Don't be so vague, Mr Hague

This old joke always comes to mind in the presence of politicians, another group of professional attention-seekers who rarely succeed in being illuminating.

Because before it started organising the country's largest ever barbecue, the Labour Party was pressing on, slowly and not very surely, with the business of putting government services online. And Her Majesty's opposition stands on the sidelines and says how it could do it so much better.

Fair enough. The Tories are only doing their job, after all, and the government isn't doing its as well as it could. There's plenty of room for improvement.

But sadly, all the Tories will do is criticise the government in vague terms, and say they could do it better, like the bitter actress sitting in the wings. Come on, Tories, we want specifics.

For example, the Conservative Party promised today to cut the administrative cost of government by 10 per cent over three years.

That's hardly going to set the world alight. If the Tories want to capture the imagination of the ebusiness community, they could promise a much more dramatic and inspiring agenda than that.

Why not push the boat out? Pledge to cut the cost of government in half over the cost of a Parliament? Make every Government department deliver every government service electronically to everyone by 2010. Is that too much to ask?

Why not? They want to be the party for ebusiness? Let's have low cost broadband in every home. Send the RIP Act to the dustbin and re-think IR35. Pledge to kill one regulation a day for the first hundred days in office. A free PC in every home. Send the Linux penguin to the House of Lords. Come on guys, go crazy!

After all, Mr Hague you're in an enviable position. You can promise whatever you like - and you'll never even have to deliver it.