I
Former BBC China editor Carrie Gracie's book 'Equal: A Story of Women, Men and Money' is out now. According to Katie Glass in The Sunday Times it "pulls no punches" over her clash with the corporation over pay.
She won, of course, and I've nothing but admiration for her work in China (the best of the BBC) or for bringing a proper, non-Gavin-Esler-like lack of partisanship to Dateline London.
But the two things I've never really got about her campaign remain 'ungot' in my mind:
Firstly, why should the BBC's China editor be paid exactly the same as the much higher profile and, presumably, far more demanding BBC North America editor (her initial spur to action)?
And, secondly, when she gave away her back pay of £373,000 on the admirable grounds that it was about the principle not the money, let's not forget that the campaigning Fawcett Society's charitable gain was at the expense of BBC licence fee payers' money, not the BBC's money. I don't particularly want my wages be given without my consent to the Fawcett Society, to be honest.
II
By most accounts Isa Guha is an excellent commentator on cricket - a former cricketer herself who knows her stuff. But when you see The Sunday Times headlining the news that the BBC has snapped her up with this kind of thing, "Isa Guha, the new face of BBC cricket, smashes a boundary or two. Asian and female, the former England player is being lined up to replace ‘pale, male, stale’ commentators on TV coverage of The Hundred", it's difficult not to think that the BBC is at it again, box-ticking.
Of course, it's The Sunday Times who wrote it like that. Maybe, just maybe, the BBC chose her purely on merit and never gave a thought to her being "Asian and female" - though it's not very likely, is it?
III
So it's goodbye to the BBC iPlayer from tomorrow. Big Chief Purnell, the BBC's director of radio, is ploughing ahead with his controversial, expensive BBC Sounds app, despite many people not liking it. I preferred the iPlayer, but I can't say the new thing is that bad. So I don't mind it - except from everything beginning with a woman's voice saying "BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts", which is quite irritating.
IV
A couple of weeks ago I complimented David Cameron to friends for not being a 'back seat driver' kind of ex-PM. I should have known better. It turns out that the only reason he'd been keeping his gob shut for so long was in order to keep his powder dry for his book launch. Typical.
And guess what? Yes, he's of one mind with the leading lights of the Remain media establishment (including John Simpson) on the subject of the BBC not being anti-Brexit enough:
Almost the biggest problem I had was with the BBC. I felt it had lost its way in understanding the difference between balance and impartiality. The result was the voices of thousands of businesses arguing for remain given equal treatment to just a few prominent businesses coming out for leave. There were thousands of remain economists and a tiny number of Brexiteers, yet the BBC gave the latter the same weight as Nobel laureates.
