No, the pandemic hasn't proved Corbyn right about free broadband

As with any crisis, Covid-19 has created great opportunities for some – and not just private companies selling PPE to the government at vastly-inflated prices. For some of the left, it has presented a chance to push for policies involving a much greater role for the state. With the government paying the wages of millions of furloughed workers and propping up private businesses forced to close under lockdown rules, what better time than to push for much greater state involvement in all areas of our lives?

Typifying this opportunism is an article by Bill Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Streatham, arguing that the crisis in home-schooling shows why Jeremy Corbyn was right all along about free broadband. ‘The pandemic has been a lesson that the government must not leave communities to fend for themselves,’ she writes in Politics Home. ‘As we rebuild, we must guarantee a device for every child and full fibre internet for every home.’