•   Lib Dem’s Vince Cable beats all opposition in Top10.com’s broadband league table
•   Cameron beats Brown for broadband speed

Hot on the heels of Nick Clegg’s triumphs in the TV election debates the Lib Dems can now claim another victory – Clegg’s colleague Vince Cable is the senior politician whose constituents enjoy the fastest broadband in the UK.

Vince Cable’s constituents in Twickenham on average get speeds over two megabits faster than those in Alistair Darling’s constituency in Edinburgh South West.

That’s according to speed test data from Top10.com, the UK’s most popular broadband comparison service.

With the general election fast approaching, Top10.com analysed over 9,000 speed tests taken by web users over the last three months in the constituencies of 12 senior politicians from the three main parties, in order to find out which had the fastest broadband.

Nick Clegg even pushed Gordon Brown into third place in the battle of the party leaders. Clegg’s constituency’s speeds (4.90Mb) were 1Mb ahead of those of Gordon Brown (3.91Mb), but behind those of David Cameron (5.91Mb).

As well as comparing the broadband speeds of the three parties’ leaders, Top10.com also looked at the speeds enjoyed by MPs closely involved in the passing of the recent Digital Economy Bill.

Tom Watson – the backbench Labour MP who was the main opponent of the Bill – has an average broadband speed of 5.8Mb in his constituency. In comparison, constituents of Stephen Timms, the Minister for Digital Britain, receive average speeds of 4.7Mb, while the slowest broadband in the survey was found in South West Surrey, the constituency of Conservative shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The national average for broadband according to Top10.com’s speed test is 5.25Mb.

Full table of results:

MP            Party      Constituency         Average download speed (Mbps)
Vince Cable         Lib Dems   Twickenham         9.38
Treasury spokesman   
Alistair Darling      Labour      Edinburgh South West      7.03
Chancellor   
Simon Hughes         Lib Dems   North Southwark & Bermondsey   6.05
Shadow energy spokesman   
David Cameron         Conservative   Witney            5.91
Leader of the Opposition   
Tom Watson         Labour      West Bromwich East      5.80
Backbench MP   
            National average            5.25
Don Foster         Lib Dems   Bath            4.92
Shadow Culture spokesman   
Nick Clegg         Lib Dems   Sheffield Hallam      4.90
Leader   
Stephen Timms         Labour      East Ham         4.70
Minister for Digital Britain   
William Hague         Conservative   Richmond (Yorks)      4.47
Shadow Foreign Secretary   
Gordon Brown         Labour      Kirkaldy & Cowdenbeath      3.90
Prime Minister   
George Osborne         Conservative   Tatton            3.89
Shadow Chancellor   
Jeremy Hunt         Conservative   South West Surrey      3.48
Shadow Culture secretary   

Alex Buttle from Top10.com said: “Broadband and the future of our internet infrastructure have become big election issues since the debate over the Digital Economy Bill. The huge range in broadband speeds identified in our survey demonstrates how a truly ‘Digital Britain’ is still a some way off. Instead we are still seeing a notable gap between those enjoying super-fast broadband speeds and others lagging behind well below the national average.”

The three main parties have significantly differing broadband policies in their manifestos.

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to scrap the controversial Digital Economy Bill while Labour has promised to deliver broadband at a minimum speed of 2Mb to “virtually every house” in Britain by 2012. It is likely to bring back its original plans – dumped before the election – for a 50p per month tax on every phone line to pay for the universal broadband roll-out.

The Conservatives have promised to scrap the phone tax and instead find a ‘market-based solution’ for encouraging universal broadband access.