The politics of envy feature large on the BBC radar. Give this debate a listen of you get a chance, it’s on the subject of whether “excessive deals for the UK’s top bosses is having a corrosive effect on the economy, for companies as well as society as a whole.” I have also been involved in BBC debates on this topic and the BBC are determined to present “big bosses” as vampires, feeding off the poor oppressed workers. Heather McGregor gives a spirited defence of the free market system so despised by the BBC and I loved her withering reference to communist Cuba and “fairness”. The irony is that I suspect there are plenty within the BBC who do think that the Cuban collective model is superior to that which has enriched this country. I also note the BBC never asks whether excessive deals for the UK’s top PUBLIC SECTOR bosses is having a corrosive effect on the economy?
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“I also note the BBC never asks whether excessive deals for the UK’s top PUBLIC SECTOR bosses is having a corrosive effect on the economy?”
What like this? http://www.google.co.uk/search?as_q=public+sector+bosses+pay&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=bbc.co.uk&as_occt=any&safe=images&tbs=&as_filetype=&as_rights=
No, really David?
The links to the stories are at least six months out of date 😀 !
I would ask you if you having a larf or what?
The above post was about TODAYS TODAY show where a hard left anti capitalist pressure group was allowed to attack wealth creating industry leaders while at the same time hiding references to wealth consuming parasite sectors like the BBC/NHS/quango land etc.
Giving a platform to hard left quasi Marxist ideologues to attack capitalism while at the same time actively ignoring state sector bosses incredible greed.
Handing us long out of date BBC reports proves what exactly? I note you had nothing to say about COMPASS, its pay, its links to the state parasite sector, its links to the union barons and the liebore party.
BREAKING NEWS? Anti capitalist hard left gang attack capitalist wealth creators. A see through pathetic on air advert for the left, I wonder how much money the BBC charged COMPASS for the airtime to spread their rancid hate mongering?
One’s dated this month, Cassandra. I mention this to save Dr Gregory the time, as I know he always comes on to point out our mistakes.
He doesn’t come on that often, so this blog can’t be doing badly.
Aah but all others are old. Thanks for the heads up, Mr D would more than happy to point that out.
David – Great stuff. Can you point me to the last time the BBC held a debate on Today asking the question whether excessive deals for public sector bosses is having a corrosive effect on the economy? When you’re having a little think on researching that, can you also share with us why the BBC felt obliged to restrict this morning’s debate to the Private sector?
Quick search of the in-house library shows just this debate on Today back when the Hutton report into all this was published at the end of last year. There may have been others since but I’ve not done a sophisticated search just a brute force number.
No idea as to why this morning’s debate was framed as it was. I didn’t hear it I’m afraid and obviously have no responsibility for editorial decisions taken by Today. I’ll try and have a listen and offer my thoughts after if you like.
Yeah that would be good, have a listen and tell us why you think the state sector is missing. I would live to hear your thoughts on the grotesque rewards being stolen by state sector parasites.
It’s not missing though is it, Cassie? It’s a story that has been tackled, and in just the way David V wanted.
Dr Gregory
Surely the point is that when the whole thrust of the debate was focussed on private sector companies, any reasonable person would expect a mention of public sector salaries, particularly as the constant defence by BBC management of the bloated salaries of their “stars” and their bosses was that they needed to pay top dollar to retain talent. Serious double standards, yes?
Referring to a debate at least a month ago when the story was about a report sponsored by a (left leaning – the beeb didn’t mention that, did they!) think tank, which was published in the last 24 hrs smacks of the usual defence about balance. What matters is immediate comparisons. Information at least a month old tends to be forgotten.
I felt that John Humphries interview with the defender of private industry was extremely aggressive and contemptuous, constantly interrupting and, at one point, demanding to know what her salary was. What cheek! Why didn’t Humphries disclose his own salary? The whole discussion stank of bias – all slanted against the private industry spokesman.
Incidently,, I appreciate your occasional intervention – I would be interested to hear your opinions on other topics that come up. However, I do wish you wouldn’t play the martyr; the responses to your comments always seem to me to be courteous, unlike those to Scott & Dez whose sneering remarks produce well deserved abuse in return.
