skewed towards men? the director general of the bbc tony hall began the day promising that in three years time the bbc will deliver pay and gender parity. but how on earth are they going to do that? i'll be asking james purnell in a moment but first here's chris cook. today, the bbc published the salary of its best paid on—screen personality. 96 people of £150,000 a year and their pay. we have learned a lot today about the tv market. newsnight evan davis and kirsty are both on the list but there is lots that we don't know, for example, we do not know anything about the wages paid by intermediaries, for example people who have their production

company. and what people have done to justify the wages. are they working seven days or one day a week. these salaries are very large. 0ne thought too large. week. these salaries are very large. one thought too large. but cannot see how you can justify taking a pay cheque every week when there are men and women in these countries who are on the minimum wage and struggling to live. i have laid before parliament a bbc charter... this former secretary introduce the rules. there are two things to be borne in mind. some people working for the bbc is a privilege and they are willing to accept a bit less than they might anywhere else. because it is the bbc. secondly,

there comes a point where the bbc has to say ok, if you can come at a much higher salary elsewhere then good luck. we wish you all the best but, i'm afraid, we simply cannot match that. but does the bbc need to pay those sums to keep its talent from competitors? john humphrys that's more than £600,000 a year. from competitors? john humphrys that's more than £600,000 a yeahm is highly unlikely that i would go somewhere else? it is the bestjob there is. it keeps coming back to this. why are we paying people who like working on the bbc and can't imagine leaving paying them so much money? you should only get a lot of money? you should only get a lot of money if you dislike the job you are doing. what is it... what is most

special unique talent? i do what i do. i ask people questions that i think, i hope the public wants a nswered think, i hope the public wants answered and i think i do that reasonably competently. gender has emerged as perhaps the most important issue to come out of this list. two thirds of the names on the list. two thirds of the names on the list are of men. the problem is you cannot look at gender without looking at age. under 50 the rat largely even numbers but if you look at the over 50s, there are 45 when on the list and just 11 women. four times as many men over 50 earning more than 450,000 pounds a year than women. it has of woman problem but also up at tick your older woman problem. some think the bbc is

serious about this. my relation with the bbc goes back many years. they have measures in place to get it right and they will work with other organisations to make sure in 20 yea rs organisations to make sure in 20 years time this is not a problem and we are not just years time this is not a problem and we are notjust talking about equality. i think it's a great time for women at the bbc, i think as a result of today, more women will get employed than men. and so, the message to me, being top talent manager, is to get more women on my books, because now is a golden time to get women more jobs at the bbc. so, watch out, bbc producer, i'm going to be calling you with more ladies. these 96 names are not representative. what they get paid is, i promise you, not a normal bbc salary. but the patterns they show up are ones worth paying attention to. james purnell, the bbc‘s director of radio and education is here. i'm alsojoined by liz forgan — she's an old media hand who has been a senior executive at channel four,

the guardian and here at the bbc, as well as chair of the arts council. liz, we'll come to you in a moment. first, james purnell, toni hall has promised there will be equality on air and in pay by 2020. can we clarify categories, this is all on air? we have said all on air 50—50, and we said we would get rid of the gender pay gap, and that is the gap between all men and women employed at the bbc which is currently 10%. so that means people in graphics, editing, planning, they will all have to pay parity by 2020? all of them? on average. when you compare what women earn and what men are in, you will get rid of the gap at the moment which is about 10%. this is something that all organisations who employ more than 250 people have to face up to. we will all have our gender pay gap disclosed next year. we want to get rid of the gender pay gap and we are a bit better than average, but we want to get rid of it.

you are going to get rid of the pay gap and the gender imbalance in terms of on—air talent. how you going to do that? in three years? we need to change the mix of google, so when people retire or leave to go somewhere else. we need to bring on a more diverse mix. 60% of new entries on this list are women and 20% are from an ethnic minority background. we will improve that and we will look at pay as well. quite a lot of men have taken pay cuts already. john humphrys said that today. will you expect more male talent on—air to take a pay cut? i am not going to start negotiating on air. it is not a cookie cutter approach, but with every contact we go through and look at them. but how will you actually do it? how would you say to

gary lineker you are earning £2.6 million, we want to bring new female in sport, can you take a pay cut? i will not go into individual contracts. but what is parity in terms of on—air pay? is it same hours, zenjov? —— is it same hours, samejob? that is a good question. if someone has the same job, experience, history, audience value, they are paid the same. with top people it is very hard to compare those cases. it is a rigorous process, we do research and we look at the audience and we look at the commercial value. we negotiate what comes up. you have got, for example, female presenters and three female presenters on the today programme. they broadcast for the same amount of time, a lot of them have the same experience.

