UK Politics - summer edition

[Maltaran]

Title chosen because Parliament is about to end for the summer recess.

Let's start off with the BBC pay story, with the obvious talking points about gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and why is Chris Evans so popular

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40653383

[john]

Quote

Equally, Evans works what? 340-odd days a year? As opposed to the strictly crew who do what 2 days a week for 12 weeks?

Personally I'm not particularly surprised by the sizes of many of these premium salaries, more surprised that some, like Shearer or Inverdale are considered to be premium level

Well, he works like 7-9 every morning.  I know people that work full days and don't get paid 2.5 million. He's probably got more reach than any other presenter, in terms of listening figures but Strictly Come Dancing has a much higher profile than the Radio 2 breakfast show.

[BigFatCoward]

45 minutes ago, john said:

Well, he works like 7-9 every morning.  I know people that work full days and don't get paid 2.5 million. He's probably got more reach than any other presenter, in terms of listening figures but Strictly Come Dancing has a much higher profile than the Radio 2 breakfast show.

but isn't top gear the most widely syndicated program in the world, i assume the figures reflect his salary for that last year?

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Evans pay has a lot to do with his perceived market value and probably what he was paid previously ( I think he was the uks highest paid tv presenter at one point) 

This raises a lot of questions as to why these gaps occur. Shearer for instance is a terrible pundit but you can guess that his pay was due to him being a famous name and also due to his previous wage as a footballer. 

The gaps between those doing the same jobs such as the news presenters is where the real difference lays. Fiona Bruce earning less than Edwards is interesting, but hard to say what the actual reason for it is. 

I see that Claudia winkleman is better paid than tess daly despite not being the actual presenter of strictly. But then Winkleman is clearly better at her role.

i think most of it comes down to perceived market value, but then negotiating skills and other factors have a play as well

[john]

Top Gear is made by BBC Worldwide, a separate company (which is why Matt le Blanc isn't on the list).  Evans has presented the One Show and other stuff on TV so that probably ups his salary.

Similarly, Winkleman has a radio show too, so that's why she's more than Daly.  Presumably Hugh Edwards also works more than Fiona Bruce in some way.  If they're paying men more for doing the exact same job that's illegal, so I doubt that's what's going on.

Anyway, still can't get my head around Evans making so much. It's not even that I particularly dislike him but he's paid so much more than other radio presenters (like over a million quid) and I really don't think that the radio 2 breakfast show wouldn't be as successful with someone else.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I kind of hate Evans but there's no doubt he has parts of his career that were incredibly successful. He also has a lot of friends in the industry.

That success seems to have eluded him lately though 

[SeanF]

The figures for salaries may not tell us very much as some people (for example Graham Norton) have production companies that receive payments from the BBC.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I'm interested to know whether people still value the BBC and whether its in fact necessary, in the light of the pay debate.  I've always been a supporter of it in the past, as I think its important to have a broadcaster that is independent of commercial influence that provides content that paid for tv will not. 

However I'm not sure the BBC does that any more, it panders to commercial considerations in exactly the same way as ITV, the two channels are often indistinguishable. BBC2 and 4 are a little better but its hard to justify a licence fee based on their output. 

In 2017 where TV is becoming less relevant, where we have numerous sources of information and entertainment, including the internet, why should we have the BBC at all?

[ljkeane]

The BBC website is pretty much the best thing about the internet for a start.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

19 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

The BBC website is pretty much the best thing about the internet for a start.

It's good. Also expensive. And paid for by the British public. Is that justifiable?

[ljkeane]

Why not? It's a public good.

More generally I think there's a very good case the BBC news service is very valuable to the British people. Whether the entertainment and sports broadcasting elements are strictly necessary? Probably not, but people like them so why not? It seems to be mainly wealthy owners of media competitors who like to rail against the BBC and I can't say I care too much.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

19 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

The BBC website is pretty much the best thing about the internet for a start.

It's good. Also expensive. And paid for by the British public. Is that justifiable?

[Werthead]

The courts have struck down the rule that people have to pay for employment tribunals and the government will now have to repay everyone who's stumped up for them.

Excellent news. This is one of the things that led to a toxic culture of businesses running roughshod over employees' rights because they know there's nothing they can do about it. Next, they need to roll back the insistent that people have to work for a company for two years before being able to claim unfair dismissal (and thus can be fired for pretty much any reason the employer wishes, including spurious or prejudicial ones, before that). 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The courts have struck down the rule that people have to pay for employment tribunals and the government will now have to repay everyone who's stumped up for them.

Excellent news. This is one of the things that led to a toxic culture of businesses running roughshod over employees' rights because they know there's nothing they can do about it. Next, they need to roll back the insistent that people have to work for a company for two years before being able to claim unfair dismissal (and thus can be fired for pretty much any reason the employer wishes, including spurious or prejudicial ones, before that). 