I think my natural inclination is to a less heated/passionate conversation so I supect I’m just subconciously trying to keep things at that level. /martyr
David V’s orignal post is of course a very valid point to raise. And indeed so is Cassie’s point that I’m producing links from months ago. I was just saying these issues have indeed been tackled, and perhaps not surprisingly it was back when a big report into this area was published.
As I said I haven’t listened to either debate, but should both have looked at public/private pay together or should each just devote time to the subject of that day’s report?
Minor breakthrough on Radio 4!
I noted this morning that the ‘High Pay Commission’ report on executive pay that the BBC are trumpeting was actually attributed to ‘a centre-left think tank‘. Well done BBC!
Unfortunately the online version of BBC news simply mentions ‘a think tank‘.
Just to be clear the chairwoman of the ‘High Pay Commission’ is Deborah Hargreaves (a Guardian hack). Other members are LibDems, TUC, local government and charity hacks – oh and there was a businessman in there somewhere.
The thing is of course a front for the views of – sorry was set up by – Compass (‘….as the world gets hotter and the poor get poorer….’) and J Rowntree Trust – I’m guessing that’s the pot of gold that pays for all this liberal concern about unfair renumeration.
Over the time I was listening to Today, Humphrys introduced the body as an unqualified “High Pay Commission” as if it was a government body. during the interview with poor Deborah, Humphrys extended its constitution as being a charity. Only after the feisty Mc Gregor’s introduction did we find out it was a Labour organ, via Compass.
In later headlines Compass went from a “left leaning think tank” to a left leaning pressure group.
Turning to Radio 5 I find that dame Nikki is discussing the report with dispassionate businessman Gerry Robinson who once said ““I think, frankly, there’s only one party that can represent Britain best, getting business right, and that’s New Labour.”
Yes, good point – as if it was something like the Low Pay Commission which was set up to advise the government on the national minimum wage.
Then blood-boiling moment for me came when John Humphrys asked what Heather McGregor earned, saying “I don’t suppose you want to tell us”. She then told him that last year she was paid £108,000, while Deborah Hargreaves volunteered that she was paid £10,000 (as if it was somehow shocking that you can earn much more running a business in the private sector than working for a left wing think tank). I was really hoping McGregor didn’t immediately ask the hypocritical Humphrys and Montague what they earned.
Sorry, pardon my typing above – should have read
I was really hoping McGregor would immediately ask the hypocritical Humphrys and Montague what they earned.
Ten grand? I dont think so do you? After taxes and rail tickets and food and holiday money and rent/mortgage/credit card/pension/BUPA are all taken out. Sounds like a bare faced lie to me.
The runt of the BBC’s litter, the last at the trough, the amplitude modulated Radio 5 Persistent Vegetative State ran with this one.
Of course no context was given. The idea seemed lost on the presenters that a ‘High Pay Unit’ set up by a pretrendie leftie unthink tank solely to demonstrate that excessive deals for the UK’s top bosses are having a corrosive effect on the economy is likely to come up with (after a year-long study FFS) any conclusion other than – guess what – excessive deals for the UK’s top bosses are having a corrosive effect on the economy.
The BBC has no shortage of silly little boys it can send off somewhere with a microphone and duly sent one SLB off to the City. As the head of BBC Worldwide trousers a million quid per annum the SLB could have taken a lift rather than a taxi.
Being generally and rightly ignored by City workers the SLB of course headed off to the BBC’s new head office at St Pauls and chatted to the Senior Crustie In Charge Of Interviews.
The SC said to the SLB, ‘I think the country’s beginning to listen to us’,
Nah, luv, take it from Uncle Bup, we’re not.
‘There you have it,’ said the SLB.
And there indeed we had it. AM spectrum is a bit crackly I know, and I can only get it when I’m up a ladder, but surely, surely, they can find a better use for it that that drivel.
A_Liberty_Rebel A Libertarian Rebel Hilarious to watch BBC (“Director of Vision” £500k+ pa) feverishly shilling for High Pay Commission’s condemnation of unacceptable rewards
That I would pay to see.