would you expect them to get the same money? i would not, actually. john humphries is the outstanding interviewer of his generation and brings a unique value to the bbc and that is something we recognise. he said there that actually he did not look for pay rises, but he kept getting them and he has also said but he kept getting them and he has also said he will not go anywhere else, so that is not about the market. you just want to give him lots of money. i have never said it is just about the market. it is about value to the bbc. on that programme the lowest paid person is a man. we can go into the detail of that, but that is not right because a different equation operates on the today programme. sarah montague is a senior presenter on that programme. she has not been there as long asjohn, but she has over 100 programmes a year and she is not on the list.

how did that happen? i cannot go into individual details, but the lowest paid person... that is not what i am asking. she has been on that programme for more than 12 years and somehow she is not on the list. is that a mistake? that is one of the things we will look at. i am sticking with the today programme. 0ne presenter gets a very lucrative offer from lbc and they come to you and say, i have had a very lucrative offer, do you say, that is fantastic, go. or do you give them more money? suddenly the pay parity goes completely out the window. it depends. sometimes we let people go all we walk away from negotiations. that has happened recently in terms of news presenters. normally we say there is a market value here, does it change the value of the people?

if that puts the parity completely out the window and there is a terrible imbalance, would you give them more money as well? the key criteria is value to the audience and that is why comparisons are hard to make. what will happen here? we are constantly being told there is no money in the bbc. by and large in the older categories men get paid more than women. will you take money from men and give it to women? we have been reducing talent costs and we have made lots of other savings like on the it programme, and there are other ways of funding. we can change the mix, we can bring on a more diverse group of people and we can look at the relativities of pay. thank you for the moment. liz, you were here 20 years ago.

should you have done more then? it gets more difficult the older the presenters are. probably yes. when i think about myself it never occurred to me to ask what the pay range of the job i did the bbc was. if i had been a man, i would have done. women have responsibility also in this history, we are less assertive and have been in the past. do not look at me like that. it is not an excuse. there may be partly an historical explanation, but it is an indefensible state of affairs and it has to be remedied. you are critical of the notion that the bbc had to be close. you are critical of the notion that the bbc had to disclose. but if this is the big bang and as a result of that disclosure, as james purnell said, we will have pay parity and gender parity on screen and off screen in three years' time,

that is better? that would be a brilliant outcome of this day which in other respects i find quite sad. there is an overwhelming argument for the bbc to disclose more information than it has done, but there is no need to have individual salaries in order to tell you what is going on with the bbc. it could have published data split by a number of people in pay categories, split by gender, race, anything you like. that would have told us what was going on. not individual salaries. if you think as james purnell seems to think that part of this will be sold by taking the money away from the men and part of this will be solved by taking the money away from the men and giving it to the women, that looks like charity for the women. that is not the basis for a policy. the bbc is a big place and there is money here and money there. if that is a priority by the bbc, which it now has to be, there are ways of addressing this issue without taking money away from men directly.

that would be a very crude way of going about it. what tony hall committed the bbc to today, halfway through 2017, is to have this fixed, essentially, in two—and—a—half years' time? i would be amazed, if he manages to ears. i would be amazed, if he manages to it. similarly, for the whole of our staff, we have constantly had disproportionate increases for the lowest—paid. it is a matter of pulling all the levers that we can. 0ur pay gap is 10%, so i think... 10% is a lot to do in

two—and—a—half years, without we have said all on air 50—50, and we said we would get rid of the gender pay gap, and that is the gap between all men and women employed at the bbc which is currently 10%. 10% is a lot to do in two—and—a—half years, without actually saying to some of the well—paid men in the bbc, you look at that huge difference in the top ten of those hundred, massive difference, proportionately, what men get compared to women, are you actually going to make the men take a pay cut? i am not going to get into those individual negotiations. i am not asking for that, i'm asking

you across—the—board — are you going to ask men to take pay cuts? we have been doing that, and people on this list, disproportionately men, have been taking pay cuts, john humphrys spoke about that today. but it's not going to be done in a box ticking away, it is going to be based on getting the right talent. if we were to start from today, yes, it would be very hard to get there. actually we been working on it for three years now, we're aiming to get to equality by 2020, probably the only organisation i know that is doing that. we have reported before on the growing problems for south africa's president jacob zuma. the african national congress is due to elect a new leader later this year, but the final years of mr zuma's presidency have been mired in controversy over alleged fraud and his relationship with an influential indian family the guptas. another actor in the drama has been the british pr firm bell pottinger, which was hired by the guptas and is implicated in a controversial social media campaign in the country. now, bell pottinger has apologised for its work in south africa. but senior figures within the anc have told the bbc they want a full disclosure of the pr

