IF I look askance at the scheme to provide 2,500 homes in Blackburn with free computers and internet access in a £2-million government project, it is only because cynical old me raises his eyebrows at this latest measurement of 'deprivation'.

Already, in previous studies of so-called hardship in modern-day Britain, we have seen poverty defined by households' lack of a video recorder - though I gather they can be had to order for next to nothing from druggie burglars - so we should not be surprised that not being on-line is now regarded as a yardstick of social suffering.

But I suggest the balm a free computers soon to be spread - at vast expense to the taxpayers who have to earn their own PCs and software - around hundreds of homes in Blackburn's Whitebirk, Intack, Accrington Road and Audley areas has more to do with an upcoming election than truly easing the lot of the less well-off.

Perhaps, someone will clip this article and, another five years or another election campaign on, will ask what real benefits have been felt in the deprived areas in Blackburn -- apart from recipients being able to run up a good score at Tomb Raider.

But, meantime, will the advocates of this wasteful idea, kindly explain to the rest of us affording the taxes to pay for all of this what is wrong with the socially-improving and responsible notion by which our homes have (or have not, as the case may be) become computerised - that of: What you cannot afford, you cannot have?

What sort of self-reliance and self-improvement is encouraged by throwing such dubious 'help' at homes in hard-up areas where decent, responsible householders would no doubt prefer the money spent instead on extra police, CCTV or fitting their homes with smoke alarms?

Education, education, education? Votes, votes, votes, more like.