I would argue that excessive payments to footballers and celebrities are even more “corrosive” because the encourage the young to think that football and celebrity are viable career paths.
For 1/1,000,000 of the population, maybe.
The BBC has covered payments by Fannie Mae to New Gringrichbut somehow missed the ongoing scandal about executive remuneration of that company. Basically the top managers are effectively public servants, as the Government owns them, but are pulling in top private enterprise salaries, bonuses and perks. So much for performance related remuneration.
If a manager has failed to makle a profit for seven years and now has to ask for a handout in the hundred billion dollar range to stop the company going under he should be fired not rewarded. That has a corrosive effect on the economy, for companies as well as society as a whole. Is the BBC silence because it considers them Public Servants or because it doesn’t want to put a spotlight on you-know-who?
Agreed, deegee. Franklin Raines ran it into the ground, and got a $90 million golden parachute for his trouble. He had to pay a couple million back as punishment. The Democrat politicians who enabled all of it and got sweetheart deals for themselves in exchange are never mentioned by the BBC, who instead are too busy bashing bankers.
Has there ever been a mention by the BBC that Obama was the biggest recipient of Fannie Mae funding after that crook Senator Dodd ?
Gingrich had to negotiate his fee, had to deliver real work in return. Obama and Dodd just got free funding. “Buying political influence” – in that case, defence against continued Republican calls (including from Bush) that Fannie Mae was in serious trouble and needed proper Congressional oversight.
FM was at the root of the 2008 financial collapse. It has never been properly investigated.
One of the things that has a “corrosive effect” on the UK is the BBC, its commissars enjoying grotesque rewards as they spread anti British pro islamofascist propaganda and leftist poison.
I’m sorry but I just cannot see why it is anybodys business. I’m not paying for it.
Before bigging up this self-serving load of garbage (believe it or not, one of the members of the “Commission’s” financial experts panel is Polly Toynbee), why didn’t one of the financial geniuses at the BBC actually read it?
I’d refer you to Tim Worstall’s excellent website http://timworstall.com/2011/11/22/the-high-pay-commission-report/ where he tears it to shreds. For instance, the “commissioners” confuse FTSE100 businesses with UK businesses; the report doesn’t mention the effects of globalisation; the report implies that limited companies in the UK from the 1970s have the same set-up as the East India Company etc etc. Also noted is the recommendation that the High Pay “Commission” becomes a quango so that the “commissioners” can become highly paid state parasites.
The report is crap. The BBC once against demonstrates its bias and incompetence. Sending in David Gregory as cannon fodder to attempt (unsuccessfully I might add) to portray the BBC as an impartial critic of public sector pay is quite pathetic. Were the BBC not a transmission belt for anti-capitalist propaganda, this report would have been ignored or competent analysts or correspondents at the BBC (difficult to imagine I know) would have been tearing it to shreds rather than leaving that function to a blogger. But, for the BBC, to allow the “Commission” to set an agenda in line with the BBC narrative was too good an opportunity to miss.
“Sending in” ?! I’m just a humble cherry picker, guv.
David Gregory
I don’t know what your motives are for commenting on this website. I suspect that, if you’ve got time on your hands, you occasionally type in something which highlights a marginal error by a commenter which seeks to undermine the credibility of that commenter, that thread and, by implication, this website. I also suspect that you would not feel able to comment unless such activity was approved in some way by your employer (hence my comment about “sending in”).
However, it interests me – if nobody else – that you, as a scientist, are so modest that you consistently forbear to engage on the corruption of science exemplified by the “discipline” of climate “science”. I don’t expect your colleagues Black, Harrabin or Shukman to resile from their religious beliefs. After all none of them is a scientist or pretends to report objectively in any meaning of that word that I understand. Also – as far as practising scientists are concerned – there is no “Hippocratic Oath” taken on qualifying as a scientist by which devotion to truth or dealing honestly with the facts as they fall becomes not just a basic requisite for scientific practice but the penalty for breaking that oath is to be expelled from the community of scientists.
