never been exposed to opposing views, who've never experienced ANY form of hardship in their lives....

              2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: Lies versus incompetance

                "the Fourth Estate, who resent politicians having all that power and are convinced they could do so much better, if only they could be arsed to get off this bar stool."

                There's a certain amount of exchange of bodies between the press and politics so I think we're about to see this put to the test. It could be amusing for those who aren't in danger of beocmng collateral damage.

        3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Lies versus incompetance

          "Corbyn hasn't made any fuck ups?"

          Not in government but he's training hard in case he gets his chance.

        4. Hans 1
          Joke

          Re: Lies versus incompetance

          https://www.private-eye.co.uk/st-theresa

          PS: Note icon, I ended up in stitches

  7. Sean Houlihane

    Free unicorns all round.

    The idiots will never realise they have been played.

    1. Hans 1
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Free unicorns all round.

      Thatcherites and Blairites still have not realised they've been had big time.

      1. Claverhouse Silver badge

        Re: Free unicorns all round.

        So true...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FTTP?

    At my age I'm much more concerned about ATTP (ambulance to the premises). In other words, by all means sort out the mess that is this country's broadband infrastructure, but get your priorities right and make sure the ambulances run on time first.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FTTP?

      >but get your priorities right and make sure the ambulances run on time first.

      Yours must be a rough neighbourhood or you live in a seaside retirement area such as Bournemouth if they have to have regularly timetabled ambulances.

      1. Allonymous Coward
        Pirate

        Re: FTTP?

        regularly timetabled ambulances

        Under privatisation, perhaps ambulances will be paid by results? Cue mental picture of ambulances cruising the streets.

        To paraphrase Pterry, any bunch of people who are paid to transport patients would naturally see to it that there was a plentiful supply of patients to transport.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. macjules

        Re: FTTP?

        I thought Bournemouth and Eastbourne just used conveyor belts along the promenades?

        Soylent Green, anyone?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FTTP?

      "At my age I'm much more concerned about ATTP (ambulance to the premises)."

      don't worry about the ambulance, you will have your pick of private ones:

      1. the base level for the poor, wood benches and open air (flat bed truck) for £1000 per trip

      2. the better version with padded seats £2000 per trip

      3. the one for boris and mates, plush carpeting , sofas, TV and oxygen on tap. £20,000 per trip (paid for by the tax payer for the twats)

      you know, privatisation brings the benefit of choice (if your rich)!!!

      1. Woza
        Megaphone

        Re: FTTP?

        0. Bring out your dead! <clang!>

        Icon: in lieu of a bell.

        1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

          Re: FTTP?

          I'm not quite dead!

          1. phuzz Silver badge
            Joke

            Re: FTTP?

            *klonk*

            He is now.

        2. BebopWeBop

          Re: FTTP?

          0. Bring out your dead! <clang!>

          0. Bring out your dead! <kerching!>

          (FTFY)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Ambulances and costs

        Boris and pals won't use a £20,000 per trip service.

        They'll use one of Elon Musks Robo-ambulances. Only £0.15 per mile. Us plebs will be stuck with the £1000 a trip steam powered slowmobiles.

        Every day, deeper in debt. (unless you are a PPE Grad who has never had a real job. In that case, here's the key to Number 10)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ambulances and costs

          They'll use one of Elon Musks Robo-ambulances

          Then the problem will sort itself out, as they die off when the robo ambulance crashes into a truck at full speed on the way to the hospital.

        2. Tom -1

          Re: Ambulances and costs

          "Every day, deeper in debt. (unless you are a PPE Grad who has never had a real job. In that case, here's the key to Number 10)"

          That is a sentence that demonstrates your laziness (can't be bothered to look up how many PMs had PPE degrees), your stupidity (too dim to realise that your laziness will deliver the wrong answer), and and your anti-education prejudice.

          Just so that you may remember in future, out of the total of approx 75 PMs in British hostory, exactly 3 had PPE degrees. Your idea that a PPE degree is a free path to Number 10 is pure ignorant prejudice. Only four percent (4%) of our PMs have had that degree. More than 4% have had no degree at all, and even more have had only an honarary degree, not an earned one.

          And Boris's degree is not in PPE, it's in LH (Literae Humaniores) - and he's probably a far more damaging PM for Britain that any of the three PPE holder PMs (Wilson, Heath, and Cameron), just like others without PPE degrees like the treacherous swine MacMillan and the destroyers of the British Economy (Atlee back in the late 40s, and Blair far more recently) none of whom had a PPE degree.

    3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: FTTP?

      ambulance to the premises

      Been there, done that. And, when the first ambulance died on the way (for the second time that week) to Bristol Heart Hospital, had to wait for the second one to turn up to take me the rest of the way..

      So yes, the various ambulance services need access to proper amounts of kit so that they don't have to run the kit they have far, far, far past the end of their useful life. The first ambulance was only kept on the road because some very talented mechanics were keeping it going when in a sane world it would have been scrapped a year ago.

      Oh - and the cretins that don't pull over to let the ambulance past - I hope that one day when you are in the middle of a very, very painful heart attack that you discover how uttely selfish and self-absorbed you were.

  9. #41 Hornet
    WTF?

    Is the target obsurd?

    Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Mr Johnson.

    Why is FTTP the target here? Wouldn't it be better to set targets based on speed, availability and latency?

    Perhaps there is a new rural economy that will be enabled by ultra-fast broadband to every premises, but I'm struggling to see it. I'm sure most people would be happy if they had a connection that was reliable, and they could stream Netflix in HD without having to buffer the stream every other minute.

    1. sal II

      Re: Is the target obsurd?

