‘What a fool I was’: Montague rages after BBC pay disclosures

SARAH MONTAGUE, the BBC presenter, has revealed that she was “incandescent with rage” when she found out that she was being paid less than her male counterparts.

Montague, 52, who formerly fronted BBC Radio 4’s Today programme before quitting last month, wrote in The Sunday Times that her lower salary had not only made her feel like “a sap” but that it had been “professionally damaging”.

The World at One presenter was paid £133,000 a year for her Radio 4 work until July. It was revealed that she was the only presenter on BBC radio’s flagship news programme who was not on the corporation’s list of those earning an annual salary of £150,000 or more.

It was also disclosed that fellow presenter John Humphrys was being paid more than £600,000.

Montague wrote that women who were underpaid compared with male colleagues at the BBC were angry that they had been “sold a pup”, adding: “For years, I had been subsidising other people’s lifestyles. I thought there might be some moral high ground from taking less of the licence fee than others. What a fool I was.”

The presenter also spoke of her disappointment that the gender pay gap would last her lifetime because she was told to set up a company when she joined the BBC more than 20 years ago, meaning that she had not “taken a penny in benefits or accrued any pension”.

Theresa May wrote last week in The Daily Telegraph that the gender pay gap must become a thing of the past.