Predicting the future can be fun, in much the same way that ploughing through government reports on communications policy is not.

What Digital Britain, out last week, lacked amid the flurry of initiatives was any sense of what the end of the next decade might look like - although, if it had, it might have revealed the modesty of the proposals. In short, Digital Britain needs more ambition, something which suggests that the country has a dynamic future, rather than one in which we are all sued for illegally downloading episodes of Mad Men for three hours into the night on shonky internet connections.

The headline pledge in Digital Britain is the promising-sounding pledge to give 2-megabit broadband to everyone who wants it. Yes, this is an advance for the 1.75 million rural homes that cannot get it, but for the 23.25 million other homes . . . who cares? The real prize is finding ways of building out, quickly, 20Mb-plus broadband to everybody, the kind that supports high-definition and 3-D telly and, well, pretty much any kind of interactivity you can think of. Well-incentivised companies will do that in the big cities, with a bit of leadership, and it would make a lot of sense if high-speed mobile broadband licences could be awarded on terms that help to fill in some of the gaps, at least between the conurbations.

But if ministers want to go to genuinely fast broadband in a hurry, they might want to find a way of plunging in some public capital, perhaps through a National Rail-style fibreoptic cable-laying corporation that could be sold off it it became profitable.

Not everybody likes the idea of using public money; although, with £500 billion-plus going to the banks in investment, loans and guarantees, a few billion on broadband might not be noticed. Nor will it be enough to chuck £100 million a year from the BBC licence fee at the problem. The telly tax is best used for the BBC or not at all. But there is another source of serious cash. Think about analogue switch-off for public services.

Today, about two thirds of tax returns are submitted online. There is a potential for huge savings if that is moved to 100 per cent by, say, 2012. (It would be amazing if Lord Carter of Barnes, the broadband czar, has not asked for the sums.) But it would rely on everybody having fair access to fast broadband, although, for tax purposes at least, 2Mb is fast enough to pay any bill. Every government process, from passports to driving-licence applications, should be done electronically, with some of the savings reinvested, although the consequences for the Post Office (better reinvented as internet cafés with good coffee, perhaps?) will trouble many in the Labour Party.

Take copyright and piracy. In a world where Blackstone's masters of the universe apparently cannot be bothered to pay for copies of the Financial Times, it is clear that we are all hopelessly addicted to copyright infringement. A new-look law ought to legitimise this a bit and give everybody a clear right to make private copies. Moreover, the law ought to consider sensible, low-level, proportionate penalties. The present proposal starts off weak — here's a warning letter — and the only next step proposed — suing the worst offenders — is nasty.

Add up the costs, and the aggro of legal action, and somebody would have to have downloaded several grand of dodgy material for it all to be worthwhile. A simpler system, using the so-called rights agency that has been proposed, should be introduced mirrored on the system of speeding fines. Get caught having downloaded, say, more than £500 of stuff, and a fine falls due. Fail to pay that and you get cut off. However, if the system is efficient, it becomes cost effective to levy smaller penalties. And if it is done by the “copyright enforcement agency”, at least the record and film guys do not get their hands dirty.

Content creators need a bit more help, too. Rightly, the computer games business, barely mentioned in Digital Britain, was complaining about the lack of tax breaks of the kind lavished on the film industry, where Britain's record of building successful businesses is dire, despite some fine films. In a world in which broadcasters are vying for handouts, albeit from the BBC, it would be simpler if a system of media-neutral tax breaks could be awarded to anybody who made or produced content in the UK. Film does not deserve this largesse in isolation if it means that other industries continue to dwindle. Better is a media-neutral incentive policy, particularly for those who prefer Lara Croft to Kate Winslet. We know you are out there.

So much for Labour, though: David Cameron must be considered as well. Some people are exercised that a general election next year could render moot the action plan of Digital Britain. Communications, though, is hardly politically controversial, and Lord Carter, a former Ofcom man, is perhaps more technocratic than political. So the obvious answer is to leave the policy unchanged by keeping Lord Carter on as Communications Minister, regardless of who wins the next election.

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