19/07/2017 The Papers

Hello, and welcome to our look ahead to what the the papers will be

With me are the broadcaster Lynn Faulds Wood and the deputy political

editor of the Daily Telegraph, Ben Riley-Smith.

The Metro leads with the publishing of the wages of the BBC's top

earners, with Chris Evans allegedly admitting that the disparity in pay

BBC pay also dominates the front page of the Sun, which reports

friction between colleagues following the publication

On the same story, the Express claims differences in pay along

lines of gender has caused anger among some BBC employees.

And has led to criticism from Theresa May, who has called

on the BBC to do more to ensure parity in pay between men and women,

The Telegraph claims that the Government has warned

the BBC that its highest-paid male stars must take a wage

In other news, the i leads with the unexpected decision

by ministers to increase the state pension age by a year to 68.

So, let's kick off. The Guardian - backlash as the BBC's male stars

dominate the top palest. I've got a better story than that. The BBC's

story dominates, but the pension story is important. The pension

story is important to me, because it doesn't affect me, but young Ben

here... Sorry, it's your generation that is going to lose out.

Basically, John Cridland at the Confederation of British Industry

has written a report saying that we all need to work longer, not until

60 but until 69. You will get your pension at 68 eventually. So what

will you do in all of those years way you do not have the job any

more? Where are we going to find jobs for people as they get older?

Am I going to go on the buses? And if older people stay in their jobs,

does that mean fewer jobs for young people? That's the danger. It was a

surprise announcement today. When you get to the end of the

parliament, the government tends to rush out the bad news. Was it a

deliberate bit of timing? It's true that in the final couple of days

before a holiday, you will see a slew of documents published, written

statements by ministers, and perhaps it's not accidental timing. It

affects a lot of people. If you are in your late 30s or 40s, you will

have to wait an extra year to get your state pension. There is this

debate about intergenerational fairness. Let's not go there. AgeUK

were very sympathetic to you. They said it is picking the pockets of

the under 40s, like you. It's terribly difficult. You cannot kill

people off. We have to pay for it somehow. And Germany found their

answer was to invite a lot of other people from other countries to come

over. There -- it is based on the idea of increased life expectancy.

There was a report recently saying that life expectancy had stalled, as

had investment into the NHS. There is an interesting point about

intergenerational fairness. Successive governments have done a

brilliant job of driving down poverty in older people in the last

20 or 25 years, that there is a growing problem of working people in

poverty. This is an attempt to help that a bit. If you are waiting to 68

until you get your pension and you haven't got a job, that's a lot of

money in benefits. The story on the BBC dominating pretty much every

front page, including the Metro. Chris Evans revealed to be the top

earner on ?2.2 million for his Radio 2 show. Is he worth it? I heard on

the BBC yesterday or the day before, Chris Evans saying, or something he

said a year ago, he said that he didn't care about money, he would do

it for... And he stopped himself from saying nothing. 2.2 million is

nothing. We should ring him up and asked if he will work for nothing!

The reporting of top stars' salaries, has that damage the BBC,

or is that transparency that will somehow help the BBC? The assumption

at the beginning of the day was that it would damage it. These are big

numbers. Stars at the top of television. What do you think? I

think... I will have a gin and tonic as well. I think the way the BBC has

handled it, on its shows, it is ruthlessly interviewing people at

the top of the company. There is an open market, and the BBC have said

they are pitched below the open market for some. And the apparent

gender inequalities that have been focused on for the last day or so.

The Telegraph has got a brilliant one, where they show that most of

the top paid stars are men, and here we have Dan Walker on 250,000, and

Louise mentioned, who is not listed. She must earn less than a. He comes

from sport. I think sport is still male dominated. But he makes more on

his salary because he does sport. It is not always like-for-like. For the

average person looking at all the disparities, it doesn't say exactly

what it is for next to the salary. Dan pointed out that they get paid

the same, but he does Football Focus and other programmes. The Sun have

chosen to ignore that. Let's look at the Telegraph. This hammers home the

point of the day which is the question about gender equality.

There is only one who squeaks in at the bottom of the top nine. When you

look at the whole 90 or 100 people who earn above ?100,000, there's

only a third... That is true across all the economy. I worked at the BBC

for ten years as a presenter, and I don't think I will have featured on

the list. The eight menu feature on here I think are all white,

middle-aged blokes. Yes, the lack of representation at the top is

questionable. But when you look at a lot of different industries... But

to praise Tony Hall, he's really doing something about it. He says

that he wants complete gender equality within the BBC by 2020. Is

that achievable? Of course it is, if you want to achieve something.

Ethnicity is important as well. Not just gender equality? No, gender and

ethnicity. There is a debate about whether this will drive up prices,

because people want to match other people's salaries, or it could drive

down prices, because this fundamentally is money. And how this

looks to the public. There is a debate about which way this will go.

How do you choose? Is it marketplace, or you can do audit on

them? I used to do watchdog. Do you give people who get big audiences

more money than people who don't? I don't think so. It is just the

marketplace of presenters and how good you are. But overall, this

transparency, which the BBC was forced into, has it been a good

exercise? Should other media organisations also be transparent?

But they are not paid by the public. There is some public funding on

Channel 4. The great buzzword is taxpayers' money. When you look at

all the top departments, I know political advisers who earn below

six figures and they have to publish what they get. Some of them were

saying, we have this transparency and it is the same cash. We are

moving into an era of transparency, and a big corporation opening itself

up probably does benefit. And a nice cartoon in the Telegraph. Two

newsreaders, and man and a woman, in the studio. And now my mail

colleague will read the autocue more expensively! It is a classic

cartoon. Let's move off BBC pay and onto the Sun. They have the Prime

Minister sacked threat to Cabinet. Is she threatening to sack some of

the Cabinet, all of the Cabinet? There is no such thing as an

understacker born minister. We have had days of infighting and private

conversations becoming public, things being leaked. It gives a

sense of a government in chaos. The Prime Minister has already lost her

majority in an election she called off her own accord, so she is trying

to calm the nerves a bit, and say that if these people carry on in

fighting... Whose nerves is she going to calm by saying, I could

sack the lot of you? There is no such thing as an understacker will

Prime Minister either. Somebody called Charles Walker, vice-chair of

the 1922 committee - do you know what that is? Somehow or other we

have to modernise what is happening in Parliament. Why is this a

committee with influence? It is a committee of backbenchers, set up in

1922. There is an interesting point, she doesn't have the power to sack

Cabinet ministers. Page two of the Times. Britons eat 50% more sugar

than they admit. The average man thinks he eats a lot less, but he

eats 32 spoonfuls of sugar, was it a week, a day? Huge amounts. Measured

through something called bio markers, found a big link between

high sugar diet and obesity. I think we all knew that, but we didn't know

how much sugar we eat. I would fall into that category, because of fruit

juice, fruity yoghurt 's... Fruit yoghurts is shocking. It is. You

should have read my column is about 30 years ago. Good health advice

from both of you. Thanks for being with us.

Don't forget, you can see the front pages of the papers online

It's all there for you, seven days a week, at bbc.co.uk/papers.

And if you miss the programme any evening you can watch it