The fairest option would be to bring Employment Tribunals into line with the rest of the Courts, and adopt the rule that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party's legal costs.  That treats employers and employees equally, and is a deterrent to vexatious litigants.

[Werthead]

14 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The fairest option would be to bring Employment Tribunals into line with the rest of the Courts, and adopt the rule that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party's legal costs.  That treats employers and employees equally, and is a deterrent to vexatious litigants.

In a perfect world, that would be reasonable. But the situation at present is that companies have massively more resources to mobilise against a single worker, including ordering other employees to testify against them (for fear of their own jobs) and more financial firepower to take on expert legal advice, so an unfairly fired worker still remains on the back foot. Also note that this judgement only removes the fee for the employment tribunal. It does not restore legal aid (so the number of employees seeking legal redress will remain quite low).

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

In a perfect world, that would be reasonable. But the situation at present is that companies have massively more resources to mobilise against a single worker, including ordering other employees to testify against them (for fear of their own jobs) and more financial firepower to take on expert legal advice, so an unfairly fired worker still remains on the back foot. Also note that this judgement only removes the fee for the employment tribunal. It does not restore legal aid (so the number of employees seeking legal redress will remain quite low).

That depends on the company.  Most employers are SME's, and do not have huge amounts of money available to hire solicitors and barristers. 

There are nasty employers, but there are also professional litigants.  Nobody should be entitled to litigate on a risk-free basis.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

The fairest option would be to bring Employment Tribunals into line with the rest of the Courts, and adopt the rule that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party's legal costs.  That treats employers and employees equally, and is a deterrent to vexatious litigants.

1. No, it isn't. It's an encouragement for employers to draw out cases in the hope that claimants will fold in fear of the escalating costs, as happens in many libel cases, for example.

2. Employment tribunals are not courts of law: talk of 'bringing them into line with the rest of the Courts' is nonsensical and displays an ignorance about what they are and how they work.

3. There's no reason why tribunals should adopt a system from civil courts, particularly one that causes significant problems for genuine litigants.

[SeanF]

26 minutes ago, mormont said:

1. No, it isn't. It's an encouragement for employers to draw out cases in the hope that claimants will fold in fear of the escalating costs, as happens in many libel cases, for example.

2. Employment tribunals are not courts of law: talk of 'bringing them into line with the rest of the Courts' is nonsensical and displays an ignorance about what they are and how they work.

3. There's no reason why tribunals should adopt a system from civil courts, particularly one that causes significant problems for genuine litigants.

When Employment Tribunals were established, it was assumed that solicitors and barristers would not appear in them.  That is no longer the case, because employment law is complex.  Employment tribunals (and EAT's) rule on matters of law and evidence;  they establish precedents, they are subject to appeals to the higher courts, and that makes them part of the Court system.  It is neither "nonsensical" nor "ignorant" to view them as such.  Having appeared before such Tribunals in the past, and being married to an HR manager in a local authority, I do indeed have some knowledge of how they work.

If someone is put to the expense of hiring legal professionals to bring or defend an action, and they win, it is unjust that they should be barred from recovering costs from the person who has put them to that expense. In the civil courts, only such costs as are assessed to be reasonable are recoverable, and I see no good reason why such a system could not be extended to Employment Tribunals.

Very few people are going to run up big legal bills of their own (much of which will be unrecoverable) simply in the hope that the other party will fold. 

 

[mormont]

12 minutes ago, SeanF said:

When Employment Tribunals were established, it was assumed that solicitors and barristers would not appear in them.  That is no longer the case, because employment law is complex.  Employment tribunals (and EAT's) rule on matters of law and evidence;  they establish precedents, they are subject to appeals to the higher courts, and that makes them part of the Court system.  It is neither "nonsensical" nor "ignorant" to view them as such.  Having appeared before such Tribunals in the past, and being married to an HR manager in a local authority, I do indeed have some knowledge of how they work.

I'm also an HR manager, for what it's worth. Employment tribunals are not part of the court system. They are part of the tribunal system, which has very different procedures, rules, and requirements than courts, as I imagine you know if you've experienced one. So yes, it is nonsensical and ignorant to say that they are part of the court system, because it's incorrect: particularly if you're making a comparison that implicitly relies on the similarity of the two things in the very area where they differ, i.e. procedures and representation.

In other words, all you're saying above is 'I am not only wrong but I should have known I was wrong'.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

I'm also an HR manager, for what it's worth. Employment tribunals are not part of the court system. They are part of the tribunal system, which has very different procedures, rules, and requirements than courts, as I imagine you know if you've experienced one. So yes, it is nonsensical and ignorant to say that they are part of the court system, because it's incorrect: particularly if you're making a comparison that implicitly relies on the similarity of the two things in the very area where they differ, i.e. procedures and representation.

In other words, all you're saying above is 'I am not only wrong but I should have known I was wrong'.

I have little knowledge of the law of Scotland, but in England and Wales, Tribunals of all kinds are very much part of the Court system.  So, I'd reject your rather conceited final assertion.