Where Next For Lord Carter? Some Suggestions…

Stephen Carter, Job Centre Plus

Lord Carter of Barnes has unleashed his Digital Britain paper on the world, but the media exec formerly known as Stephen is standing down as communication, technology and broadcasting minister this summer. That got us thinking: what should the policymeister do next? Here are some suggestions...

ITV (LSE: ITV) CEO: From crumbling government to crumbling broadcaster? Carter might not need his long-range policy and strategy skills so much if he takes up Michael Grade’s soon-to-be vacated role, but his PR experience might come in very handy for explaining ITV’s disastrous earnings reports each quarter.

Boardroom blitz: But you don’t need to join companies to bill them for your highly prized opinions — you can do that just by joining company boards as a non-executive director. It would be a genuine coup for any company to have Mr Digital Britain on their team. Throw in some after-dinner speaking, a few profile-boosting appearances on Question Time, and a portfolio career is born.

Join the Tories Carter has been linked to the Conservatives. With no MP seat, he’s not exactly a partisan in Brown’s “government of all the talents”, so “defection” this is not. And you could forgive Carter for wanting to hang on to see his career-defining white paper — which contains more than a few long-term recommendations — actually become reality.

Think tank chief: If Carter has developed a taste for sweeping policy recommendations but only rarely suggesting practical means to achieve them — and Digital Britain does suggest this — he would slot in perfectly in any number of policy organisations.

BT (NYSE: BT) engineer: If he really wants to deliver Digital Britain, perhaps Carter would like to strap himself into a white van, load up on tools and join Openreach’s call-out teams, currently upgrading the company’s ADSL networks to 20Mbps this summer. As the old saying goes, If you want something done…

Marriage counsellor: Having refereed full-on policy fights between broadcasters, telcos, ISPs, newspapers and the rest in the last 12 months, couldn’t Carter use his Zen conciliation skills in the real world? Solving a marriage crisis is probably a cinch compared to deciding what should happen to the BBC license fee (but couples should expect a five-month consultation period, minimum).

Plain English spokesman: Having published hundreds of pages and many thousands of words mostly comprising unspeakable tech jargon, Whitehall wonkery and Birtspeak, Carter could atone for his verbal sins by joining the Plain English Campaign; it’s fought for “crystal-clear communication” since 1979.

Comments have been disabled for this post