‘It has angered me to be honest’: Huw Edwards says publication of BBC staff salaries ‘a nightmare’
Broadcaster Huw Edwards has slammed the “clumsy” way the BBC handled the decision to publish the salaries of members of staff, saying that it’s been a “nightmare”.
The BBC publishes details of salaries, expenses, gifts, hospitality and declaration of personal interests for all senior leaders who earn £150,000 or more per year.
But Huw Edwards said that he was unhappy with the way the BBC had handled the matter, saying that it has been “very tedious” for him.
He was speaking on Dewi Llwyd’s Sunday Programme on Radio Cymru in an interview before his 60th birthday.
“It has angered me, to be honest,” he said. “Not because I’m embarrassed about pay, especially because I took a huge cut years ago anyway.
“I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me. But if you do get a huge pay cut, it’s certainly going to affect you, your psychology, and your attitude towards the work.
“Especially if you see co-workers getting large pay rises and you don’t quite understand why.”
‘Awkward’
He said that he thought that he did not accept that people had a license to “stick their nose in other people’s business”.
“The whole business about salaries has been a nightmare,” he said. “A nightmare because the BBC in my opinion, and I’ve told them this so I’m not talking behind their backs, have handled the whole thing rather clumsily.
“And of course, if you go to Channel 4, or ITV or Sky, where they earn a lot more money by the way, no one announces their wages because they aren’t in the public sector in the same way.
“I’m thankful that I have a job that pays well. Please don’t misunderstand that. But it can be awkward as well in terms of my personal attitude – for instance, my own children didn’t know, and I’d never tell them, how much I was paid.
“My mother and father always told me it wasn’t my business what other people were paid.”
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It must be a difficult one for the Brexiteer government.
They want to punish the BBC for their partisan support of Remain and all their hateful little minions are slavering for BBC blood
But they CAN’T. Because the BBC is their only significant mouthpiece for undermining the elder nation’s interest in independence. And the BBC knows this and is ramping up the hate of us. Them and the CofE
Stuff the BBC. Let it die. It doesn’t serve the best interests of Cymru. It just de-facto taxes us for the pleasure of undermining our will
He’s a public servant. It’s fairly routine for the salaries of public servants to be published. Not all are, of course, and for good reason sometimes, but in this case it’s hardly strange.
But who would undermine the popular campaign for independence if not the Tory Propaganda machine that is BBC? There are only so many CofE archbishops and it’s not like anyone listens to you
Have YOU earned your oxygen today?
My opinion is that Huw Edwards is a kind of Dimbleby figure, not just a newscaster
but rolled out for big events, where the public leans on a familiar voice.
Not all speakers can do this. It’s the same in most countries.
Bigger the audience, bigger the money.