Ahmed’s case will do nothing for genuine injustices
First things first. Samira Ahmed is a really good broadcaster. Whenever she’s hosting Radio 4’s Front Row, my ears prick up. Samira Ahmed is a pleasure to listen to, which is why I dearly wish that she wasn’t suing the BBC for a deafening £693,245 over its gender pay gap.
Ahmed is insisting that she should have been paid the same as Jeremy Vine, who got £3,000 for presenting an episode of Points of View, while she received £440 for presenting Newswatch on the BBC News Channel. Both deal with viewer feedback, although Points of View is very well known. Ahmed told an employment tribunal in London that she had more input into writing her programme’s scripts than Vine did, and “it is likely that Jeremy Vine spends less time in make-up than I do. Women are more likely to be criticised for their appearance on air.”
That latter point smacks of desperation. Should Vine be paid less because he doesn’t need to waste time applying blusher? Should women be paid more because a female’s appearance attracts more comments? How would that help equality? (It wouldn’t.) Moreover, is it Vine’s fault that he’s a household name with a huge following and Ahmed isn’t?
Like any employer, the BBC pays the highest salaries to the staff who best deliver what its customers want. You can complain that is unfair. But it’s only as unfair as life is and you can’t sue life. Well, I suppose you could try, but I wouldn’t fancy the legal bills.
I’m afraid that two separate arguments have been elided here. One concerns the absolute right of a woman to be paid the same as a man for doing exactly the same job. The second is about star quality and ratings. Ahmed’s case is unhelpfully derailed by the fact that her predecessor on Newswatch, Raymond Snoddy, was a bloke and he got exactly the same pay as she did. Snoddy, a veteran media watcher, would have understood perfectly well why he was paid less than Vine. It was nothing to do with genitals. Yesterday, Emily Maitlis, the Newsnight anchor, waded into the debate, telling Good Morning Britain that the difference in earnings between Vine and Ahmed was down to the fact that news and entertainment presenters are valued differently at the corporation. “It would be nice to have news and entertainment recognised equally,” Maitlis said.
Well, yes, it might be nice if a 3am graveyard-shift presenter with bacon butty smeared down his shirt got the same remuneration as Aidan Turner received for scything half-naked Poldark, but it ain’t gonna happen. Not until I’m Angelina Jolie, anyway.
The worst thing about the Ahmed case is that it’s so patently daft, it’s damaging to serious cases of injustice that fester within the BBC. I know one terrific female presenter in regional news who has sat on the same sofa next to the same male presenter for years. Her attempts to ask why he should be so much better paid than she is have been brushed off.
Since BBC deputy directorgeneral Mark Byford took Jonathan Ross out to lunch back in 2006 and gave the chat-show host a ludicrous £18million over three years, pay at the corporation has spiralled out of control. More than 100 BBC staff members now earn more than the prime minister, and the Beeb’s largesse with public money is simply outrageous.
Certain highly paid male stars have started to take salary cuts so their money can be redistributed among less well-rewarded female colleagues. I’m told that one male newscaster is in a sulk about this and has cut back his appearances on the rota. Vine, greatly to his credit, has taken it on the chin and tried to do what’s fair. It’s a shame he’s become a straw man in the Ahmed case.
Whatever the verdict, times they are a-changing. A producer friend points out that on the BBC’S Brexitcast panel, it’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg and Europe editor Katya Adler who now take home the big bucks. Their fellow panellist, Chris Mason, doesn’t earn anything like his colleagues.
Whisper it low, but soon there will be a new victim of the BBC gender pay gap: white, middle class and male.