      It has nothing to do with rural or FFTP. The voters he went to meet this time happened to be in a rural area and someone happened to ask a question about Broadband.

      Boris being Boris, there are no half measures, when it comes to promises - Why stop at reliable Broadband - Full FTTP in 5 years or bust.

      The best hope rural areas have for "reliable" BB is if Telcos are bound to offer full coverage in rural areas as part of the spectrum allocation. FTTP is simply not financially viable outside cities and mid sized towns.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Is the target obsurd?

      There's money to be made (for somebody) in laying fibre. There's money to be lost in meeting or failing to meet real performance targets.

      1. AndrueC Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Is the target obsurd?

        There's money to be made (for somebody) in laying fibre.

        Debatable. Looking at the market at the moment there's very little evidence of a mass desire for ultrafast broadband. Most people are buying the cheapest package they can afford. Only a minority of VM customers choose to pay for the top tier and historically VM have had to close their lowest tiers and migrate customers upwards for free because they won't move by themselves.

        Also, looking at the market, internet use per-capita in the UK is very high and it has been for several decades now. What the market seems to show is most people are content with the lower end of speeds or at least unable to justify paying for anything better.

        A last risk factor is mobile internet. While I will always tout a physical cable as being better than anything done by radio I was at a friend's house recently and they use a mobile adaptor and it seems to do everything they need including UHD Netflix streaming. Whether mobile internet could handle a sudden influx of people should FTTP not materialise fast enough is another matter.

        For sure there are still some places (less than 5% probably) where residential internet is truly inadequate but it's hard to see where sufficient demand can be found to fund the costs of a complete FTTP roll-out, least-wise not a rapid one.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Is the target obsurd?

          Note that is said "for somebody". Somebody gets paid to do the job of laying it. They make money.

          Providing a service from it is a different matter from laying it.

          Who do you think BoJo might be thinking of?

        2. My-Handle

          Re: Is the target obsurd?

          I currently live in a rural part of Northern Ireland and currently get a maximum of 2Mbps. Our nearest cabinet is in the middle of the town, 2.5 miles from where I live.

          So... FTTP? Sure, I'll take it if it arrives. But realistically I'd be over the moon if there was a cabinet within a mile of me and I could get 10Mbps. Even as a software developer, that would pretty much fit my needs.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Is the target obsurd?

      "Perhaps there is a new rural economy that will be enabled by ultra-fast broadband to every premises, but I'm struggling to see it. I'm sure most people would be happy if they had a connection that was reliable, and they could stream Netflix in HD without having to buffer the stream every other minute."

      Partly correct. There have been comments here in the past from farmers or friends of farmers pointing out all the online government form-filling they have to do which is almost impossible and very time consuming at dial-up speeds.

  10. spiny norman

    Won't Broadband be obsolete by then?

    I was thinking (aka hoping) that the 5G rollout will make broadband obsolete. Which would mean I could scrap my Infinity contract with BT. Please.

    1. DerekCurrie
      Unhappy

      Re: Won't Broadband be obsolete by then?

      5G is going to be a disappointment on many levels. The fact that it's signal distance is relatively tiny compared to laying fibre optical cable, that it's penetration through physical barriers is abysmal, that the cost of placing all the required repeaters in a neighborhood is expensive, that extended exposure to the 5G wavelength range has been verified to be dangerous to the health of at least mice... All of this indicates a likely bad time ahead for 5G.

      Suggestion: Read the specs and studies regarding 5G and totally ignore all the marketing hype. Then wait for it to become actually available. Then read the reviews and further test results. It is by no means any kind of solution for rural Internet users unless they can get an optical cable laid to their locality.

    2. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Won't Broadband be obsolete by then?

      I'm waiting for 6G

    3. Rtbcomp

      Re: Won't Broadband be obsolete by then?

      "bring full fibre to all homes by 2025" I don't think he meant Broadband, more likely a packet of All-Bran and a can of baked beans.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Won't Broadband be obsolete by then?

        "I don't think he meant Broadband"

        Were he to still be in power by 2025 ITYF it meant whatever happened.

  11. Woza
    WTF?

    £275,000-a-year weekly column

    wtf did I just read?

    1. jmch Silver badge

      Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

      That works out at 5.5k per column for 50 columns a year, which is actually not unreasonable for a columnist guaranteed to draw readership to the Torygraph.

      Much as I dislike the guy I can't argue with that

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

        I suppose that is why they have a paywall, not prepared to in case some goes to BoJo the Clown.

        I suppose at least we still have BBC News free at point of use.

        1. FloMo

          Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

          bbc free at point of use? like having to pay the TV tax to watch anything beeb or use the iplayer? doesn't sound free to me.

          1. CountCadaver Silver badge

            Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

            Pay TV Tax to watch ANYTHING broadcast live from ANYWHERE in the world and anything on iplayer and their latest online declaration is slurping data to justify an extension to netflix and prime

            "I don't need a TV licence as I only watching streaming services like netflix and amazon prime"

            Look minister all these people are evading the TV licence by using this loophole, if you close it and require netflix and amazon to require a licence then we'll give the over 75s back their free TV licences...

          2. MJI Silver badge

            Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

            The web site is free to use

        2. CountCadaver Silver badge

          Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

          To receive biased, poorly written gibberish, which wholly fails to comply with the impartiality requirement?

          No thanks!, even the guardian is nowhere near as biased as BBC (and the Guardian pushes agendas constantly)

      2. TheProf
        Devil

        Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

        Point well made.

        I did a quick calculation regarding reader numbers of the Torygraph and it works out he's getting 1.4 pennies from each reader.

