Howard Jacobson is quite brilliant in today’s Indie:
It was also disclosed last week that the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, earns, what with one thing and another (and if it isn’t one thing it’s another), in excess of £800,000. Why? I don’t mean why was it exposed, I mean why does he earn it? By what system of computation is he deemed worthy of the salary of 20 firemen, or 25 teachers, or I don’t know how many jobbing media men like himself? Leave aside how good he is at what he does, for we must leave aside how good the fireman is – though if Thompson were exceptional then what the corporation produces would be exceptional, a credit to the vitality of the nation, and it isn’t – but leaving that, I say, aside, why do we pay a public servant such an obscenely excessive amount of money?
Because otherwise he will go somewhere else? Then let him. If he stays only because we pay him what would otherwise buy us a small hospital, what does it say about his commitment to the moral and intellectual challenges of the job? A man should be proud to be director-general of the BBC, at a quarter of that salary, and if he isn’t then his valuations of both himself and his profession are awry and we don’t want him in so sensitive and influential a position.
There is more, much much more, a masterful rant of many parts. Hat tip to my old chum Aiden. (And if you click on his link, do scroll down to the footballers who look like cavemen… You won’t regret it.)
2 Comments
July 18, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I think the ‘caveman’ could be Jacobson just after he finished writing that article and just before the full moon went behind a cloud
July 19, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Along the lines of Miss Piggy’s “never eat more than you can lift”, how about “never pay more than you can spend”. You know, on a reasonable house, an ordinary car, a short break or two a year, some fancy clothes because you are DG after all, summat for the pension and towards a modest hobby to keep your mind fresh (I’m thinking fishing rod not a Rodin).