42 grossly overpaid readers of autocues at the state funded generator of fake news that is the BBC have written to their boss today demanding that they be even more grossly overpaid. The least grossly overpaid of these women earns £150,000 a year or, put another way, just over 1000 license fee payments. They have made demands for substantial pay rises because they are doing their bit in the invaluable fight for women's equality, they are fighting as feminists. This is a truly selfless act on their part. Yup.
That men earn more at the BBC than women is not something that the BBC should be proud of. But, as I noted earlier in the week, the issue here is not the apparent sexism of the state broadcaster but the level of overpay all round. The BBC has promised to "close the gender gap by 2020". But women like Fiona Bruce and Laura Kuenssberg (a political correspondent who does not understand the difference between the national debt and the budget deficit but is worth £250,000 a year in the world of fake news) want the gap closed NOW!
There are many issues which feminists have every right to rage about in today's world. In our own country and overseas, FGM is an abomination with no place in 2017. Across the third world women are forced into marrying older men when in the UK they'd still be at primary school. Slavery, forced prostitution, rape as a weapon of war, economic slavery and political disenfranchisement are massive issues. The lack of a decent education for girls in too many societies should make us all angry.
Yet for the past few days getting Laura K a massive pay rise has been the most talked about issue on the feminist agenda. I care far more about the women at the bottom of the UK pay scales where the gender cap is far greater than it is at the BBC. 13,000 such women were last year threatened with jail for not paying the most regressive of all taxes, the license fee which supports Laura K's salary. Those are the battles that matter most yet we are forced again to consider the plight of Laura K and Fiona B as a matter of urgency.
Outside the media and political bubble the reaction to the BBC salaries was not of gender gaps but of complete anger at the obscene wages paid to folks for reading an autocue something which, having done it with no training whatsoever on C4's award winning mind rot that was Show Me The Money, many years ago, I can tell you is child's play. The way to close that gender pay gap is simple, slash the wages of the overpaid men to 5% below those of the women who bleat today. Then slash those of the beating 42 by 5% for good measure. The savings can be used to abolish the license fee for another swathe of lower earners.
But that will not happen. For folks like Fiona Bruce and Laura Kuenssberg do not care about the really poor in our society. They are not prioritising the real issues on the agenda of those who care about women's rights. They dress up as a feminist fight what is nothing other than naked greed.