Sorry Samira, but in the pay rise jungle the boss is king

IF ONLY knowing your worth were as simple as the famous L’Oreal slogan ‘Because You’re Worth It’, although even that has had to evolve from the feisty feminist ‘Because I’m Worth It’ of the 70s to today’s more inclusive ‘Because We’re All Worth It’. Are we? Who says?

The slogan reflects the case of Newswatch presenter Samira Ahmed, fighting the BBC for paying her a fraction of that received by Jeremy Vine – £440 per episode against his £3,000 for presenting Points Of View – in what she claims is a similar role.

The BBC, which has form for gender pay discrimination, argues the roles were not similar. It claims the two programmes have different audiences, require different t alents and demand different kinds of hosts.

Ahmed’s case is based on gender but when it comes to what we are paid, outside the pay-graded public sector, there are no absolutes. Equality and fairness might be aspirations but they will never be determiners in an open market. The truth is you’re paid what you can get.

For example, I write 1,000 words in this newspaper for a certain fee. I am pretty sure it is less than many a columnist and no doubt more than many others. I’d like to think it was the brilliance and originality of my writing that determined my fee, but I know it wasn’t.

It would have been a mixture of my profile as editori n- chief of Vogue for 25 years, how much the editor thought my contribution might add to his newspaper at that particular time, and who else was available.

And, perhaps, the fact that I was unsure I wanted a regular commitment was a factor in my favour. ‘I care… but not too much,’ is always a plus when it comes to the deal. Ultimately what we’re all paid boils down to who is in charge of the metrics. What are you being judged by? As a TV presenter, audience numbers aren’t determined by your skill alone. They’re also the result of the subject matter, scheduling, programme format and even what’s on the other channels. Should that affect what you are paid?

Can anyone prove that Claudia Winkleman (£370,000 a year for all her radio and TV work) is actually worth more than Samira? Or is the popularity of Strictly a factor? And what criteria empirically proves Graham Norton (£610,000) is worth so much more than Claudia? None.

What really matters is what your paymasters think you are worth. It’s a jungle out there and Samira is right to fight for what she believes. If you don’t fight, you won’t win. No matter what gender you are.

Anne Robinson, the hugely successful television personality who once hosted Points Of View, is a great mentor of women when it comes to pay. Her advice is, ‘whatever you are offered, immediately demand a great deal more’. I don’t know if she says the same thing to men if they ask her. But I bet you any money she does.

A homeopathy ban won’t cure anything

IN OUR bathroom cabinet we have numerous homeopathic remedies; arnica, passion flower, some delightfully named Nux Vomica (for nausea), calendula, and more. Every member of my family has been treated by homeopathy alongside conventional medicine, for ailments such as insomnia, anxiety, and bruising. Homeopathy may not undergo the same clinical testing as conventional medicine but it plays a useful role in most of our lives.

Yet now Simon Stevens, head of the NHS, wants the Society of Homeopaths to be delisted as an acknowledged body.

This looks like another salvo in the increasingly vicious battle over childhood vaccination.

Of course there will be some batty homeopaths who disagree with vaccination – but that makes it even more important to have a central body held responsible for its members’ behaviour.

It’s certainly no reason to disenfranchise the profession. The two approaches should be complimentary. We’ re living with terrible in tolerance among our political classes.

We don’t need that same divisiveness extended to our medical community.

Why I’ll never f ly in my smartest undies

POOR Mary Beard, being made to strip to her scanties by Heathrow security. It sounds as if Beard – who tweeted about her ‘scrappy undies’ – doesn’t follow the old adage that you should always leave the house in a good pair of knickers, in case you are in an accident.

Neither do I, when I fly. Fear of flying means I never have faith the plane won’t plummet out of the sky. So I take the view that it would be a crying shame to waste my good underwear on being smashed to smithereens.

Finally, a thaw in my domestic Cold War

WINTER’S arrived. And that means our house is freezing – a gripe I think I might have mentioned here before. Like most couples we have heating ‘issues’. One of us is forever turning the thermostat down – unusually, it’s me – then he sneaks in to turn it back up. This year we’re trying a new tactic to break the gridlock.

Keeping it on very low all day and all night in the hope of achieving a constant, but not cripplingly expensive, degree of warmth.

Have we found the magic formula for domestic harmony? I shall let you know…

The top fashion tip? A mail- order catalogue

AMONG the catalogues plopping through the letter box comes one from Net- a- Porter, backing my theory that mail-order catalogues are enjoying an unlikely revival.

Net was the first to sell expensive fashion online. The fact this massively successful business is now using old-world print to promote such trifles as a leather travel writing desk and Hermes watch is an indicator of a growing realisation. Not everyone makes all their spending decisions gawping at a screen.

Anne’s the perfect hair to the throne

PRINCESS Anne’s famous no-nonsense attitude extends to her hair. She found her style a good 40 years ago (see above) and has never felt the need to alter it. Nowadays her backcombed, upswept chignon looks as arcane as a uniformed butler, but how wonderful to have that degree of confidence in a hairdo. It must save a fortune in hairdressing mistakes.

My Election pledge: spend, spend, spend

ON THE way back from the butchers, I happened to drop in to a local clothes shop just ‘to look’. Half an hour later I left poorer but happier, with three new pieces of clothing. Yes, I know we’re all supposed to be buying less, but how else to shed the winter blues in dank, freezing November with another unwanted Election on the way?