MEDIA PERSPECTIVE: Number 10 should heed worries over foreign ownership.(Brief Article)

The little-known Labour peer Lord Currie of Marylebone was last week handed the job of heading the super-regulator Ofcom when it launches next year. Immediately, the Tories were on the rampage with accusations about another of 'Tony's cronies' landing a top job in public life.

Coupled with Blair's apparent willingness to ride roughshod over the findings of Lord Puttnam's joint committee on the Draft Communications Bill, David Currie's emergence from the dusty vaults of the Treasury will be seen by many as Number 10 imposing its own rule on the media landscape, regardless of regulators or Parliament.

There are several problems with this scenario. First, the Government's Draft Bill was a brave one and, while it left a few unanswered questions, it contained interesting proposals beyond the liberalisation issue that the anti-American Puttnam has chosen to focus on. It should be remembered that the film-making peer has a bitter personal relationship with the US after being shown the door by Columbia Pictures, where he was its first non-US chief executive, in the late 80s.

Then Currie's background - he served two Tory chancellors as an independent adviser - suggests he is more than a Blair poodle. Perhaps the biggest worry about the 56-year-old cello-playing peer is that, despite his background in regulating markets, he will lack the imagination and alchemist's skills necessary to help mould the future of digital convergence.