        Just goes to show he's not a twopenny-halfpenny merchant after all.

        Edit: Bugger! I forgot the pay wall. Does that ruin the joke?

    2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

      Well it is the Boris Johnson Fanzine. [HT Marina Hyde]

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

      Seems almost reasonable when you consider Gary Lineker is publicly-funded to a tune of £2 million/year for chatting about football on the odd Saturday for a couple of hours.

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

        Why is Lineker paid so much, just give him crisps and he would be happy.

    4. Claverhouse Silver badge

      Re: £275,000-a-year weekly column

      I find it unimaginable. However, outside America, whose sad demented media is a special case, I doubt if most columnists were/are paid these sums --- not that I've ever seen anything Johnson wrote even when I pick up a free Telegraph ( won't buy it as object to the anti-feudalistic twins, their demented brexiteering and loathing of the Welfare State ) --- unless they are best friends of the editor hired for old times' sake.

      I'm sure the sour old columnists who were famous enough to be remembered after they went, Beachcomber, puir mad old Cassandra [ who attacked the pianist Liberace for excessive Americanism, and utterly ridiculously PGW for 'light treason' to stir up controversy ], Peter Simple and Keith Waterhouse, weren't paid the equivalent 50 years ago --- and some of them were better writers.

  12. nematoad
    Unhappy

    All piss and wind.

    He went on to compare the UK's full-fibre penetration of 7 per cent with Spain's 85 per cent.

    Ah that's because of the nasty EU interfering with British sovereignty and not allowing us to do this sort of thing.

    What's that you say, Spain is in the EU as well?

    Idiot.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: All piss and wind.

      Or perhaps Spain is lying about the 85%

      Surely our politicians can lie better than a bunch of Spaniards

    2. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: All piss and wind.

      >Ah that's because of the nasty EU interfering with British sovereignty and not allowing us to do this sort of thing.

      Not at all, as Boris acknowledged:

      "Let's say goodbye to the UK's mañana approach to broadband and unleash full fibre for all by 2025."

      So Boris see's it as a BritishEnglish malaise, however, what he has clearly forgotten and the hacks have been too polite to mention, it was the Conservatives who were the prime movers of the mañana approach to most things, calling on those magical "market forces" in much the same way as witch doctors summon rain - but with less success.

  13. N2
    Trollface

    All politicians who make promises...

    Should carve them in tablets of stone like Labour did, then hidden in a warehouse before being flogged for a fiver on ebay for reformite.

    Politicians making any whimsical statement is not believed until it happens, which is usually never.

  14. SVV

    He went on to compare the UK's full-fibre penetration of 7 per cent with Spain's 85 per cent.

    So, things are much better in Europe?

    Maybe they spent the money, rather than simply setting targets and having aspirations.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: He went on to compare the UK's full-fibre penetration of 7 per cent with Spain's 85 per cent.

      Spain has the housing density. One building in Spain could have the same number of residences as one street in the UK.

      1. MonkeyCee

        Re: He went on to compare the UK's full-fibre penetration of 7 per cent with Spain's 85 per cent.

        "Spain has the housing density. One building in Spain could have the same number of residences as one street in the UK."

        Glad to hear that the UK has knocked down all those flats. London must be empty now...

        Or we could look at actual statistics. Spain has a population density of 93 people per square Km, UK has 273. Given that the UK population is heavily concentrated in the South East, it should be even easier for the rollout of fibre.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: He went on to compare the UK's full-fibre penetration of 7 per cent with Spain's 85 per cent.

          66% of people live in flats in Spain whereas only 20% of the UK live in flats. Also, Spain has highly dense towns and cities and the rest is wide-open spaces where hardly anyone lives.

          66% of people do not live in a flat in the South East, even if you include London, so fibre is not going to be easier to roll out in the UK.

  15. jmch Silver badge

    fiber schmiber

    "No one actually cares if they get 100Mbps over a piece of string if it is reliable and stable"

    Spot on. If for example the Virgin hybrid solution quoted in the article works and gives Gigabit speeds, who cares what the medium is? The benchmark shouldn't be how many premises have fiber or 'broadband' (an overly broad and therefore meaningless term). You have to set targets for a national mean speed, a national median speed and a %age of people with access to (X)speed, with the numbers based on real-world figures not whatever the providers advertise as 'up-to' speed.

    The last metric will almost by definition NEVER reach 100% so BJs promise is flawed even if he's promising 1Mbit/s rate for 100%. It makes much more sense to say - we need to provide 99% of population with 20MBit/s, 90% with 50MBit/s and 70% with 500MBit/s (numbers just an example, and to be reviewed every couple of years). And most certainly without caring on HOW the speeds are provided (eg rural areas could be better served by low-orbit satellite)

    1. tony2heads

      Re: fiber schmiber

      I always tell my family that 'up-to' means 'certainly no more than'

    2. CountCadaver Silver badge

      Re: fiber schmiber

      Satellite is horrendously expensive, tiny data caps and latency is glacial.......

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: fiber schmiber

        Whereas running fiber to an island in the Hebrides or the top of a mountain is a piece of piss

        1. CountCadaver Silver badge

          Re: fiber schmiber

          Well some of them in Scotland might not be that hard (well the ones served with funicular railways anyway)

          Island - undersea cable, not cheap but it would work in all weathers - technology is also tried and tested, what with being strung across various oceans and all, so a few miles between the mainland and hebridean islands is a doddle in comparison.

          Isle of Skye - run it along the bridge structure

  16. MJI Silver badge
    Linux

    Something Boris will achieve is.