compa ny‘s work there. this, from andrew harding. these are murky times in south africa. the recession is bad enough, but it's scandal that's casting the heaviest shadow here. and no ordinary scandal, a mountain of newly leaked e—mails has helped expose what many believe is a criminal plot to capture the state itself. and these e—mails show the scale of money—laundering, the proximity to power, the extent to which this family hold sway over the president and those closest to him. so it's dynamite? it is absolute dynamite. the e—mails appear to show how one wealthy indian—born family allegedly bought and bribed their way to the heart of government and the presidency ofjacob zuma. 0ne official told us the guptas

offered him cash and thejob of finance minister. they offered an initial 600,000 payment. asa bribe? i would not like to say that. but they were trying to buy your loyalty as a minister, a shadow state run by the guptas? essentially. the guptas have strenuously denied all allegations, president zuma, too. but howls of outrage here continue to grow. you can say that there is a serious conflict of interest, and in fact defeating justice by those in certain positions of power, who made it possible for these vultures to make a meal of our democracy.

by the vultures, you mean the guptas? the guptas. in the middle of this extraordinary political drama, a group of british spin doctors landed here in johannesburg. bell pottinger had been hired by the guptas to clean up their toxic reputation. anyone would have told them it was a riskyjob, but the contract for bell pottinger was worth £100,000 per month. the team was led by victoria, soon to become a hate figure across south africa. leaked e—mails now seem to reveal her extraordinary strategy, to deflect attention from the guptas and their problems by focusing on race and inequality, to play up this country's enduring divisions. it was either a cynical ploy or a naive blunder. a nation that goes through many

yea rs of a nation that goes through many years of racial segregation, and then democratic segregation where everyone's writes our taken away, it is always a powderkeg of racial division. and so when we have actions like those of bell pottinger starting a chain, it is quick for it to become a wildfire. bell pottinger wrote or edited speeches for the guptas' political allies. the firm laterjudging this civil war comment as positive or neutral. meanwhile, a campaign against white monopoly capital began on social media, quickly going viral and getting amplified by uglier, more radical voices. what is this one? it is a dog, basically, with puppies. it was part of a black ops propaganda campaign to get

the media off this corrupt network's back. so they were trying to distract attention? yes, and it happened to many of us, all the journalists who were writing about state capture or who were interested in this new crony network, really you could see almost daily, there would be... largely driven on twitter and social media, quite insulting images of them made. and only now do you understand that it was actually a constructed campaign. bell pottinger‘s precise role in some of this is hard to pin down. slick new websites appeared from nowhere, along with an army of what appeared to be automated fake twitter accounts. we asked an expert here if he could seek bell pottinger‘s hand behind the scenes. looking at all of the messages that have been tweeted,

the fact that the narrative fits in exactly with the messaging they were trying to convey, and that they recommended to the guptas family, it stands to reason that they had to be either behind it or at least very closely involved. bell pottinger won't comment on allegations made to newsnight that fake twitter accounts were created in london. in a statement earlier in the month, the chief executive of the firm conceded that the company had been behind an inappropriate and offensive social media campaign. africa is ours, it's not yours! before long, the anger stirred up online was spinning onto the streets. these people, from a group called black first, land first, with alleged ties to the guptas, attacked a white journalist's house and threatened others. we are going to end whiteness... i got a taste of the group's rhetoric. because you british,

you are worried about the guptas because you believe the guptas are organising black people to take the world back. that is why you are organising all these activities. about bell pottinger, what do you think of their role here in south africa? see you, british guy. i told you, i'm not talking to you any more, so shut up... but it wasn't long before south africans started fighting back against the race baiting, and much more. furious satire against the guptas and president zuma. i've got to go now, important meeting... ! jacob! i'm coming! for bell pottinger, online, a storm of rage and indignation.

eventually, bell pottinger got the message, dropped the guptas as clients, apologised for an inappropriate and offensive campaign, sacked the partner in charge and launched an internal investigation. back in london, the company insists it was misled about what was really going on here. but was it? from the very start, said one source, there was utter fury and disgust internally about this contract. management knew the depth of feeling in the office and defended their decision. that's a claim bell pottinger denies, saying, we took action as soon as we were made aware of behaviour that went against the very core of our ethical policies. the picture is muddied by a bitter falling out between lord tim bell and the company he founded. the peer, who left last year, says he warned against taking on the guptas account, and says its senior management knew all about it. the company declined to comment on this claim, but a source there told us bell himself had helped to secure the account.

