Cavalier With Public Money
Private Eye has done the hard pressed BBC licence payer a great favour - by exposing just how generous the top brass at the Beeb are - when it comes to handing out large sums of public money to senior executives.
Some of whom were being shown the door - because they were not good enough or had new jobs to go to - which sounds to me a lot like rewarding failure with taxpayers money.
NUMBER CRUNCHING
£295,000
Salary BBC will pay ex-minister James Purnell to work as an executive, despite no evidence of competition for his services
£375,000
Payoff BBC executive Roly Keating received not to work for it any more, despite having another high profile job to go to
£670,000
Payoff BBC executive Caroline Thomson received because she wasn't good enough to be director-general
£450,000
Payoff George Entwistle received because it turned out he wasn't good enough either
To my mind this whole BBC business is a public disgrace - and I think we should start calling the licence fee the 'TV Tax' - since it applies to just about every household in the land - except the tax dodgers of course.
And while I'm working myself into a lather - how can James Purnell possibly be worth £295,000 a year at the publicly funded BBC - as the director of some ridiculous strategy or other?
When as a Minister in the last Labour Government - helping to run the country allegedly - he was worth less than half that annual amount.
