With the General Election looming ever closer it seems increasingly doubtful the Digital Economy Bill, with its controversial three-strike provisions for combating online piracy, will become law before parliament is dissolved for the big vote. Nevertheless, those lobbying in favour of the legislation seem optimistic it can be pushed through the House Of Commons in time.

But doing so will probably need the cooperation of opposition parties, and the Tories, while basically supporting most of the Bill's copyright provisions, have issues with other aspects of the proposed legislation, which, as a real mish mash of a proposals, covers all sorts of things relating to the media, internet and telecommunications.

Nevertheless, the debate about the Bill's copyright section, in and around parliament, continues. Yesterday a letter signed by an eclectic bunch of creative industry men, including Simon Cowell, was sent to MPs and peers urging the political types to ensure the legislation gets through parliament before the election. Alongside Cowell, other signatories of the letter included author Terry Pratchett, Working Title Film chief Tim Bevan, film director Paul Greengrass and TV producer Stephen Garrett.

For a very brief moment yesterday it seemed that perhaps the efforts of that five, and a multitude of lobbyists from across the content industries, had been unsuccessful when 10 Downing Street responded to a petition on its website against the disconnection of file-sharers by saying the government would not allow those who access music off the internet illegally to have their internet connections disconnected.

Though that was a rather political statement allowing the prime minister's office to seem like it was responding to the petition but without having to change any policy. Unlike in France (and, for a time, Hull), full-on disconnections of internet access have never been part of the three-strikes proposals in the UK, where the ultimate sanction would be the suspension of a file-sharer's net access, not disconnection.