This is what Gordon Brown said in his speech yesterday to Labour’s Conference:

“In the last two years we have looked again at how we can give the best security to our British citizens while never undermining their liberties.

We will reduce the information British citizens have to give for the new biometric passport to no more than that required for today’s passport.

And so conference, I can say to you today, in the next parliament there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens.”

This announcement, giving all the appearance of a sweeping and definitive policy change, follows modest changes publicised by Alan Johnson earlier this year.   Is the Government trying to draw the poison from the ID card issue?   Or is the truth that the Government is also retaining its long-term ambitions?

The Guardian reports that the Home Office is preparing to spend £500,000 on advertising campaign, which features cartoon fingerprints, between now and December.   In addition, 90,000 ID cards have already been issued as part of an earlier trial.   The government is going to start issuing cards to skilled migrants when they renew their visas, making take-up compulsory.   From this month the UK Border Agency will trial issuing ID cards at Post Offices, presumably in tandem with thge Home Office advertising campaign.

The ID card policy would seem to remain intact . . . for now.

In the Times today the Prime Minster, Gordon Brown, writes that “a fast internet connection is now seen by most of the public as an essential service, as indispensable as electricity, gas and water.”

BT recently proposed connecting 10 million homes to fibre-optic.   Virgin Media retaliated with an offer to connect 12.5 million homes to fibre optic.   What was missed in the furore was that both companies are targeting the same homes in prosperous urban areas.   It’s far from ideal. The core issues is that many homes will still be without access to Broadband.

We are running a series of surveys on matters digital. We freely declare an interest in this; as an ISP all things digital are of understandable interest to us.

Early results from over 2,400 respondents to our survey show that the UK public rates Digital Literacy & Skills of most importance to the future success of the UK economy and are least concerned about the Elimination of P2P Piracy.

72% rate Digital Literacy & Skills as vitally or very important to the future of our economy while only 32% thought that the Elimination of P2P Piracy was vitally or very important. In fact 43% said that Elimination of P2P Piracy was hardly or not important at all.

Equal second to Literacy & Skills to respondents of our survey was Broadband in Every Home and Broadband Access for Every Child & Student in the UK. 70% thought Broadband access for all was vital or very important. Higher Broadband Speeds (50-100Mb) followed closely with 68%.

On proposals for a Digital Rights Agency, 47% said it was a good idea, 53% said it was a bad idea or didn’t care. However when asked who should fund a Digital Rights Agency, just 5% said it should be partly funded by ISPs along with Government and Rights Holders. 57% said a Digital Rights Agency should be funded by Rights Holders alone, while 24% said it was a stupid idea and no one should fund it.

Of Digital Britain’s five main recommendations, upgrading Broadband infrastucture was seen to be the most important issue for 39% of respondents.

The Tiscali Digital Lifestyles & Privacy Survey is ongoing so to add your voice to the views on Digital Britain and the wider issues such as Privacy and Social Networking you can visit www.tiscali.co.uk/members