Old Stephen Carter, actually he's not old at all at 45, has had a fair number of jobs over the years and The Times says he'll be on his way again when he's put the finishing touches to his Digital Britain report. This will tell us how the Government is going to deliver fast broadband to all of us and also deal with the thorny issue of illegal downloads, hated by the music and film industries but regarded as all in a day's surfing by maybe the majority of internet users. Carter was the youthful and tank-topped boss of JWT London before going off to run struggling cable TV company NTL. Apart from making a good impression he couldn't actually do much at NTL (it was effectively bust) but it managed to survive as part of Virgin Media. He then went to run Ofcom, the broadcast industry regulator, where he thrived as a clever apparatchik would. Then it was off to run City PR giant Brunswick for founder Alan Parker, where he wasn't so successful. Because Carter isn't at all a PR man (some of his former JWT colleagues would say he wasn't really an adman either although he was popular and, of course, clever). But that didn't stop Gordon Brown hiring him as head of strategy at Number 10, in effect the Government's chief spin doctor. This was utterly disastrous as Carter rapidly realised that he was just a trophy acquisition by a prime minister who had no intention of changing his ways. In consequence Carter was thugged over by Brown's hoods led by the notorious Damian McBride, he of the scandalous emails. Rather than suffer another embarrassing departure Brown packed him off to the Lords and found him a job in what was then the industry department, his big project being the Digital Britain report which, to be fair, is right up Carter's street. Now it seems he's going to be off again post-report with some saying he could be a candidate to be boss of ITV. This would cause obvious problems because, as a government broadcasting minister, he'll have been party to the discussions between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide, a potential major rival to ITV. But current ITV boss Michael Grade would much prefer handing over to someone like Carter rather than the shareholders' favourite, fearsome former Sky boss Tony Ball who would go through the place like a scythe. Interesting times. And isn't it amazing how someone like Carter, who isn't pushy at all, always seems to find himself in the eye of the storm?