    Making us miss Theresa May, realising she was not that bad, she did want to do her duty, she did try to get a deal.

    1 week of BoJo will be enough to think like that.

    Problem is now that politics has been hijacked by people who stand in a room shouting Brexit at the wall.

    I despair, no real opposition, just an old fogey who should be tending his allotment. The government prepared to total the economy due to their fear of a manfrog.

    There are loads of politicians and pretend politicians at the moment I could rip into.

    But I really fear BoJo the clown. Now I wonder would he try to shag a penguin?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

      If she'd wanted to "do her duty" she'd have cracked on with it. Instead of which she called a pointless vanity election, lost it and had to do a deal with the flat earth society.

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

        >If she'd wanted to "do her duty" she'd have cracked on with it.

        She has had two opportunities to crack on with it:

        1. Directly after taking over from Cameron, when there was a sense in the Conservative party and country of "now the adults are back in charge".

        2. Directly, after she saw off the 1922 committee confidence vote in Dec 2018.

        In both instances she could (and should) have given the flat earthers in the Tory party the kicking they deserve.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

          Her deal kept getting rejected.

          Unlike the shouting Brexit at a wall crowd the Irish Border was considered.

          Parliament would reject

          No deal

          Her deal

          EFTA

          Status quo

          So no hope.

          1. CountCadaver Silver badge

            Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

            Well if she had done the thing that was done in the past and actually tried to build a consensus in parliament, rather than playing party politics and acting like no one else mattered then something might have been passed, instead she ignored everyone else, drew up red lines based on her own prejudices (I think it was Heidi Allen who said "she has a problem with foreigners"), pursued a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP and thereby made it even harder to reinstate devolution in NI. ignored ALL the devolved assemblies

            Pound Shop Thatcher, all the attitude and none of the capability.

            She has to be one of, if not THE worst prime minister in living memory.....

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

              >She has to be one of, if not THE worst prime minister in living memory.....

              Remember she is just a product of the post-Thatcher Conservative party; Thatcher was probably the high-point, it has been down hill ever since with no sign that they have yet reached the bottom...

              1. CountCadaver Silver badge

                Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

                I think they thought she could be Thatcher v2 (I had hopes of that initially) someone to put the rabble rousers back in line and nail the cracks shut.

                Instead she showed weakness and was eaten alive (coupled with being so robotic and refusing to meet "normal" people, instead having meetings with Tory party members, which alienated a lot of folk)

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

              "She has to be one of, if not THE worst prime minister in living memory."

              Soon to be superseded in more ways than one.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

          Just to be clear, by flat earth society I meant DUP....

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

            The DUP don't have a monopoly.

        3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

          "In both instances she could (and should) have given the flat earthers in the Tory party the kicking they deserve."

          You're right, but the problem is party politics. Leave/remain was never a party issue. There were leave/remain on both sides of the house so trying to get one party to agree was never going to happen. In particular, all the remainers want the same thing but you can't say the same about the leavers. The leavers can't agree on what type of leave they want.

          1. codejunky Silver badge

            Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

            @John Brown (no body)

            "In particular, all the remainers want the same thing but you can't say the same about the leavers. The leavers can't agree on what type of leave they want."

            Last I checked the remain May couldnt get agreement in her remain 'withdrawal' agreement. Labour has remainers in its more centre ground representatives but is lead by a socialist and a commie who both want out and a grass roots of leave supporters.

            Remain is as divided as leave (I think no worse) believing the EU to be socialist/capitalist, globalist/protectionist, trade area/federal block, ready to reform/need no reform, etc. Yet on both sides the different views can come together for the common issue- in or out of the EU.

        4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

          "In both instances she could (and should) have given the flat earthers in the Tory party the kicking they deserve."

          The reality was that she couldn't muster a majority in her own party let alone Parliament for any form of EU-related policy. The best she could have done was to have done a proper study on the likely outcome of whatever each of the options was and tried to build a consensus for what looked least damaging to the economy before invoking Article 50. By going headlong for an invocation without any clear view of what was going to happen next she was powerless.

    2. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

      Making us miss Theresa May, realising she was not that bad, she did want to do her duty, she did try to get a deal.

      That wasn't her duty. I know it gets tiresome to hear but the referendum was purely advisory. The result was meant to inform parliament so they could collectively figure out how-the-fuck they would got out of the mess having it had created.

      May's duty was to get everyone to sit down and decide what to do. Instead she hijacked brexit and set off on a path of delivering what she had decided would be best for us in her view, and trying to do so as if a dictator, cheered on by the brexiteers in the Tory party, aided with the connivance of Labour, both hoping to hijack that hijacking to get what they wanted.

      That was the day democracy died.

      1. CountCadaver Silver badge

        Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

        democracy has always been a sham in this country, the only exception being the 1945 election and creation of the NHS, since then its been public schoolboys and girls trying their damndest on both sides of the politcal divide to regain their "rightful" place and keep the rest of us in what they deem "our place"

        Globalisation for one is the biggest crock ever sold to any western populace, transfer of good paying skilled jobs to China etc and substitution with low pay, low hours, insecure and downright menial work. People wonder why Trump commands support - rightly or wrongly people see him as standing up against globalism and trying to get manufacturing back in the USA, rather than a persistent decline. People are sick of the colours changing but the story staying the same "there will be costs associated with this but lots of opportunities also, I realise thats not much consolation but you must see the bigger picture in all of this"

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

          democracy has always been a sham in this country, the only exception being the 1945 election

          Winston Churchill was most put out that the Tories lost. He thought the common man had forgotten that he was an incompetent racist with a track record of cock ups who had just happened to say a few memorable things when faced with a fuckwit like Hitler who was even more unpleasant than him. Sadly the common man in 2019 can't recognise that BoJo is just the same.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

            My gran (almost 80) remembers Churchill as a warmonger

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

          "the only exception being the 1945 election and creation of the NHS, since then its been public schoolboys and girls trying their damndest on both sides of the politcal divide"

          From Wilson to Major the PMs were not public school. It was that ersatz man of the people Blair who brought them back into No 10.

