UK Trade Minister Margaret Hodge has vetoed a measure by an EU Commissioner to put a limit to roaming charges putting the interests of operators before those of consumers.
Not only we in the UK, but the whole of the EU, are going to be affected by the UK government’s shameless toadying to commercial interest.
I don’t know about you but my heart always sinks a little when I’m in Europe and I get a text message saying ‘your phone calls will cost 95p a minute to make and 60p a minute to receive’.
If I’m on my own tab it seems totally depressingly extortionate and totally out of sync with normal phone pricing where the principle is that the caller pays.
Obviously the Europeans agree with me, because the EU Information Society Commissioner, Viviane Reding, wanted to put a legal limit on these charges.
Anyone in their right mind would agree with Ms Reding.
But, if you’re in the pocket of vested interest, you often aren’t in your right mind, and that is the only possible explanation for the shameful veto on setting a limit to roaming charges by the UK’s trade minister Margaret Hodge.
Ever since Bernie Ecclestone tried to bribe Tony Blair with £1m to permit tobacco advertising at Formula One races, the venality of this government has been exposed.
Cash for peerages was the latest symptom of venality, until this veto came along.
Such an anti-consumer decision can only have been done under pressure from the phone operators.
One wonders what the operators gave the Labour Party in return.
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