Comment 8 for bug 283155

After some more digging around, it looks like this is a proxy config issue. I found that apt proxy setting was completly wonky:

cat /etc/apt/apt.conf
Acquire::http::Proxy "http://http://web-proxy.britain.agilent.com/:8088/";

If I delete or fix this then everything is okay.

I *think* this must have been automagically set by something when I first installed Hardy on my PC.

The only question is should the update manager check that the source it's using for proxy information is in the correct format before deciding to use it?