    3. jmch Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Something Boris will achieve is.

      "...politics has been hijacked by people who stand in a room shouting Brexit at the wall"

      Double thumbs-up!!

      First one for the excellent description of politics

      Second one because I now have an image in my head of a sketch of all the Pythons with knotted handkerchiefs on their heads, funny-walking around an empty room and randomly shouting "BREXIT!"

      Cheers!

    4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "But I really fear BoJo the clown."

      Especially if by "clown" you mean Pennywise in Stephen Kings "It"

      Or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All he did was promise fiber..

    I'm guessing his backup plan is to give each household a box of bran fiber - still delivered..

  18. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    And don't let's forget Boris Island.

    1. shakesc

      lets be fair , by the time they have finished arguing about Heathrow runway 3 they could of built it ;)

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not to worry, by this time next year Boris will no longer be PM but instead governor of the territory of Puerto Donaldo ( formerly known as the UK ).

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      The sad thing is, you might even be right.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Heck I'd like to see it happen, just to see the SNP squirm and throw the toys from the pram when they realise for all their bluster there isn't a damned thing they can do about it.

        Might also get us away from Article 11 and 13, Mandatory speed limiters and car blackboxes and we might even get cheaper fuel prices......

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Dream on.

          1. CountCadaver Silver badge

            I dunno, we've come a hair's breadth from it happening multiple times in the past, only stopped on at least one ocassion due to an election here or in the USA.....had history gone ever so slightly differently, we'd be the 51st state by now.

            On the bad side we'd probably have mass shootings every week (2nd amendment prohibiting hungerford and dunblane gun controls) and the same lovely healthcare provision as the USA or rather lack thereof.....

            On the plus side the roads network would probably be better.

            1. H in The Hague

              "....had history gone ever so slightly differently, we'd be the 51st state by now."

              Daphne du Maurier wrote a novel about that, Rule Britannia, published in 1972, which I read many years ago.

              Just looked it up on the interwebtubes, and realised I had forgotten this tiny detail: "The novel is set in a fictional near future in which the UK's recent withdrawal from the EEC has brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy."

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_Britannia_(novel)

              According to the Wikipedia article: "Du Maurier's publishers were worried by the implausible plot, and it bemused many of her readers."

              1. CountCadaver Silver badge

                Seems Harold Wilson discussed the matter with Lyndon B Johnson in 1966 and 1967, which might be what gave DuMaurier the inspiration?

                https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wilson-wanted-uk-to-be-us-state-1075874.html

                On a sidenote DuMaurier is a Canadian cigarette brand

            2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

              On the plus side the roads network would probably be better.

              Not even that. Because Congress has repeatedly failed to increase the levy on fuel that is used to pay for highways, the fund has continually to topped by emergency measures and there are thousands of road bridges that need replacing. It's not unusual to see signs next to motorways requesting donations towards their upkeep!

  20. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Too much Thomas Hardy?

    Presumably, he's been reading or listening to the Mayor of Casterbridge, et al so as to get a real feel for his audience. Maybe Gabriel Oak will become the new Minister for Broadband and Rural Affairs?

    Maybe it's also time to coin a new term: a Johnson. Noun, an impossible promise, a real whopper of a lie. I mean a really, really big lie. The sort of lie that the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation would think twice about telling. Also known as "Trump" in other parts of the galaxy.

    Tool.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Too much Thomas Hardy?

      "Maybe Gabriel Oak will become the new Minister for Broadband and Rural Affairs?"

      A Gabriel Oak would do better in that role than BoJo in the No 10.

  21. shakesc

    As someone sitting on ADSL with the Openreach fibre checker saying FTTP is planned (its said that for a year, I have long given up turning blue) I dont care how the speed is delivered. Chatting to the Openreach guy who came to fix a line fault sounds like there is a lot more wiring to do round (replace as its old and knackered) the exchange before they get to dragging fibre up the hill. Plans seem very elastic on getting speeds up in this country

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      >Openreach fibre checker saying FTTP is planned...

      Suggest you compare the various BT/OR service checkers - I seem to remember there were three of them (I checked sometime in 2018), and see if they all agree.

      However, I suspect BT have simply changed the status of your area because they are now planning the exchange update having reached an agreement with the local BDUK supervisor, hence by publishing a 'date' they are warning competitors that there will be no BDUK monies for them.

      I suspect you will actually see FTTC/FTTP in ~3 years time.

  22. localzuk Silver badge

    Obsessed with fibre

    Why is our government obsessed with fibre? Why not do what other countries do and make a sensible minimum speed a requirement of our ISPs? Obviously it'll still need lots of work and subsidy, but obsessing over fibre is weird.

    Why not say "all homes must have 100Mbps by 2025". In some places, that means fibre, others cable, others 5G and others satellite. It would be unfeasibly expensive to run dedicated fibre to every farmhouse in the country - some of the farms down here are 5 miles from their nearest village! Why must the taxpayer fund the digging up of 5 miles of road, and installation of 5 miles of fibre for 1 farm, when better use of wireless technologies would do the job, cheaper?

    Just the blind leading the blind really.