the source said ceo james henderson had been aware of plans to promote economic emancipation, but was not aware of the details of what his staff were doing until the story broke in the south african media. so, what now? the demand here is for the company to reveal all. if they want to truly retain some credibility out of this saga, it must be on the basis of total transparency, building institutions takes a long time. the kind of institutions we are talking about are vital to any state anywhere in the world. destroying them can happen overnight, and bell pottinger has contributed to that. and that makes my blood boil, it makes me so angry, that essentially, they came here to destroy what we've painstakingly, painfully built over 23 years. this has been a bruising experience all round,

but the larger battle is only just getting started here in south africa. a fight back against state capture, against president zuma and against a rainbow nation's dangerous decline. andrew harding with that report. bell pottinger said they could not comment on the issues raised in his report while an independent investigation was under way. they say they will publish the findings of the report in full soon. if you're 47 years old or younger, you won't get your state pension until your 68th birthday — and by then, who knows if it will be worth celebrating anyway? that was the surprise announcement made today in the commons by the secretary of state for work and pensions, and we'll be talking to him in a minute, who said it would save the taxpayer £74 billion by 2045. but the unions say it's just clobbering six million people when life expectancy increases are grinding to a halt. some might say that with all the brouhaha over bbc pay

it was a good day to bury bad news. 0ur political editor nick watt is here. what has happened today? we had a rare sighting of prime ministerial power today when theresa may told her cabinet colleagues that no minister is unstackable. at around the time she was speaking, we had the announcement from david gauke that this is no zombie administration, when he said that he would be accelerating the raising of the retirement age. what he's doing is accepting the recommendation byjohn cridland, the former director—general of the cbi, that you should bring forward by seven years the raising of the retirement age from 67 to 68. this is designed to show that the government is grappling with the issue that caused theresa may such grief in the general election, that is britain's ageing population. this will save the government billions of pounds, but it is also, they say, designed to ensure fairness by ensuring that

people spend no more than a third of their adult life in receipt of the state pension. when is it going to happen? well, the legislation for this is not due to be introduced until 2023. that's the time you have the next review of future rises in the state pension age. that will happen shortly after the publication of the findings of the 2021 census. that may well provide the answer to the big issue which could completely throw the government's strategy into the air, which is the answer to this question — is the growth in life expectancy falling? now, the institute of health equality has warned this week that after steadily increasing over the past century, the rise in life expectancy is beginning to stall. and that will give them nerves in the treasury,

because they are hoping, looking decades ahead, that you could eventually balance the books by raising the retirement age to save money. earlier, i was joined by the work and pensions secretary david gauke. i began by asking him why the government only accepted the cridland report recommendations today, four months after it was published, and not before the general election. we were looking at the cridland report, we hadn't made a conclusion as to what we would do in response to it when the general election was called. erm... because it wouldn't have been very popular to put it in the manifesto. we hadn't reached a conclusion as to what we were going to do. the general election, as you know, was called very suddenly. at that point, we weren't in a position to respond to the cridland report. so, we looked at it again, it was one for the new government after the general election, we've looked at it... it was march, and if i remember rightly, the election was some time after that. well, the election was called in april, but we hadn't reached a conclusion as to what we were going to say in response to that cridland report. this is clearly a complex

matter, it's not an easy, simple thing to do. but it's not even going to be legislated for in this parliament, because the dup won't wear it, so it may never happen. well, in terms of the timing, we shall see. we don't need to immediately rush into legislation, that's absolutely true. but the... rush into legislation? the lifetime of this parliament would not be rushing into legislation. well, we don't need to make an immediate decision in terms of the legislation. but the fact that we can give people as much notice as possible is entirely sensible. and that's exactly what we've done. we will, of course, look at any new evidence on life expectancy. the 0ns publishes a report every couple of years, so we'll have an opportunity to see further reports from the 0ns. and the censuses in 2021. but as i say, the 0ns does something specifically on life expectancy on a two—year basis. it may never happen. but the evidence at the moment points very strongly —

very strongly — to the need to increase the state pension age, otherwise we impose a burden on future taxpayers that would simply be unfair, and we end up with a state pension system that is unsustainable. but isn't this now a complete failure of imagination, it's a blunt instrument, you should be weighting the pension to poorer areas, you should be weighting the pension to poorer people. it is such a failure to think outside the box? well, john cridland looked at this point about variable pensions and so on, and the conclusion that he reached was that that would result in a degree of complexity that would create uncertainty for people, that people wouldn't be able to plan for it. so you go for this, and therefore, now, are you actually factoring this into your fiscal planning straightaway? well, we, erm, that'll be a matter for the 0br, but yes, that's. .. that's the trajectory that we are going on, so, yes, we believe that this is the right approach. given the information

