To her enormous credit, Carrie Gracie the BBC's former China editor turned down a £45,000 pay rise last year when she pointed out that on £135,000 she earned far less than other International editors such as Jon "fake news" Sopel in the USA and Jeremy Bowen in thee Middle east. One issue is an apparent gender pay gap. The real issue is that overall pay levels are bloated and the BBC is unaccountable and funded by you and I under threat of jail.
Gracie gets this point. She regards earning £135,000 a year for doing a job she loves as more than fair. It is £74 an hour and easily enough to get you into the top 2% of income earners. Her salary was paid by the BBC which is funded by the taxpayer through State subsidy and directly via a license fee which we must pay whatever we earn under threat of jail.
Too many of Gracie's fellow female stars have demanded that she get a big pay rise in the name of feminism and gender equality. These greedy women should realise that the struggle for gender equality should focus on those at the bottom of the heap, women who are vulnerable and suffer real poverty not pampered millionaires.
The real issue is why Jon Sopel earns £200-249,000 putting him in the top 1% of earners. Has he really shown such exceptional talent at reading a script tpo justify this. The answer as Gracie points out is not to give her a pay hike but to start to slash the salaries of men like fake news Sopel and Bowen. That is gender equality without transferring more wealth from the 98.5% to the 1.5%.
Who other than greedy millionaires like Claire Balding and Fiona Bruce could argue against that?