    1. Nifty Silver badge

      Re: Obsessed with fibre

      And at the same time make a target of a convenient, reliable journey between London and Birmingham that competes with a car journey on price, not 'the need for HS2'.

      1. CountCadaver Silver badge

        Re: Obsessed with fibre

        How about 6 lanes per side motorway, keep traffic flowing freely.

        Do some serious 60s style urban renewal and expand the arterial routes in width, again free flowing traffic = less pollution

        More roundabouts and less traffic lights again to keep traffic smoothly flowing.

        This country needs to drop the urge to preserve every building because its "old", many of them are riddled with damp, poorly insulated and often architecturally hideous.

        1. Claverhouse Silver badge

          Re: Obsessed with fibre

          Most buildings since 1920 need to be pulled down, and those before that date protected.

          Living in a filthy minimalist world of concrete and clean lines is Hell on earth. I would hang all modern architects and builders.

          1. CountCadaver Silver badge

            Re: Obsessed with fibre

            I'd like to see obsession with "uniformity" and "preserving street scenes" consigned to the dustbin of history, its led to horrid identikit towns. whereas look at buildings from the past and they are this fantastic electic mix of styles, shapes etc.

            However I'm firmly in favour of taking a bulldozer through many town centres to widen roads that were too narrow in 1948 and somehow missed the 60s urban clearances......I'd also carve double width cycle lanes on each side

            I'd quite happily hang anyone uttering the term "facilitating a modal shift onto public transport"

            Whoever is pushing that phrase needs to be found, beaten and buried in a pit of quicklime (carpet optional), I despise public transport with its raft of the following - loud muppets on phones, stinking folk who don't ever wash themselves or their clothes, those who use a bottle of cheap cologne and perfume, those who spray cologne or perfume in public, screaming children, feral children running around, chavvy parents screaming at said feral children in between screaming at their phones, folk gossipping about the private business of others (often a named person's medical history), some old bloke banging on about the "good old days" and "farage for prime minister" and thats without mentioning the eye watering prices that gouge the public and the crap service you get (always too hot, heating on in summer and either no windows or they don't open, takes 3 times longer than driving and leaves at random times) *shudder* my personal hell on earth.

            Car on the other hand - AC perfectly set, my choice of music, comfy seating, can keep anything that I might need while out and about secure without having to cart it about with me all day long. I just wish the driving test was required to be redone every 3 to 5 years and made 3 times harder to weed out all the terrible drivers - CS worker at local council admitted to me "I'm not a very good driver at all, I've had lots of bumps" I really had to bite my tongue to avoid saying "take some more lessons or give up before you hurt someone"

            1. Teiwaz

              Re: Obsessed with fibre

              CountCadaver

              Hermitage is still an option.

              In fact I'd recommend it.

            2. Stork Silver badge

              Re: Obsessed with fibre

              You should try public transport in Switzerland to see how it can be done.

              The problem with road building is, as they phrase it in Vienna: "Cars are like water, they fill all available space." You build more roads and you move the bottlenecks.

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: Obsessed with fibre

                "Cars are like water, they fill all available space." You build more roads and you move the bottlenecks.

                The reason new roads clog up so quickly is because they're not built until potential demand has long exceeded capacity.

                Demand is increased due to concentration of employment in ever-larger cities that require an hinterland of 1000 sq miles or more to house the employees leading to a commuter problem. Mass transit isn't prepared to make the investment that would provide tolerable journey times* so it's the commuters who have to make their own investments in cars to get to work. The necessary matching infrastructure investments in roads is made only grudgingly and, in a massive victim-blaming exercise, commuters are held responsible.

                Old rural industries have been failing for all my lifetime. The so-called brownfield sites they occupied are redeveloped for housing so we have a double whammy of less jobs and more people. No wonder there are more commuters and hence more traffic.

                *The number of routes to be serviced increases with the area to be serviced. Just lengthening existing routes doesn't work as the access points would spread out.

        2. jmch Silver badge

          Re: Obsessed with fibre

          I agree generally with most of your post, but this "free flowing traffic = less pollution" is over-simplistic.

          Free-flowing traffic = less pollution PER VEHICLE, but widening the roads to allow better flow will also result in more vehicles, so the overall pollution might be a bit less, the same, or a bit more. And of course if the number of vehicles increases proportionally to the road expansion, you would get the same pollution per vehicle, with many more vehicles.

          1. CountCadaver Silver badge

            Re: Obsessed with fibre

            Fair enough, however a car cruising at a steady pace emits far less pollution than in stop and go traffic, also I've read an article by Felix Leach (University of Oxford) that anti idling laws might end up being counter productive as restarting a car emits massive pollution for the first few seconds, to the extent you could be idling for many minutes and still emit less pollution than stopping and starting your engine link: https://www.mpls.ox.ac.uk/mplsinsights/want-to-help-cut-air-pollution-you-might-need-to-keep-your-engine-on

            There's also a limit to how many vehicles there can be (number of licenced drivers for starters) many also car share for company, plus those previously clogged non trunk A roads, B roads and C roads are now devoid of traffic as nearly everyone is using the motorway instead due to the easier drive.

            1. jmch Silver badge

              Re: Obsessed with fibre

              Interesting study at the link! That implies that all the cars with stop/start that is supposed to reduce pollution are actually increasing it! I wonder if that could be helped by an electrical heating of the catalytic converter before ignition.

              1. H in The Hague

                Re: Obsessed with fibre

                "That implies that all the cars with stop/start that is supposed to reduce pollution are actually increasing it! I wonder if that could be helped by an electrical heating of the catalytic converter before ignition."

