We are not equal

Carolyn Taylor (Letters, 11 January), in her otherwise excellent letter, fails to grasp the real point at issue over Carrie Gracie and BBC pay – no two jobs are the same and no two employees are ever equal. If everyone is paid the same there is no incentive to take on a more high-profile job.

In the era of Communism when the head waiter of a fivestar hotel in Moscow was paid the same as the head waiter in a greasy spoon in Vladivostok, customer service became non existant.

The final point, of course, is that if the BBC China correspondent had been a male person the question of salary and equality would not even have been on the radar. We can only wonder why.

JAMES MACINTYRE Clarendon Road, Linlithgow