Biased BBC contributor Alan takes issue with Victoria Derbyshire here.
“Victoria Derbyshire confirmed every prejudice I ever held against her today as she presented a phone in on unemployment. Derbyshire lives in the BBC bubble completely out of touch with reality continually expressing either amazement or outrage at everyday realities that most people recognise as ‘normal’.
She of course is flown to work by her employers, and no doubt gets a couple of hundred thousand pounds for her trouble…when she turns up for work that is….and all paid for by the enforced generosity of the viewing public.
When told by an employer that people that applied for jobs either didn’t turn up for the interview or when they did they didn’t really want the job she firstly blamed him for not selecting the right people or wording his adverts wrongly….and these were jobs for a van driver and leaflet posters…but then went on to rant about him not paying them enough (although she didn’t actually know how much he pays).
Derbyshire in full flow (about 1 hour 17 mins into show)…’Well if you paid them a decent wedge they would do it (leafletting)…it’s got to be the most boring job in the world, it’s got to be difficult when it’s pouring down or when it’s freezing…but if you get a good hourly rate surely people would carry on after day one!?’
The employer said they wouldn’t.
Derbyshire then decides perhaps it would be good to do some journalism and to ask him what that hourly rate was…he said £7-8 /hour….working about 5 hours a day.
Derbyshire nearly faints at the thought declaiming in shocked tones….’£40 for 5 hours work?….would you do it?’
What planet is Derbyshire on?…this woman prides herself on being the nation’s conscience, it’s social and moral arbiter…a woman who presents these programmes day in day out looking into the heart of social issues of ‘deprived Britain’.
And yet she has no idea of what a normal working man might earn.
Leafletting/driving…..manual, unskilled labour…but paying up to £8/hour.
Let’s have a comparison taken from official figures……what might some other workers….many of them skilled, earn (all based on 8 hour day)?
L/Cpl Army…..Initial rate £7.50/hr
Emergency Care assistant in ambulance service…..£6.50/hr
Ambulance technician….£7.50/hr
2nd Lt in Army on lowest level….£7.50/hr
Fireman before fully trained to \’competent\’ level….£7.50/hr
(http://www.ome.uk.com/AFPRB_Reports.aspx)
My postman earns £7/hr….and out in the\’pouring rain and freezing weather’.
These are nearly all jobs that require a good level of training and yet they pay no more than the leafletting job that Derbyshire expresses her shock about. How on earth can this person really put herself forward as a serious journalist if all she really relies on is her own personal prejudices and half baked beliefs to inform her inane witterings.
And it might be noted with great rolling of eyes that it was her ‘investigation’ into the recent riots that was used as part of the evidence into the causes of them….no wonder the conclusions that were reached were so far from the truth. Is it any wonder that the BBC sets itself against every policy that the government has when it has such unrealistic ideas about the real world and the lives people really live.
These presenters cushioned from the harsh realities of life, living it up on license payer’s money…the dustman’s, postman’s, nurse’s and leafletter’s on £7.50/hr…..have a naive and simplistic view of life little realising that real people have to work hard for what little they earn and that the relevant word is ‘earn’ not sitting there waiting for handouts or wandering into a nice warm studio to do a couple of hours chatting and then fly down to your well appointed London home.
Nice work if you can get it.
Oh and to Dan Cruikshank (who I like a lot), fish and chips may be nourishing, tasty and cheap but I don\t think they ‘more importantly represent the fusion of cultures….a fusion of the Jewish emigre culture of East London and the working class Communities of the North.’
The sick part, is if you look at the taxes those people pay on their 7 quid an hour, its horrific.
Nice work if you can get it.
I take your point there are any, many jobs out there that are worse and equally or worse paid than leafletting. But that doesn’t make leafletting ‘nice work’ or even a steady gig.
When you bear in mind that, as Derbyshire states, they are out rain or shine, often for 8 hours a day and often less plus they have to deal with the public – it ain’t fun. Just pop down Oxford St and watch how some of these leafletters are treated by Joe Public. I would only do it if I was skint.
So I don’t see the guys beef. Surely he must be aware that the people doing this work are not going to be ‘professionals’. They are going to be people looking to supplement their incomes, students, freelancers between gigs and interns looking to pay for thier flop houses. I really don’t see why he would expect continuity in his employees. They are going to be a fluid lot at the best of times. It’s a condition of the market surely?
That said I do wonder at the BBC researchers who hired this chap for Vicky to piss at. Surely they must have done this sort of work when they were unpaid interns? Surely they must know people, like the interns that fetch their ginseng, that are living off these wages? Didn’t Derbyshire herself have to finance her internship? Or did Daddy have a quick word with Squiffy down his club and get her the gig?
‘Nice work if you can get it ‘ refers of course to Derbyshire’s cushy job….nice work that takes you to watch the World Cup in South Africa or to the Beijing Olympics or Glastonbury or whatever other ‘freebies’ the BBC can categorise as ‘work’.
Having said that sticking leaflets through doors is hardly strenuous or demanding intellectually compared to the other jobs which pay the same rate….which was the point of the post….Derbyshire expresses shock at the leaflet sticker getting £8/hr but has no idea that many other jobs pay the same and yet demand a high level of training and effort.
Try being an infantryman carrying 100lbs of gear in 50 degree heat in Afghan or in the freezing rain and mud of the Afghan winter….for £7.50/hr.
Then you’ll know what hard work is….and it’s 24 hours a day on call…not 8 hours….and no beer or pretty women walking around in summer dresses down Oxford Street.