All the punters out here want is to be able (actually, need) to rely on is the basic honesty of both the scientists and those who report on them. In the case of climate “science” not only have many of the practitioners been outed as corrupt but most of the specialist reporters – particularly at the BBC – are partial and less than honest in their reportage. I welcome a senior reporter such as you engaging with the commenters here since the mechanics the BBC has in place to respond to criticism of its output is designed to stifle such criticism. Unfortunately, I can’t see that much of your comment is either useful or frank. However, it does provide another insight into the de haut en bas mindset of the BBC.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism –
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2010/09/20/top-10-earners-at-the-bbc/
-these were the top 10 salaries at the BBC last year. Anyone got more up to date figures?
1. Mark Thompson £838,000 Director General, BBC
2. Jana Bennett £517,000 Director; Vision, BBC
3. Mark Byford £488,000 Deputy Director General, BBC
4. Tim Davie £452,000 Director; Audio & Music, BBC
5. Zarin Patel £434,000 Chief Financial Officer, BBC
6. Caroline Thomson £419,000 Chief Operating Officer, BBC
7. Erik Huggers £407,000 Director; Future Media & Technology
8. Sharon Baylay £345,000 Director; MC&A,
9. Lucy Adams £328,000 Director; BBC People,
10. Helen Boaden £332,800 Director; BBC News
“It was the highest profile job in UK technology – the director of the BBC’s Future Media and Technology department. But from this week, that job disappeared without warning along with Erik Huggers, who’ll leave the BBC at the end of February for a senior role at Intel in California.
The BBC is splitting the role in two, a decision welcomed by the staff I spoke to.” [Jan 2011]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2011/jan/20/bbc-erik-huggers-ralph-rivera
I wonder if the “two” have split the salary? Being the BBC I expect not.
Former BBC deputy director-general receives £950,000 redundancy payout
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009367/Former-BBC-deputy-director-general-received-950-000-redundancy-pay-off.html#ixzz1eUTlHNnY
Its nice to see yet more hypocrisy at the BBC.
“BBC director general Mark Thompson hits out at salary critics
The BBC’s director-general has claimed that those calling for the corporation to disclose the salaries of its top stars were “prurient”.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/7969669/BBC-director-general-Mark-Thompson-hits-out-at-salary-critics.html
I recently read – Christmas present from some years ago 🙂 – a book by John Simpson.
‘No-one ever joined the BBC for the money’ he complained.
The book was published in 2001. I suppose some time between then and now The Praesidium sat down and agreed among eachother,
‘Time to loot the Treasury, comrades’.
Sorry, did I say ‘loot the Treasury’.
I meant, ‘set our salaries at a fair market rate’.
oh dear, i am going to be so unpopular again…(puts on tin hat)
i am all for wealth creation, and of course paying public servants obscene amounts is wrong.
but two wrongs don’t make a right.
paying equally obscene amounts of money for failure in the private sector is just as wrong. and some corporate bosses are paid for failure.
they have their performance contracts written in such a way that even if the company they work for losses money – they still walk away with vast sums of money.
how do you defend £8 million to the guy that runs Barclay’s when Barclays loose money?
that is corrosive. just as corrosive as crooked union baron’s and useless senior public servants. they are all just as bad as one another.
look if someone sets up a buiness and takes risks and succeeds. brilliant. that guy deserves to earn his mega millions.
but corporate types dont take risks, they dont create wealth, like parasites they live off others wealth creation.
mark steyn, the canadian libertarian and polemacist – hardly a lefty, has repeatedly criticized the corporate world as being as stultifying and rigid as any form of socialism. guido has made similar comments.
just because you hate the left and socialism, dont lets blind ourselves to the failures of capitalism either. no system is perfect and all systems are open to abuse. and SOME corporate bosses are abusing capitalism.
please dont lets be tribal about this. seeing all the faults in the other lot whilst wearing blinkers to the faults on our side.
Barclays are entitled to pay their CEO anything they want. If the board and shareholders approve, then nobody else’s opinion matters. There is a school of thought that astronomical compensation is not, in fact, value for money for a bank or any other large corporation. But if they want to burn money and the shareholders let them, then it’s their own affair.
Forcing a limit on executive pay by law won’t change a thing. It will only make a few people feel better, which accomplishes nothing.