John Humphries needs to go

[badbadhusky]

Caught on tape slagging off Carrie Gracie and the BBC equal pay row: www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/12/john-humphrys-jokes-about-bbc-gender-pay-gap-in-leaked-off-air-recording

After his disgraceful attitude about the Weinstein/#metoo affair on the live Today programme with Michael Gove a few weeks ago, this dinosaur needs to be kicked into touch.

Despite his grandee status, I’ve started to find his dismissive, hectoring interview style is getting in the way of reporting the news.

What an arse!

I often have to turn him off
He sounds like a spoilt toddler when interviewing.
It reminds me of Trump in many ways
And after this yes get the arrogant man out

even if they were not* intended to be shared.

Humphries comment that it was just: "Silly banter between old mates" is reminiscent of another sexist male chauvinist who tried to brush off his deeply offensive remarks as being "just locker room talk". We have learned that he is not only arrogant, biased and self opinionated but also a foul mouthed braggart. And the greatest injustice is that he is paid hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds more than co women presenters who are far more knowledgeable, skilled and competent than him. It's disgraceful that the BBC should be wasting our licence fees by keeping him on a day longer.

I've complained. Very quick and easy to do. And satisfying.

The BBC argument that they need to pay these enormous salaries for talent is spurious, many so called talents have upped and gone to rival channels for big money and they have, without exception, not been missed on the BBC. Several of them have found their BBC 'popularity' did not follow them and they have since disappeared without a trace or found it very difficult to justify their salaries and status within commercial broadcasting.

John Humphries would struggle outside of the BBC and he knows it, it's a pity the BBC doesn't.

Modestine thank you for the link, I have made a complaint

You're very welcome. My mornings will be improved immensely once he is gone. Reading the transcript makes me feel even sicker.

hipsterfun I tend to agree with you. I favour a much more bottom up vs top down approach to tackling inequality. As what will happen is that once the great and the good have things roughly measured up equally that then becomes part of the narrative that things are fixed and we don't need to bother anymore.

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

I don’t mean to be a bad feminist, but I can’t shake the feeling that the well-off women who ‘have a voice’, and are now asking all women to get behind them on this, haven’t been pushing that hard against the persistent inequality that punishes poor women and their families.

Furthermore, from a class perspective, given that these well-off women are likely to be partnered with other well-off people, paying them more (rather than paying men less) would tend to increase inequality, not only between well-off and poor women, but between well-off and poor families, so something of an own goal for the poor.

I’m as sceptical about these ‘ripples’ that will spread and reach everyone as I am about the concept of trickle-down economics.

I dunno. Activism is always better than passivity imo. Depends what else you'll devote that minute it takes to complain on. Not all of the women putting their heads above the parapet on this campaign are despicable. Not any of them, so far as I know. Surely it's better not to stand by and watch them be ground down when they are raising their voices instead of keeping quiet?

Valid viewpoint hipster. We each have to think about priorities.

Fwiw I think those these symbolic things at the top matter so I'm off to find the complaint form.

I said they were despicable, did I? Give over.

Surely it's better not to stand by and watch them be ground down when they are raising their voices instead of keeping quiet?

They’re raising their voices where there’s a clear benefit to themselves, and not a huge risk of being cast into penury. Perhaps if there had been just a little more volume in response to the grinding poverty experienced by the voiceless, it would feel like everyone had everyone’s back, y’know?

Out of interest, do you think my point is entirely without merit?

Done!

I feel like I'm in a Not the 9 o'clock news sketch though, making a complaint to the BBC. :)

Inequality is my priority, so my complaint is broadly that anyone gets paid £600k.

Fair enough hipster!

I don't believe anyone should be paid more than the Prime Minister.

Hipster, perhaps you might submit a complaint just on the £600k point.

It's absolutely valid to have a bigger/deeper priority, of course it is.

I've complained about him, he needs to go sooner rather than later. He used to be.brilliant, he makes me shout sr the radio now.

The answer to questions about obscene pay is always some blah about attracting the brightest and the best, market forces and so on.

I do feel passive, as it happens, Modestine, because I don’t believe there is any appetite in this country to address inequality; not from those who benefit hugely from it, not from the middle classes who are grateful not to be at the bottom of the heap, and, tragically, not even from those at the bottom of the heap who have somehow been convinced that their position in life is purely the outcome of their own failings.

Derailing, sorry, I’ll stop now.

Agreed, Bluelady, he’s made the classic error of losing any self-awareness and becoming a parody of himself.

I was going to say that if you are building barricades, I'll come and help you.

I am closer to your position than you might think. Self-interest is at play on my part because a) I am enraged and b) I think he is a genuinely terrible interviewer. If you watch all the women in the news reports and read all the newspaper reports this morning, you might also get the rage. Also the BBC is treated with reverence and it may be progress to knock that one down. For a start.

They’re raising their voices where there’s a clear benefit to themselves, and not a huge risk of being cast into penury
I agree to an extent. However just because these women have done well, doesn't mean they should accept being treated badly compared to their male colleagues because other women have it worse.
Also there is a good argument that they can use their power to put in place structures to make things better for women at the bottom.
Carrie Gracey resigned because the BBC answer was to throw more money at her, not put in place measures to ensure women were paid equally throughout the corporation.
Michal Hussein reportedly was part of a group of women saying they would use their power to make it unacceptable for men to sexually harass their colleagues - hence George Rileys suspension.
We need to be behind these women. They are trailblazing for all of us.

I've complained too. I wrote this on the other thread:

This discussion spurred me on to make a complaint to the BBC. I decided to criticise Humphrys' self-indulgent and often useless interviewing style and then also referred to his sneering at equal salaries for women as a black mark that damages the BBC.

To be honest, I was pleased this had come up because I've been meaning to complain for years about what a vastly expensive waste of space Humphrys is but never got round to it because I was sure my complaint would have been ignored. Maybe not this time.

I also mentioned that they should be ashamed of the partial reporting of this, involving silencing women, and that they need to reflect on how much they're pissing off their audience/the people who actually fund all of this.

However just because these women have done well, doesn't mean they should accept being treated badly compared to their male colleagues because other women have it worse.

I’d find it easier to get behind trailblazers who were asking for the sex inequality to be addressed by paying the men less, and raising the pay of the lowest earners (men and women) with the proceeds. I’m not hearing that clearly (or at all).

I’m not 100% convinced Gracey was taking a principled stand, so much as she was perscally insulted by the offer.

Again, sorry to sound cynical, it’s just that so much changes in society, yet life never gets that much better for the poor.

Personally, not perscally.

Gracie did suggest pay cuts:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/12/john-humphrys-equal-pay-row-nasty-person-leaked-private-conversation/

Also it's implied that production staff leaked that recording because they had been treated so badly by an entitled patrician.

I seem to remember that Claire Balding was shocked by the remuneration offered for her to stand in on Woman's hour and encouraged JG etc to challenge it - long before the pay row went public in the summer.

It appears that sports programmes have larger budgets for presenters than programmes aimed at Women. This is wrong, even before comparing M v F presenters.

And I'll make my earlier point again. If JH had said she's actually suggesting black people should be paid the same as white people I don't think he'd get away with the banter between old colleagues line.