The guys ‘beef’ is that the unemployed don’t want a job…all they want is a tick in the box saying they have ‘attempted’ to get a job and so can then continue to claim the dole.
Yep, got that but …
I didn’t say it was hard work nor worse than being a soldier so …? I said it wasn’t fun and it ain’t.
As to not knowing what hard work is and ‘and it’s 24 hours a day on call’ – Luxury.
‘ I would only do it if I was skint.’
Proves the ‘guys’ point….the so called job seekers aren’t skint enough to want a job because they all get paid too much on the benefit.
To me on benefits equals skint. I’d do it if that was the alternative. Which seems reasonable to me. £60 a day is better than £60 a week after all. Simple maths surely?
There must be another reason for them not to want to do it.
“Oh and to Dan Cruikshank (who I like a lot) ”
I will not watch anything this fraud does since watching him, some years ago, deliver one of the worst anti-Israel hatchet jobs it has ever been my misfortune to see. He was effectively making out that ALL the trouble was caused by the Israelis preventing Moslems from getting to their places of worship by leaving soldiers all over the place. He interviewed cuddly, friendly Palestinians (like Kate not-so-Humble did in a different attack programme) and he either didn’t interview Israelis or chose the extremist ones. (It was a long time ago now, I don’t remember all the details exactly – all the BBC attack programmes merge into one in my memory.) But I can never trust this anti-Semite since.
What a stupid woman. If everybody was paid £20 ph then inflation would result in £20 being the equivalent of £7 ph.
Currency levels are determined by the production of goods and services in a global context and levels of remuneration vary according to the effort and value of person providing that commodity.
(NB. Exceptions include BBC Presenters.)
Yes, a simple calculation that is beyond the ken of your average lefty.
Supply and demand – a simple economic principle not widely understood at the BBC, either that or it’s conveniently ignored. In Derbyshire’s Marxist Utopia everyone should be paid BBC rates – trouble is the inflationary implications of doing that are beyond her comprehension, or so well within her means to afford she doesn’t have to worry about it.
Right on, General. Unfortunately, this belief system is common among BBC talent.
The supply part of supply and demand is large and growing = equilibrium price falls. Another point wasted on the BBC.
Michael White, I take your point re supply and demand. While the pay of “entertainment” figures have always been discussed, “journalists” and radio “personalities” are often ignored. It appears that worthies are exempt from scrutiny.
“Firstly, and unsurprisingly, the pay of ‘public service personalities’ such as David Attenborough or Simon Schama—who’s televisual images are congruent with a Reithian notion of public service as ‘improving’, through education and information—have not come into question.”
http://flowtv.org/2010/01/the-bbc-presenter-pay-scandal-the-political-economy-of-television-fame-james-bennett-london-metropolitan-university/
In the world of show biz an “act” is judged by a simple measurement: can they get “bums on seats”? There is no such market within the BBC. On air jobs are allocated by a strange alchemy of patronage and instinct. I have heard that surveys are conducted but the results are confidential. Is Jeremy Paxman as popular as we are led to believe? Is Nicky Campbell as popular as he believes himself to be? Is Mark Mardell as trusted as we on this blog believe him not to be? NO-ONE KNOWS.
By the way, all these folk (journalists and worthies) have honest to goodness agents. (An example: http://www.capelland.com/pages/broadcasters/index.asp?CID=204)
There is no way the general public (who pays for these people) can judge the ratio of audience to salary as we are given neither the audience figures nor the salary numbers to see if they are worth it.
Remind’s me of the “Derek & Clive” sketch, “What’s the worst job you ever had”.
Victoria is no Jayne Mansfield. As I recall.
Well, the parts of her that were left intact enjoyed a greater IQ than Derbyshire.
And I wouldn’t like to think where Derbyshire’s lobsters are hiding.
I can think of one or two more appropriate D&C sketches but even here I wouldn’t write them…
That Lord Longford……..gives me the horn.
I occasionally take on casual staff (students) and pay them £40 per day. The work is mostly computer-based with some customer contact and it is a six- to seven-hour day. I only take on people I know and they tend to be friends’ kids in need of some paid holiday work.
I thought I was doing them a favour and putting a few bob in their pockets but clearly I am an exploitative, slave-driving bastard.
Shall I turn myself in to Five Live and account for my despicable actions?
I have just got back from driving a 44 tonne, 15.2 metre long artic lorry for the princley sum of £8 per hour. My license cost me over £2,000 in training fees and I regularly have to accept van and 7.5 tonne work at £6 per hour or Class 2 (rigid trucks) at £7 per hour.
Often shifts last 12 hours or more and I get out of bed at 4:00am most days. And don’t listen to the BBC or this drip either! Might just do Steve Wright but he’s a BBC luvvie too.
Real world? I can tell you lots!
Ex £80k to £100k per year IT sales exec fallen on hard times and now know the meaning of hard work. 🙁
But you are not doing a real job like Derbyshire. She is absolutely essential to Britain, civilisation and the whole wide world. At least she thinks she is.
Mind you she might notice if the trucks stopped running and the shelves of Waitrose emptied out.
I expect she and the rest of the privileged classes think the fairies deliver their food
So true Dave.
I don’t think the majority of people think about how all that stuff on the shelves and freezers gets there.
I had a manager (Sales Director) who would rant and rave that trucks should not be allowed on the road (as in his mind they cause so many problems).
Then after a pause, he would go on to complain about how his favourite supermarket was “loosing it” because they were out of stock of his favourite food.
You couldn’t make it up as they say 🙂