The Telecommunications Commission has hired top British QC Cherie Booth -- Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife -- for its legal wrangle with BTC.

And as the company's Supreme Court battle to have the Commission's recent ruling quashed continues, staff morale has reached an all time low, senior BTC staff members revealed exclusively to The Royal Gazette yesterday.

One BTC supervisor said management's refusal to reveal future plans to staff was like "telling people they're on death row but they don't know when their time is up''.

Commission chairperson Ellen Lim said high-flying British barrister Ms Booth would be backed up by barrister Ian Kawaley of local firm Milligan-Whyte and Smith.

"Ms Cherie Booth, QC, has been retained to advise on legal and legislative matters. Ms Booth, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is a Queen's Counsel who specialises in Public Administrative law and Employment law.

"She has served as the Chairperson of the British Bar Information Technology Committee and was nominated by Lawyer's magazine as Legal Personality of the Year for 1997.'' She said the series of writs slapped on the Commission recently by BTC threatened to undermine the "integrity of the Telecommunications Act and Government's policy of introducing competition to benefit the consumer''.

"The Commission intends to vigorously resist BTC's attempts to evade its responsibilities as a regulated utility under the Act.'' But BTC vice president Gary Edwards said last night the telephone company would not feel threatened by the appointment.

"That is of no great importance to us. It doesn't affect our case or our confidence in our argument.'' BTC is seeking a Supreme Court order that the Commission's orders were unlawful and should be quashed since they impinged on management rights to run business as they pleased.

A former employee of BTC -- who was with the company for more than 20 years and reached a senior management position -- said yesterday the company had "let down its shareholders, employees and the public in a major way''.

PM's wife to act for Govt.

in 1995 but had totally ignored its recommendations except on the changing of the company's name and the image.

"They have not put any money into their outside plants and therefore there are all kinds of repair service problems.'' He questioned what would happen to the many workers who had "given their lives to the company''.

"BTC have let all those people down. They did not take the advice of their own consultants. The financial viability of the company is at stake without an international licence.'' And he said union staff were gradually "disappearing'' from the ranks.

Another worker -- now in a supervisory role with BTC where he has worked for several years -- compared the cloud of uncertainty over workers to death row prisoners who were not told when their own executions were to be held.

"I was there when they made a manager of 35 years redundant. He was a dedicated employee. He came in to work one day and found that his employee identification had been deleted from the system.

"All of us are going into work everyday, not knowing what will happen -- we don't know who's next. If you are in a staff meeting and ask questions, the standard response (from management) is `I don't know. There are more changes to come'.'' A BTC spokeswoman said there would be no-one available until next week to speak to The Royal Gazette about staff morale.