Among the many public sector honours liberally dished out in the New Year’s list, one David Clarkson picked up an MBE for “services to telecommunications”. Who dat…
The career regulator, who has been climbing the ladder at Ofcom HQ since 1999, currently serves as ‘Interim Group Director for Networks and Communications’. Prior, Clarkson was responsible for competition policy for broadband connectivity. After almost a decade of Ofcom’s regulatory oversight, the then Government declared “market failure” in the sector…
The Ofcom big cheese’s gong comes fresh off the back of a series of high-profile failures for the regulator catalogued by Guido. This site revealed how the regulator has continued to provide a broadcasting license to a Russian network praised by Putin for “shaping the global information agenda”. Back in December, Ofcom was also forced to apologise after one of their “online safety supervision principals” made light of regulating non-consensual pornographic material – leading to criticism that the organisation “didn’t understand their role” and had a “broader cultural problem”. Ya think…
In November, a parliamentary report went even further – condemning Ofcom for creating a “two-tier impartiality system” in media regulation. All while the regulator consistently attempts to hobble insurgent broadcasters such as GB News…
With Ofcom set to inherit sweeping new online policing powers in 2025, the future of media and telecoms regulation under Labour does not bode well. New year, same blob…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”