Jane Austen may be on the new £10 note — but the boys still get paid more of them

ClaUDIa WINKleMaN is up, Clare Balding is down. emily Maitlis is still in talks, Jenni Murray is incandescent with rage. Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague are getting on with the day job and alex Jones is saying nothing important — but when does she ever?

as the scale of the gender pay gap sinks in at the BBC, a fresh seam of discontent has been unpicked among the grumbling womenfolk. Over at auntie — or should that be Uncle from now on? — it has become clear that the boys are the top dogs, while the girls can expect to earn significantly less, sometimes for doing the same job.

No wonder they are so upset. That must be utterly galling.

It doesn’t help that Woman’s Hour has been earnestly discussing the gender pay gap on the radio since 1946, clearly to no in-house advantage. ‘ Going well, isn’t it?’ tweeted presenter Jane Garvey (£130,000). She has become one of the most outspoken female BBC employees since the salaries were made public on Wednesday.

It is her mutinous opinion that Gary lineker (£1.8 million) is given his vast booty because the men who employ him are starstruck football nuts who worshipped him as boys. She has a point. She is also dismayed by the huge amounts paid to ‘pale, male’ radio presenters whose shows, she feels, are not as successful and less ‘significant’ than her own.

Garvey suggests that it is time for women to concentrate on helping other women, because if we don’t pull together, we will all lose out.

But how is that going to work? Highestpaid woman Claudia Winkleman (at least £450,000) isn’t about to rush to the barricades in her louboutins — and why should she?

Second highest-paid woman alex Jones (at least £400,000) probably still can’t believe her luck; all that money for doing her chipmunk-next-door turn on The One Show sofa every weekday evening? It is a gooftastic miracle of sorts, but good luck to her anyway.

MeaNWHIle,

emily Maitlis is currently renegotiating her Newsnight contract, no doubt until the pips squeak — and, for once, I am not talking about one of her babewatch dresses.

However, emily is doing that for emily. She is a sister doing it for herself, not for the greater good of womanhood.

The problem is that salaries are not a collective nor a team sport, unless you happen to be chopping logs on a Soviet farm.

In this instance, what makes the situation more complicated is factoring in the fluctuations on the foetid stock exchange of celebrity — it being impossible to put a value on something as inchoate as star quality. and, despite what Garvey thinks, significance is in the eye — or ear — of the beholder. It’s not for her to decree what shows are important or otherwise.

Indeed, I would argue that the bigger issue at the BBC is not the discrepancy between men and women, but the yawning fiscal gulf between stars and civilians, which has become obscene.

In front of the cameras are celebrities of little talent who, nevertheless, are lavished with six-figure packages and perks.

Behind the cameras is the real creative powerhouse; the worker bees in this centre of broadcasting excellence who actually make these shows and programmes happen.

No red- carpet treatment for these wage slaves, who have not had a proper pay rise for seven years and instead must accept a public sector pay restraint of 1 per cent. The bloated, rampant hyperinflation of fame is the real scandal here.

That is not to say that the gender gap is not a huge issue: it is. In terms of feminism, it is the very biggest.

Yet, instead of focusing on this monstrous anomaly, far too much fem-time is frittered away on insignificant, flashy, shallow, absurd virtue- signalling issues that do little long-term good, but play well on Twitter.

These have included clearing shelves of gender-specific toys, discouraging little girls from wearing pink because it reinforces stereotypes, promoting a crusade called Free The Nipple (women’s are censored while men’s aren’t — unfair!) and the banning of sexist washing-up adverts, to name a few.

and yes, after a long campaign, it is admirable that an image of Jane austen is now on our £10 notes — but isn’t it a rather hollow victory if the boys continue to get far more of those damn notes than we do?

The news from the front is glum. around two years ago, the World economic Forum predicted the global gender pay disparity may take up to 170 years to close, while the average UK gap remains at 9.4 per cent.

Things aren’t much better in Hollywood. Two years ago, an email hack revealed that stars such as Patricia arquette and Jennifer lawrence were paid far less than their male stars, while on Broadway, Sienna Miller turned down a role because she was being paid half of what her male co-stars were getting.

So, let’s not waste time worrying about pink teddy bears and Fairy liquid ads. let’s get angry. Particularly at the BBC.

after all, this is a publicly funded organisation that prides itself on its aggressively promoted commitment to diversity and equality.

Just not when it comes to pay packets, if you don’t mind.