BT Chief To Become British Government Minister 47
judgecorp writes "BT chief Ian Livingston is leaving the British telecom provider to become a government minister. The executive has been appointed a seat in the House of Lords, which enables him to become Minister for Trade and Investment without having to be elected as a Member of the lower house of Parliament. Livingston has seen BT go from a £134 million loss in 2008 when he was appointed, to a profit of £2.5 billion in 2012. It still has a monopoly over certain sectors of the British telecom market, and has won all the contracts so far for rolling out broadband to rural areas."
Re: (Score:3)
Note that BT spun off their mobile phone operation in late 2001.
Re: (Score:1)
What a wondrous manager. To increase profits with a telecoms monopoly. Like that is a difficult thing to do. All he needed to do was raise prices.
Re: (Score:2)
Misery for 10 million households as BT raises prices [telegraph.co.uk].
BT's 6% landline price rise [guardian.co.uk].
Re: (Score:2)
A-ha, an alumnus of DeVry's economics program.
You might want to do some supplementary reading on elasticity.
Re:What an absolute c--t.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had the misfortune to have to deal with this Ian guy and he's an UTTER UTTER c--t.
BT is a disgraceful company and the amount of people in the company I work for who have needed to use BT and been royally screwed over by them is shocking.
At least he's leaving BT and going in to government where this behavior is expected I guess.
As a dual British citizen, I can only say this:
his appointment to the House of Lords is a strong argument in favour of getting rid of the undemocratic House of Lords, or at least making it an elected body.
Re:What an absolute c--t.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I had occasion recently to look at the makeup of the Lords Science and Technology Select committee. Approximately half of them are Fellows of the Royal Society. The committee includes notables like the world-famous embryology researcher Robert Winston as well as other high flyers in the science and high-tech world. The chairman is Lord Krebs who has headed up the Food Standards Agency as well as the NERC in the past. His day job is Principal of Jesus College, Oxford. Being a member of the House of Lords is not regarded as a "real" job, they get paid a daily allowance if they attend the Chamber during a sitting and/or take part in committee work.
On the other hand the US Senate committee on Science etc. has three times the number of members of the Lords committee. Most of these elected representatives have been professional politicians for their entire adult life and have never been anywhere near a science or research establishment, never mind working in one. The current chairman is Jay Rockefeller, a fourth-generation scion of one of America's ruling families who has been in the Washington "bubble" since election to the Senate in 1984. US Senators get paid $174,000 per annum for the 150 days a year they are supposed to turn up at the Capitol plus expenses, staffs etc. and a very generous care package (medical, pension etc.).
Re:What an absolute c--t.. (Score:4, Interesting)
As a dual British citizen, I can only say this:
his appointment to the House of Lords is a strong argument in favour of getting rid of the undemocratic House of Lords, or at least making it an elected body.
So you say that only professional politicians should be able to hold government positions?
For anyone who's lost -- the United Kingdom has this strange political system where you need to be a member of the legislative branch in order to serve on the national executive: only members of parliament can be ministers of Her Majesty's government. This would appear to imply that it is impossible to appoint a specialist as minister, since only professional politicians have a chance to be elected to parliament; in practice, appointment to the Lords is used as a workaround.
Re: (Score:3)
As a dual British citizen, I can only say this:
his appointment to the House of Lords is a strong argument in favour of getting rid of the undemocratic House of Lords, or at least making it an elected body.
So you say that only professional politicians should be able to hold government positions?
For anyone who's lost -- the United Kingdom has this strange political system where you need to be a member of the legislative branch in order to serve on the national executive: only members of parliament can be ministers of Her Majesty's government. This would appear to imply that it is impossible to appoint a specialist as minister, since only professional politicians have a chance to be elected to parliament; in practice, appointment to the Lords is used as a workaround.
Which, as someone else has pointed out, means that a member of the House of Lords is statistically more likely to be actually useful than any elected politician anywhere.
Go figure.
