Former culture minister Ed Vaizey is reportedly being considered as the next chair of the UK’s media regulator Ofcom.
According to Bloomberg, officials and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will begin finalising the list of applicants for the position this week ahead of final interviews later this month.
Vaizey was culture and digital minister between 2010 and 2016 – the longest serving minister in the role.
He has emerged as a possible rival for the role to former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, who was previously said to be prime minister Boris Johnson’s choice for the role.
The possibility of Dacre succeeding Lord Burns as Ofcom chair was first mooted at the end of last summer. At the time, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee called on the government to give it statutory right of veto over senior appointments to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom.
It warned that the promotion of potential names by senior government figures “would cast doubt on the eventual appointments and the fairness of the process, regardless of candidates’ merits.”