                Haven't yet had time to read the report. But as far as I'm aware high emissions when starting the engine mostly occur with cold engines. Once the engine and catalytic converter are hot, starting/stopping should be fairly clean. (Most start/stop systems only kick in once the engine is hot.)

    2. CountCadaver Silver badge

      Re: Obsessed with fibre

      B4RN are managing it at a much lower cost than openreach.

      Plenty of farmers have the equipment and machinery to dug the trenches required (and likely in about 1/10 of thetime it would take Openreach and their "approved contractors") Heck they might even manage to patch the road so it doesn't collapse into a pothole 3 months later....

      Though plenty of country roads have verges, so why not just trench the cable in the verge and then the farmer can just back fill it? No road patching required.

      Satellite as said is expensive, extremely high latency and is a dead end technologically.

      The farms are served by phonelines anyway so surely its not outwith the bounds of possibility for someone to string the poles with fibre instead of copper....

      More FUD about fibre, sounds very much like "who would need more than 64KB"

      1. localzuk Silver badge

        Re: Obsessed with fibre

        There's a reason B4RN is still a niche provider. They provide a niche service. Rolling that sort of thing out on a large scale simply becomes much more complex. Unless you set up local enterprises like B4RN all over the country - which quite simply isn't going to happen.

        1. CountCadaver Silver badge

          Re: Obsessed with fibre

          Why couldn't it? Or do you take the Sir Humphrey Appleby view on the public?

          1. localzuk Silver badge

            Re: Obsessed with fibre

            I take the opinion that:

            a) Everyone is already working hard to get by

            b) Our economy is weak

            c) People are generally lazy, and prefer to just shout on Twitter than actually do something

            You'd need telecoms/data expertise all across the country, when we've already got a shortage of it - especially in light of Brexit. You'd also need co-operation from numerous landowners all over the country, some will say yes, some no.

            The logistics of doing it in a couple of villages is not insurmountable, but scaling that out, in the timeframe given also, is pretty much impossible.

            So, you're left with the other option - big providers like OpenReach. Where everything costs 10x as much and takes 100x as long. Flexibility is not their name.

  23. Steve Todd

    I don't think I'd trust Boris or Hunt

    to run a corner shop, never mind the country. Whoever gets the PMs job is likely to make a complete fist of things, and broadband will be the least of our concerns.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: I don't think I'd trust Boris or Hunt

      Run a corner shop? He could barely run a bath.

  24. Milton

    Privileged ignoramus bloviates childish shit: sound familiar?

    Pretty soon, and for as long as it takes a confidence vote and a GE to eject Bojer onto history's trashpile, two dishonourable lying sacks of hypocrisy will bookend the Atlantic Ocean: Trump screeching insanity into Twatter; Bojer blustering bollocks and floundering like another guilty child. The infants have taken over the playgroup while the adults weren't looking, and they're throwing used nappies at each other and crying. Let this be a lesson to all of us.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Privileged ignoramus bloviates childish shit: sound familiar?

      "and a GE to eject Bojer onto history's trashpile"

      With Corbyn and his current internal party ructions, don't be sop sure of that. The choice of Boris or Corbyn is a pretty dire choice we have.

      1. Intractable Potsherd

        Re: Privileged ignoramus bloviates childish shit: sound familiar?

        Or, you know, the country might realise that there are more than two political parties in the UK...

  25. Slx

    Depends what they mean by 'fibre'

    Well, if it's anything like the definitions of 'fibre' that have been allowed to-date in Britain and Ireland, you could probably spin it to re-define 56k modems as fibre-to-the-exchange FTTE.

    To rollout FTTH to every home in the UK by 2025 would be a gargantuan task, that would require huge amounts of state funding to achieve in that time scale.

    Not to mention that after Halloween, they'll have no more easy access to pools of fibre technicians, civil engineers and people willing to dig roads and lay ducts, who tend to move from project-to-project around the EU.

    Not only that, but how will Hadrian's Firewall / the National Net Nanny cope with the data throughput from tens of millions of FTTH connections?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "those farmers smote their weatherbeaten hands together and roared their assent"

    If getting rural folk a high-speed link to PornHub stops them indulging in wife battering and other domestic violence I am also all for it.

  27. DerekCurrie
    FAIL

    A Promise From Boris...

    ... is as reliable as a promise from T'Rump.

    Do please NOT let the Boris-Liar become the UK's next PM! That would be very bad for my beloved second country of citizenship. The world needs less BS, not more.

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: A Promise From Boris...

      Do please NOT let the Boris-Liar become the UK's next PM!

      Sorry; that's in the hands of the 160,000. The rest of us, the 66 million, get no say.

      That's democracy. Or so I'm told.

      1. CountCadaver Silver badge

        Re: A Promise From Boris...

        Same applied to when Blair was deposed.....

        Same applied to when Alex Salmond was deposed

        Party faithful indulge in rampant navel gazing and often coronate the previous "leader's" protege.....

  28. Mike Moyle

    Does anyone else ever get the feeling...

    ...that Johnson's morning "bed head" is perfectly-coiffed hair that stays in place while he showers and dresses, then he stands in front of the mirror and carefully combs it into that mare's nest?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Does anyone else ever get the feeling...

      No. I've had a similar problem all my life. The difference s that I now have less of it.

      However it doesn't engender the least sense of fellow-feeling.

  29. Claverhouse Silver badge

    He concluded that if there were one lesson from the 2016 referendum it is that "too much of the country feels unable to take part in the national success."

    He's really not worth disliking, more like that neighbour's yappy little dog Christ enjoins one to tolerate; but this FUCKING FEEBLE-MINDED GREASY BREXITEER SMALL-MINDED CONDESCENSION indicates something tragic might happen to him before his installation as Whig Prime Minister no. 80.

