Daily Archives: 31 January 2018

In Which the New York Times and the BBC Miss Again

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It seems the women journalists in the pay of the BBC were being paid significantly less than their male colleagues, to the point that Carrie Gracie, BBC’s China Editor, resigned her position in protest (I’m citing a New York Times report about the BBC.  Why that’s important, rather than citing a BBC report directly, will come clear in a bit).  Gracie has returned to London, still a BBC journalist, but there she’ll be paid the same as her male colleagues.

And how did that equal pay come about, you might ask?

According to “the organization” (presumably a BBC mucky-muck or BBC mucky-muck’s spokesman),

The BBC has agreed to pay cuts with a number of leading BBC News presenters, and others have agreed in principle[.]

Jeremy Vine, one of the high-powered, and highly paid, journalists getting his pay cut, agreed with the move, and he did so in all seriousness.

I think it needs to be sorted out, and I support my female colleagues who have rightly said they should be paid the same when they’re doing the same job.  I think the BBC’s on it, and this story is part of it.

Wow.  Just wow.

If Gracie really is the doing substantially the same work as her colleagues, why shouldn’t she get a pay raise to get to substantially the same pay?  That’s how bad it is, folks.  This is the Left’s mindset.  It doesn’t even occur to them to raise the pay of the lower paid.  All they can think of is to cut the higher paid.

Hold back the successful.  Don’t push forward those behind.  Instead of a win-win outcome, the Left prefers the everybody loses outcome.

On second thought, the NYT, which was as silent on the pay cut/pay raise question as the BBC, and the BBC didn’t miss.  This is what progressives, the Liberal NLMSM, and the US’ Progressive-Democratic Party want.  Hold back the ones ahead, don’t help the ones behind catch up.

Living Democracy

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I’ve written that a fractious Republican Party, compared with a monolithic Democratic Party (now a Progressive-Democratic Party), demonstrates with that fractiousness that it lives democracy while that other party merely talks about it.

Are the Conservatives in Great Britain, with their own fractiousness, demonstrating that they live democracy, too, rather than merely talking about it?

Maybe.  But there are differences between the Republicans’ internal arguments and the Tories’ internal arguments.

The Republican Party’s fractiousness centers on arguments over policy, whether immigration, health care provision and health plan provision reform, tax reform, or….  The Tories, though, their fractiousness seems more centered on personality.

Chancellor Philip Hammond must go.  It’s not that Party members disagree with his policies and they want to debate in favor of different ones, he must be removed.  Prime Minister Theresa May must resign.  Not because Party members disagree with her policies and want to argue for the Party supporting others, she must resign.  Foreign Affairs Minister Boris Johnson must be removed.  Not because Party members disagree with his policies, he’s just a boor and must be removed; there’s nothing to debate here.

That’s not a recipe for democracy or for a party’s success.  The Wall Street Journal closed its piece (at the third link above) with this:

If Conservatives think defenestrating Mr Hammond will help, that’s their choice. But they shouldn’t expect any better from a successor—on Brexit or in elections—unless the party unites behind an economic growth plan.

Indeed.  A policy debate, instead of a personal argument.