Pay remarks just a wind-up, says Humphrys
JOHN HUMPHRYS did not know his jokes about equal pay were being recorded by the BBC, he has said, as he dismissed a leaked tape as the work of a nasty person with a grudge.
The presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme was recorded joking with Jon Sopel, the BBC’S North America editor, about Carrie Gracie’s resignation as China editor. “Oh, dear God, she’s actually suggested that you should lose money,” Humphrys said, referring to Gracie’s call for equal pay for the corporation’s foreign editors.
He also claimed to have taken a pay cut greater than Sopel’s £200,000£249,999 salary, “but I’m still left with more than anybody else and that seems to me to be entirely just”.
The private conversation took place early on Monday, hours after Gracie made her resignation public, as Humphrys and Sopel recorded an interview about the Trump administration. Unbeknown to Humphrys, it was recorded on a centralised system, and leaked.
BBC presenters and politicians called his comments “outrageous” and “staggering”, but Humphrys was relaxed about the matter.
“This is not something that’s going to dominate my existence. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over and done with,” he said yesterday. “If one could relive the last few days, I probably would not have done the same chat with Sopel. Or
would I? Perhaps. It was just silly banter. Some nasty person decided that the world was entitled to hear it, and that one is not entitled to have private conversations.”
A transcript of the exchange shows that Humphrys opened up by telling Sopel: “Slight change of subject: the first question will be how much of your salary you are prepared to hand over to Carrie Gracie to keep her, and then a few comments about your other colleagues – you know, like our Middle East editor [Jeremy Bowen] and the other men who are earning too much.”
Humphrys told The Daily Telegraph yesterday: “The thing I didn’t know is that there is a relatively new thing, where everything that is said in the studio is recorded from the time the studio is active, not just from the point you begin your interview. It’s an emergency back-up.
“It was four o’clock in the morning and I had literally just got in. I went into the studio to have a conversation about Trump. And because we have known each other for 30 years, I said, ‘We’re not going to talk about Trump, we’re going to talk about this.’ It was just a wind-up. And then we got on with the interview.”
BBC insiders said knives were out for Humphrys, whose salary of £600,000-£649,999 dwarfs those of his Today colleagues. The presenter, 74, has hinted that he will retire within the next two years, and some executives are said to be keen to hasten his departure.
One insider said: “There are very hard-working people on shows like Today who earn less than one-tenth of what John Humphrys is on, and they hear him say this. Studio managers, engineers and producers are incredibly skilled. If you treat them nicely, they tend to treat you nicely, too. I’m afraid one or two of them have been on the receiving end from John and may have decided enough was enough.”
Asked if a junior member of staff might have leaked the recording to teach him a lesson, Humphrys said: “I’m sure a lot of people would, cheerfully. I’ve been with the BBC for 50 years. A lot of people know me, for good or ill.”
The leak piled pressure on Fran Unsworth, the BBC’S head of news, who has had a chaotic first fortnight in charge. On Monday, she reminded staff that they could not report on the equal pay story if they had expressed an opinion on it. Winifred Robinson, the You and Yours presenter, was taken off air after declaring her support for Gracie, who had not been allowed to mention the issue herself on Monday’s Today programme. Yet Unsworth decided Humphrys could continue because he did not declare an opinion either way.
Miriam O’reilly, the former Countryfile pre- senter who won an age discrimination case against the BBC, claimed that she was invited on to yesterday’s Today programme to discuss equal pay, but the invitation was withdrawn over fears that she would take Humphrys to task. “If Mr Humphrys was interviewing me I quite possibly would have, but why not? He would have done the same. It’s called freedom of speech,” O’reilly said.
Jane Garvey, the Woman’s Hour presenter, said: “It was a private conversation and I have a certain amount of sympathy for the manner in which this has been exposed, whilst also feeling a bit let down. The man is a brilliant broadcaster and an incisive interviewer, and I’m disappointed by this.”
‘One or two [people] have been on the receiving end from John and may have decided enough was enough’