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Ummmm - Whigs were the opponents of the Conservative Party (Tories). In general, they were more liberal, and tended to support social change (note the "in general" and "tended" - very broad-brush strokes here).

  30. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    IT Angle

    Please note

    Although my name is Boris the cockroach, I am in no way related to, nor associated with the fuckwit called boris johnson

    And I would'nt trust that man to run 100 meters* let alone a country

    *unless it was 100 meters away from a problem he'd caused....

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The flat earthers, at least, don't maintain that the Earth is only 3,000 years old, & that fossils were put there, by {{ deity }}, to test our faith

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Those in the DUP might.

  32. Graham Lockley

    Sooooooo

    No one here is a BoJo fan ?

    Well , snowflakes, live with it because our 'democracy' says that the 160k or so Blue Rinsers will choose our next PM.

    As long as he doesn't like homosexuals/blacks/europeans and endorses the Torygraph/Dail Fail/Tory Excess current readership then he is home and dry for being our next leader.

    Maybe the Russian and Chinese systems have some merit, at least they dont pretend you have a choice or that your vote matters.

    Cynical moi ?

    No just been around too long to have any faith in our political classes

  33. OffBeatMammal

    two thoughts...

    1/ just look at how well Australia's NBN roll out went (or didn't)

    2/ please never again use the phrase "deep penetration" with regards to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

  34. streaky

    Perfectly Doable.

    Completely achievable.

    But.

    And I say this as somebody who has voted for Boris to be our next PM: I don't see it happening.

    BT/OR have done all this all wrong is the issue. Years ago they should have been forcing new builds to be connected by fibre, would have meant hundreds of thousands of homes would have this status. Simple to achieve, doesn't really cost any more money and it'd deal with the first issue - stopping new stuff being copper.

    As for installing fibre for everybody else - enough money directed at the right places could get it done. BT/OR for many reasons not least the incompetence shown above is not where that money should be going. They've already had enough money from government to do this and they've simply pocketed it.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Perfectly Doable.

      "Years ago they should have been forcing new builds to be connected by fibre"

      On the basis that you mean BT: they didn't have the option.

      They were kept out of what was then called "cable". What then happened was that those who were allowed in only laid as much as they thought would be profitable. In many cases they were over-optimistic. Eventually it became clear that BT would have to be brought in to do the job and are then ritually beaten up at intervals for not having done it when they weren't allowed.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Boris seems to be an underachiever..

    Here in the US of A our politicians promise they will cure cancer if elected.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7131807/Joe-Biden-promises-cure-cancer-elected-president.html

    1. Steve Todd

      Re: Boris seems to be an underachiever..

      Maybe that's because the ISP lobby over there would accuse him of being a socialist if he said he'd fix broadband?

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Better not rely on current FTTP providers

    We’ve been promised FTTP from Gigaclear for 4 years, even had the road dug up and the POTS installed for over 2 years and still no connection.

  37. LucreLout

    Terrible article

    From the article:

    "We would need a huge influx of immigrant labour to do this. I'm not clear why such labour would come to the UK given our currency and political climate and, of course, the rest of the world wants such people too."

    Well that's BS. We need labour. The labour could be immigrant or it could be domestic. From the rest of his sentence he's simply trying to fit a political rant into a space it doesn't belong.

    "It isn't impossible but it requires basically [a] hoarding of optical fibre, which means paying more than everyone else; massive hoarding of labour, which means paying more than everyone else; [and] an unprecedented degree of tolerance of roadworks and transport disruption."

    Or, for example, we could understand that increasing demand will increase supply, thus no need for hoarding of anything, especially physical goods. He's fallen for the socialist lump of labour fallacy. We could avoid the road works by running the fibre under the footpath. When all you want to achieve is problems, all you'll get are problems... however, if you want to achieve success....

    Solving the problem might not be easy, it might even be bloody hard work, but this fool seems to have given up before ever trying to find a solution.

    was famously behind the purchase of an unusable water cannon for the police, later sold for scrap at a £300,000 loss.

    Firstly, he can't be responsible for the price his successor achieved when disposing of the cannons. Given the different colour rosette, there was every incentive to get the lowest price possible.

    What Khan has achieved though, is again leaving literally zero enforcement at scale between bobbies with truncheons, and soldiers with lethal rounds. TASER doesn't scale up for crowds, and doesn't claim to do so. Next time there's a repeat of labours london riots, when Blair was only a few hours away from deploying the military because the police had lost all control, those water cannon are going to look like a good option; which is how they came to look like a good option last time. Personally, I'd rather we had as many options as possible between "hit with a stick" and "shot in the face", because all they really do is reduce or delay the "shot in the face" part.

  38. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    There *might* be a way to move this along

    British local authorities have quite large stocks of relatively high density housing.

    This would give them quite a large block purchase of FTTP, which could then spread out from their to other parts of the areas they control.

    British friends tell me something like this has worked with bulk purchase of gas and electricity tariffs.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: There *might* be a way to move this along

      This promise was made to one of the areas of England which has very large areas of very low density housing. There are other parts of the UK where provision of fibre would be equally or even more expensive in time and money but it's one that illustrates the problem very well. The previous attempts at rolling out non-POTS systems stopped well short of such areas. Now BT/OR, who were not even allowed a role back then, are now the whipping boy for not being able to do the job on the instant.

  39. Cruddletwap

    Scrap HS2 South and spend the cash on fibre

    It's pretty obvious that having fast broadband is more important and democratic than wrecking the countryside to build an unnecessarily fast train.

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