Re: (Score:3)
or anyone who's lost -- the United Kingdom has this strange political system where you need to be a member of the legislative branch in order to serve on the national executive: only members of parliament can be ministers of Her Majesty's government. This would appear to imply that it is impossible to appoint a specialist as minister, since only professional politicians have a chance to be elected to parliament; in practice, appointment to the Lords is used as a workaround.
Ah, that explains a lot. Being the product of a public school education in the US it was always mystifying why there was this house of lords composed of appointed members. We were induced to believe it was the Monarchy's last hold on government power, but I guess our teachers were reluctant to suggest it existed only to prop up the good old boy appointments.
Of course, in the US, Senators were appointed by State Legislatures in the original configuration of the Constitution. This was in deference to the f
Re: (Score:2)
Before the passing of the 17th the senate was a den of corruption that made things like the Mexican federal police seem downright uncorruptable. There is not a large and growing school of thought that the 17th was a mistake. There is a campaign being waged by Rupert Murdoch and his media properties to rewrite history and convince people the 17th was a bad idea. Afterall, if the Senate is appointed Republicans would have control (more red states than blue) and being appointees they would be much easier for l
Re: (Score:3)
Afterall, if the Senate is appointed Republicans would have control (more red states than blue) and being appointees they would be much easier for large commercial interests to control.
Its a lot more difficult and expensive to control 50 state legislatures so that you can control appointments to the Senate than it is to just dump money into a campaign war chest to re-elect the same bozos over and over again. People elect their own state legislates, and big national corporations don't have a lot of local sway. The corruptions of the past have been traded tor the corruptions of the present, which are a lot more pernicious and deep seated. A senator in the past was always "beholdin" to his
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. The prime minister (who doesn't necessarily have to be an MP either) chooses his cabinet.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. The prime minister (who doesn't necessarily have to be an MP either) chooses his cabinet.
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has been known to be wrong before, but it appears to confirm what I've always been told:
I'd love to hear otherwise from a reliable source.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. It's a scientific fact that nobody in the elected House of Commons is an utter cunt at all. Not even one of them, a little bit round the edges.
Re: (Score:2)
his appointment to the House of Lords is a strong argument in favour of getting rid of the undemocratic House of Lords, or at least making it an elected body.
Really? You think the people we elect to the house of commons are any better?
Re: (Score:1)
As a customer, I'm very happy with them. Don't know this guy personally and to be honest, I couldn't care less if he's an UTTER UTTER (whatever). As long as I ge
What a disaster (Score:1, Insightful)
The worst telecom company in the UK sends its CEO to the government to become a top minister? Talk about regulatory capture...
Re: (Score:2)
Seems to be a bit of that nonsense going around lately. Obama did the same sort of thing [washingtonpost.com] nominating a telcom lobbyist as FCC chairman. .
Once might be construed as a good old boy political debt payback, but twice seems to suggest that the Telcom industry is making a concerted effort to get their minions into key regulatory positions.
This does not bode well for the consumer.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing different across the pond. (Score:1, Insightful)
How did he get the job? (Score:2)
Blackmail. He probably has a small list of who else besides Blair is banging Murdoch's old lady.
BT's profits next year... (Score:4, Interesting)
The land value will go from 6,000 GBP per acre to at least 500,000 per acre when BT get planning permission. And the worst bit is that this kind of house building is exactly what the district does NOT need - we need new housing in all the scattered villages where low-income people live and work, instead of in one place where are no jobs.
Please can we stop tarmacing over the entire f**king world?
Congratulations unpaid lord (Score:2)
Being a member of the house of lords allows him to be an unpaid member of the government, is a common political appointment in both the british and canadian systems (House of Lords or the Senate, but the same basic function). A UK cabinet minister from the house of lords collects about 110k pounds a year. When he gets turfed from government (as they all do eventually) he won't get paid anything unless he chairs a committee, or a couple of other things. But he will get to call himself Lord. Which is part
Correlation != causation? (Score:2)