The subject of today's blog is Rick Medlock, who is a man of many parts leading to a range of companies to avoid if you can.
Rick Medlock was appointed a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit Committee of Cheapflights.co.uk in May 2008.
Cheapflights.co.uk is a price comparison site for flights. One alternative site is skyscanner.net. There may be others.
Rick is also the CFO of Inmarsat who operate 11 satellites that provide voice and data communication worldwide. This will be a tricky one to boycott as you may be using Inmarsat whenever you use a mobile phone or watch live TV or even when using the web. They own and operate the hardware your telco, TV station or ISP use to relay whatever signal you're after. Very hi-tech, very clever, very hard to avoid. When they idea of a boycott was first mooted on CiF one sceptic posted that it would be hard to boycott Inmarsat. I fear he may turn out to be correct.
lovefilm.com is a couch-potato's dream. They are an online film and games rental company. Basically they're Blockbuster without the walk to the shop. They even sell view online subscriptions so you don't even have to move from your PC to your TV. Rick is a non-Executive director of lovefim.com. The alternative is to get some exercise by walking down to the video shop, or going on an anti-cuts demo.
The Betting Group. For the first time since starting this blog I have drawn a total blank as to who or what The Betting Group is. A Google search directs me to betfair.com, but I can find no mention of Rick Medlock on the betfair site and have to assume that Google is sending me there because betfair is 'A' betting group, although possibly not 'The' Betting Group. If anyone can send me links to any information sources I would be deeply grateful. My email is betting at howtowinelections dot co dot uk.
Business Week reports Rick's income as being £582,000 per year.
Rick Medlock joined the Board of Inmarsat in September 2004. Prior to joining Inmarsat, he had served as chief financial officer and company secretary of NDS Group plc since 1996. Mr. Medlock previously served as chief financial officer of several private equity backed technology companies in the United Kingdom and the United States.Mr Medlock is a non-executive director of Cheapflights Limited and Lovefilm International Limited and is Chairman of their Audit Committees. He is also a non-executive director and senior independent director of OpenBet Technologies Ltd. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales. Mr. Medlock holds an MA in Economics from Cambridge University.
On 18th October, Rick Medlock signed an open letter calling on the Chancellor to continue the coalition government's plans to reduce the public finance deficit in one term, plans which included swingeing cuts on the poorest members of society and which risk pushing this country into a double-dip recession, the likes of which has not been seen since the last time the tories took power and tanked the economy in the early 80's.
For this reason Rick Medlock is considered to be a fully signed up member of the Big Business Society and we urge people to boycott Cheapflights.co.uk, lovefilm.com, The Betting Group (once I work out who are and what names they trade under) & Inmarsat (if you can).
will boycott with ease and pleasure!
ReplyDeleteVery pleased to discover your site, and that I am not alone in my own boycotts. You might say more about lovefilm. I have just cancelled my subscription, but the problem is that many branded 'alternatives' (including those run by Amazon and Tesco) are actually 'powered' by lovefilm. Blockbusters operate a postal DVD rental service which you might offer readers as an alternative. There may be others.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that info Anonymous. Will try to do just that.
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA!! This is very amusing. Whoever "George" is, he obviously isn't very happy with his own salary and bitterly resorts to attacking whoever makes a decent one, namely those at the head of prospering companies.
ReplyDeleteIt will indeed be very difficult for you to "boycott" Lovefilm or Inmarsat, because frankly, they couldn't care less about a couple jumped-up failures, and your demise will not affect their quarterly earnings in the slightest. Furthermore, I cannot see why you hate "Big Businesses". They are a service, just like wherever you buy your food and clothes. They became "Big Businesses" because their service is rather good. Without these "Big Businesses", your standard of life would be much worse - we wouldn't have these wonderful technologies we have today (someone's got to pay the scientists, they need to eat too). Also without Inmarsat, the war in Afghanistan would be much more tricky and I'm afraid even more soldiers might be killed.
You are also wrong to attack the cuts. Just because they make the people around you (and also you) worse off, that doesn't mean they are bad for the whole country. Not very many have come out of the recession better off, I'm terribly sorry if you weren't one of them.
I suggest that instead of complaining and whinging, and read up a bit on Economics, Politics and Business. then you might understand how the world works.
By the way, Tories is spelled with a capital T.
I've just noticed your "UK Political News" bar s powered by Google, How ironic!
Hello Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWell, you failed to understand anything that was written.
You failed to spot that the phrase 'Big Business Society' is a pun making fun of David Cameron's Big Society, which is really all about handing public services over to his business friends.
Based on this you then projected an opposition to Big Businesses on this blog. This is not the case. The only businesses opposed here are those that think they can continue to trade when their customers are out of work and have no money. Those businesses supported the cuts and publicly called for them. Other businesses of all sizes did not and face no opposition here. In fact some of them where appropriate are listed as alternative suppliers of the type of goods or services supplied by those boycotted.
The cuts make a double recession more likely and the cost of that recession is being passed to those with the least in society, instead of it falling on those in the banking industry who caused it. If you don't understand that you should lecture anyone on economics.
This isn't about 'complaining and whinging'; this is about letting businesses know that if they support the cuts then they will feel them. When customers have less money to spend and have to be choosey about where to spend they may wish not to support those that support the cuts, especially when there are alternatives.
VAT is now at an all time high and Corporation Tax is at an all time low. You can tell there's a tory government. And by the way 'tories is spelt with a capital 'B' followed by 'a s t a r d s'.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteWill definitely do that. I would like to share that I found a trusted travel partner offering cheap air traveling packages to destinations all around the world at http://www.clicknbooktravels.co.uk/
I think some other airlines should offer cheap ticket to pakistan for million of peoples living in UK and they want to go back at every occasion.
ReplyDelete