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From Top BBC Pay to State Pensions

224 views · Published 19 July 2017 · 5:49 · Indexed 27 September 2026

Channel: Jeff Taylor · 2017 · News & Politics

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While those at the pinnacle in the BBC are living in clover, along comes the shock announcement that many will be working for an extra year before they qualify for their state pension.

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We all suspected it, but when the news came out regarding a few entertainers at the top of the pile in the BBC earning gob-smacking amounts of money, people went into meltdown.

What made some of the numbers involved worse, was that most of the money was concentrated on a few older men at the very top and most of the top earners are also white. The criticism is that, once again, the ‘male, pale and stale’ seem to be winning the wage wars.

Headed by Chris Evans on something like two and a quarter million pounds a year, names like Gary Lineker on about £1.8 million and Graham Norton on circa £900,000 leap out the page at you. Followed by Jeremy Vine on nearly three quarters of a million, John Humphries on up to £650,000 and Huw Edwards hard on the heels with about £600,000.

In all, 96 personalities received £28.7 million. One has to wonder what the bill would have looked like if the old cast of Top Gear was still on the payroll.

The boss of the BBC, Lord Hall, said "On gender and diversity, the BBC is more diverse than the broadcasting industry and the civil service," but that doesn’t explain the top six earners being men and white men at that. The BBC on its own website also had to concede that there was a disparity between the earnings of white stars compared to black, asian and minority ethnic personalities whose biggest earners get £250,000 to £300,000.

All this may irritate many licence fee payers, but I reckon it will be incendiary to some of the other BBC stars who now feel hard done by or even cheated. Having read about some of them being offered protection after the news came out, I surmised it’s for protection from fellow BBC employees, not the general public. I wonder now how many of the disgruntled will go banging on desks and threatening law-suits? Either way we can expect to see some wage equalisation across the board, but somehow I’m not certain the wage bill will go down. And who foots the bill for wage rises or court cases? - the licence fee payer of course.

Although it’s easy to point fingers at the entertainers themselves, the true blame lies with the BBC top management. How can they justify so many people on a public payroll earning more than the Prime Minister? But then again, you only have to take a cursory look across the public sector to find whole swathes of people earning more than the PM. Is the real truth that we don’t pay our top politicians enough? I’ll put that another way, how much do you think the PM and senior ministers would be getting if they could keep the figures under wraps like the BBC has until now? What do you think?

Then, while everyone was poring over this news, out came a statement from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, David Gauke, that the state pension age will be lifted to 68 by 2039, for those born between 1970 and 1978. That will affect about 7 million people. This had actually already been planned to happen by 2046 but bringing it forward seven years will come as unwelcome news to many.

But one little point puzzles me, we were told that we had to be in the EU and have open borders so that all those workers from abroad could come over here and …. wait for it ….. pay for our pensions. So what’s gone wrong? With the rate our population is increasing, the retirement age must surely be coming down?

Well, what the pro-EU lobby forgot to tell you is that all those workers rightly also qualify for a pension, which they can take back home with them. Or if they stay here they will also get old and infirm and need NHS treatment and the population of the UK will have to have an ever increasing number of young people slotted into it to pay for pensions and look after the increased numbers of elderly. Basically, the recent short term benefits are just a sugar rush that needs to be paid for later, either in ever higher taxes or in ever higher state pension ages or a combination of both, however many workers we import.

But the top BBC celebs won’t have to worry about that one, will they.

What are your thoughts on BBC presenters’ wages and the state pension age?

Please leave a comment below.

Thank you.

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