There is a tendency in the British media to immediately react to every policy announcement from Labour with absolute hysteria, regardless of how beneficial it would be to millions of people. Jeremy Corbyn could push a policy that forbade the murdering of orphans, and centrists would urge us to consider whether all orphans really deserve to survive. Labour’s latest policy announcement, free full-fiber broadband for all, paid for by taxing tech giants like Facebook and Google, then partly nationalizing British Telecom, falls precisely into that category. Millions of people do not have access to fast broadband, nor any broadband at all in rural areas, and everyone else pays £30–45 a month for intermittent service.

The policy would help combat isolation among older people, and broadband is increasingly a prerequisite to applying for jobs or benefits — it can hardly be deemed a luxury. Yet huge numbers of people on the right and center, including failing former Labour MPs in the doomed Change UK/The Independent Group farce, rushed to decry the idea and fight for our right to pay billionaire Richard Branson for spotty broadband as well as appalling trains.

With the policies announced so far, Labour are continuing their strategy from 2017, offering a pragmatic utopianism in manifesto offerings: straightforward and easily achievable policies that can instantly improve the lives of millions, that are easy to sell while campaigning online and on the doorstep. They are easy to understand and lend themselves to memes, and voters can immediately envisage what difference these policies will make to their lives and families. Four more bank holidays? More time off work spent with family and friends. A year of maternity leave and more flexible paternity leave? Ditto. Free broadband? At least £30 off your bills each month.