Beeboids’ pay took precedence over rape jail terms
THE day brought two controversies about the treatment of women. First, with tremendous flapping of wings, came an Urgent Question about how much (or how little) the BBC pays women.
The victim here was the Beeb’s China editor Carrie Gracie, who has been paid £135,000 a year but wants the same as certain men who are on even more. The nation will no doubt feel the poor sparrow’s deprivation keenly.
The second Commons event was a Statement by new Justice Secretary David Gauke about the early release of rapist John Worboys, 60. He is being freed by the independent, l i beral- l eaning Parole Board after j ust nine years in prison, though it i s believed he committed about 100 attacks.
No one said so yesterday but his release flows from a lighter sentencing policy devised by the lawyers of the Blair era.
Which of these matters more: Pay for big-wonga Beeboids or public confidence in rape sentences? From the grandstanding, you would have said the Beeb hoo-hah took precedence. Harriet Harman (Lab, Camberwell & Peckham) hailed Carrie Gracie as a heroine for resigning her editorship in protest at the BBC gender pay gap. Ms Harman wanted regulatory intervention and more state money for that.
Labour frontbencher Tom Watson came over all creepy, referring to Ms Gracie only as ‘Carrie’ (are they really that close?). New Culture Secretary Matt Hancock beat his breast and said the BBC should represent ‘the values we hold dear’.
Today programme presenter John Humphrys should have his pay chopped in half, averred Labour’s Chris Bryant (Rhondda). Comrade Bryant did not mention the c.£300,000 given to ex-Labour MP James Purnell to be a BBC suit.
Various MPs preceded their ventilations by saying how dearly they loved the BBC – yet the failure to give Ms Gracie more money was a disgrace, a human-rights atrocity, etc, and just showed what ‘the Establishment’ thought of women’s emancipation. On it went, Hon Members straining for the soundbite that might earn applause on Facebook and Twitter. No one pointed out that the surest way to secure a raise in journalism is to tell your bosses you’ve been offered a bigger job elsewhere.
Forgive me if I genuflect insufficiently to l’affaire Gracie but I found the later Statement on the Worboys case more worrying and of greater substance.
Yet the House was somewhat less unanimous and theatrical in showing displeasure at the early release of a rapist.
Philip Hollobone (Con, Kettering) did say we were ‘far too soft in punishing sex offenders – none of them serve their sentences in full and many go on to reoffend once they have been released’. Mr Gauke claimed rape sentences had risen by 30 per cent since 2010.
Philip Davies (Con, Shipley) noted that for years he had been a lonely campaigner against soft sentences. Was it not a ‘nonsense’ that criminals were released halfway through their sentences? Mr Gauke, in his reply, tried to belittle Mr Davies.
SIRDesmond Swayne (Con, New Forest W) asked: ‘ Did Worboys acknowledge his guilt?’ The minister did not know. Perhaps the Parole Board will tell us, but don’t count on it. Julian Lewis (Con, New Forest E) asked: ‘What happened to the concept that the punishment should fit the crime?’ Even Anna Soubry (Vaguely Con, Broxtowe) thought the Parole Board had made a mistake – rapists like Worboys, she said, were ‘ often extremely cunning’. Chris Matheson (Lab, Chester) conceded that Worboys’ original sentence had been ‘slightly derisory’.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con, NE Somerset) said the early release of offenders should be approved by elected politicians, not by unaccountable bureaucrats. Such decisions, he said, were not scientific. They were simply an opinion. Mr Gauke (he is a lawyer) disagreed with The Mogg but did not explain why.
And s o, on t he s ay of t hree obscure parole bods, a rapist has been given back his liberty while the women he attacked will shiver in fear. That is surely a worse scandal than any pay differentials for rich radio presenters.