The Times reports that Lord Carter, the communications minister, is to step down from the Government. I’ve never met Lord Carter (of Barnes) and he must be terribly good to have made it into the Cabinet but I’d be wary of giving him a job.

A quick recap on his career trajectory over the last few years. In 2006 he moved from Ofcom to become the chief of financial PR agency Brunswick (why?), before moving to the role of Gordon Brown’s head of strategy (Gordon Brown and Brunswick’s Alan Parker are famously chummy). He then got shifted (sideways, I think), in October of last year, into his current position. Four different, all “heavyweight”, jobs in two years and a bit. And rumour has it that he’s been lured back into the private sector, quite possibly as a very well paid chief executive of ITV. That’ll be five jobs in under three years. Impressive, I’m not sure.

In the normal world someone who’d had that many jobs in such a short period of time would be near unemployable. He must be very, very special.