Pledge Watch: Laptops for all

By Justin Parkinson Political reporter, BBC News

Politicians love announcing new initiatives. In this new series we pluck a pledge from the archives. And see what happened next...

Did laptops get as easy to borrow as a library book?

Picture the late 1990s, when internet start-up firms were on their way to becoming bigger than established titans of industry and commerce.

It was a heady time when the power of the "information highway" to liberate the information-starved masses seemed infinite.

Recall the then chancellor Gordon Brown's call for the UK to lead the global "knowledge economy", leaving no man, woman or child behind in the sharing of glorious, electronic wizardry-created wealth.

In this spirit Mr Brown announced a policy now forgotten by most.

In October 1999 he pledged: "We will pioneer a system so people can use computers and software in the new century the way local libraries have loaned books in the last century."

Old stock

The plan was to allow low-income families to lease subsidised laptops - then usually costing at least