David Cameron's recent statement on fibre-optic broadband as part of a speech he made on Monday may seem as though it differentiates the Conservatives from the Labour Party in its approach to next-generation broadband rollout. It doesn't.

Labour isn't advocating a massive state-funded rollout of fibre-optic broadband connectivity to people's homes – and neither are the Conservatives. Ironically, this is one thing both parties seem to agree on.

"I am not talking about massive state-financed investment - that would be extremely expensive for the taxpayer and it would also risk stifling the innovation that comes from private sector competition," said Cameron, a statement perfectly in alignment with what Labour proposed through the Caio report, and what Ofcom has been saying all along.

You have to laugh at the “private sector competition” part of the speech though. Remember it was the “Chingford skinhead” himself – Norman Tebbit - at the time Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who was chiefly involved in privatising BT.

Had Tebbit separated BT from its exchanges, thereby introducing proper competition into the market, then maybe the fibre-optic network both Conservative and Labour are hoping will be rolled out by the private sector, would already be here.

What about global competition? Well, "when it comes to investing in next-generation broadband networks, we're doing very badly compared to countries like Germany, Japan and America," Cameron informed us. Actually, compared to Latvia and Estonia – we're doing very badly. These countries are trendsetters compared to the UK – having a massive 0.99 per cent of their population connected fibre-optically!

As a by-product of a rush into fibre-optic broadband, we would be spared Samuel L. Jackson - or Master Windu as he's known to Star Wars fans - continually informing us of Virgin Media's fibre-optic “Mother of all broadband” - which is actually delivered into your house from the street cabinet over co-axial cable and not fibre-optically