UltraSuperUberMegaFast&Infi-furious…

“Hello, is that Mr Clegg?”

“Yes, speaking. Who is this?”

“No 10 here, but we’ll deny we ever made this call. Now listen carefully because if you play your cards right there’s a major role waiting for you, maybe even a gong. And we’ll deny we ever said that too.”

Laughs. “So how may I help you?”

“As you know we’ve taken back control of Britain’s broadband and we’re going to charge you Facebook chaps, and some of the others too, to help us pay for the new free services we’ve outlined”.

“Well we heard that on the radio this morning, and I should say we’re none too happy.”

“Yes, but what we didn’t say, was that once we control the distribution of content into virtually every home in the land we will also control who can see what.”

“Sounds a lot like China to me, but go on… I think I might see where this is going…”

“Facebook, Google, Amazon and the rest are going to start paying proper taxes.”

“We already pay everything that’s due.”

“Let’s not be sidetracked about how you arrange matters to ensure that while that comment might technically be true, everyone knows you don’t really pay tax to anything like a fair extent in the UK for example.”

“OK, but you’re inferring – if I’ve understood you correctly – that you will implement firewalls and other blockades to prevent us from reaching our audience within the whole of the United Kingdom unless we agree to pay loads more tax and hence “fund” this roll-out. How much do you expect us to contribute then? We could get a number on the table at least.”

“Our back room boys calculate that it’ll be about £25 billion in total, and…”

Clegg interrupts (fortunately he was listening to the radio too)… “But the boss of BT says that figure is hopelessly underestimated and the true costs could be as much as four times that?”

“You tech giants can afford it, whatever it turns out to be. Call it a three way split for now. Worst case scenario and all that.”

“Let me clarify exactly what you’re doing – is this going to provide Gigabit connections (as promised by the Conservatives for 2025), or fibre connections (which are actually less than 10% of that speed) as promised by John McDonnell on the radio this morning by 2030, or what?”

“Don’t try and blind me with science. This is an election we’re running here not a conference for geeks.”

Burst of static… “Sorry, the line seems to have lost quality” (It’s obviously not a fibre connection!) “Would you mind if we continued on WhatsApp?”

“What, and leave a written record of what’s being said? – You cannot be serious!”

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