that we have in front of us, given the profile of the demography of this country, is that we do need to move towards 68 coming in earlier than was previously. now, you will be aware that theresa may spoke on lbc today, and she said, in terms of all of these leaks from the cabinet, that no minister is unsackable. now, erm, you know who the leakers are — what would you do with them? well, i don't know who the leakers are, but i think whoever the leakers are should stop leaking. i think the... how many strikes before they are out, do you think? as i say, i don't know who the leakers are, and i don't know if the prime minister knows who the leakers are. but they are leaking. the important thing is that the cabinet works constructively together, that we have meetings which are held in confidence, and in particular, that we stand behind the prime minister...

but you're one of her biggest supporters, you are steadily with her — it must be very frustrating, should leakers be sacked from the cabinet? well, i think when it comes to the personnel of the cabinet, that is quite literally above my pay grade. but i think all of us in the cabinet owe the prime minister loyalty. and i think my sense is that the vast majority of the parliamentary party want us to get on with the job. it is what we're doing. it means we have to face up and do some of the difficult things that governments have to do, like what we're doing today. and we've got to demonstrate that we're governing for the good of the british people as a whole, and i think we can do that, i think we are doing that, i think every day goes on, things are calming down. but we're all looking forward to a recess, too. minister, thank you. while we are preoccupied with brexit negotiations, we are not the only european country locking horns with the mother ship.

today the eu gave poland a week to haltjudicial reforms that would put courts under direct control by warsaw or face punishment for undermining democracy in the largest former communist member of the european union. trouble has been brewing over democratic rights in poland since the election of the conservative law and justice party two years ago. here's our diplomatic editor mark urban. why has it come to a head now? it has been drip, drip, but a series of issues caused this to come up now in brussels. last week it was steps to put people on the committee that chooses all thejudges. the supreme court as well, two different bits of legislation going through which increase the influence of parliament in the selection of the judiciary and the eu is saying that threatens the separation of state powers and is incompatible with membership

of the eu. what are the implications for the eu? they have been murmuring darkly about article seven measures. it has never been brought in before. it would be a big step and that is saying you no longer meet the criteria necessary to belong to the eu because you have taken steps to undermine democracy. they will not do it immediately and there are some big questions. they can start the process by majority rule, but if it gets to the sanctions point, which is saying you are suspended, you cannot take part in meetings of the eu, that requires the agreement of hungary which has an assertive leader as well, and it could veto sanctions. it could be quite the damage and ongoing stand—off between the eastern european countries, poland and hungary and the eu. we did ask the polish

government to join us tonight but they declined. i'm joined instead by kamila gashuk pihovitch — she's the spokesperson for the opposition modern party. shejoins me from the parliament building in warsaw, from where she has just stepped out of the debate. we hear the protests outside. can you tell us what is going on in the chamber and also outside? at the moment we have a commission on human rights and justice ongoing. the subject is the act of liquidation of the supreme court. i have chaired meetings and the current government represents nothing more than populism and nationalism. it has opened a wound with polish democracy. at the moment we have three acts

which aim at the total liquidation of the independent judiciary system. the first act dismissed all people in the supreme court and the new person who will be appointed, the new judges, will be the minister ofjustice, a politician from the law and justice party. it is against the constitution. all the opposition parties have a lot of amendments here and you are trying to talk this out. actually at the moment since a couple of days we have thousands of people demonstrating all over poland peacefully but systematically against this liquidation of the independence of the polish judiciary system. i think that also the lawyers association started seriously thinking about some kind of hunger strike to defend the constitution, defend the human rights if all these three acts will be implemented.

speaking about poland as a democratic country could be an overstatement in a few days. if you are saying talking about poland as a democratic country could be an overstatement, you must think it is possible you will have article seven triggered against you. 0n the other hand, this government was elected with a large mandate at the end of 2015. do you think poland will be set aside from the european union? what will it be? this huge mandate, i am not sure it was a huge mandate. poland is comprised of 38 million citizens and only 4.5 million voted

for the ruling party at this moment. they do not receive the right to change the polish constitution, but they tried to do this with the ordinary acts, the act of dismissal of the judges in the supreme court. we heard today from the eu a very strong statement that the european union sees what is happening in poland at the moment. law and justice broke the polish constitution, law and justice broke all those laws on which the european union was built. the european union sees that the polish government, the law and justice party government threatens polish journalists. thank you very much forjoining us.

it is important to underline... 0k. that's it for tonight. before we go, in an unbridled abuse of presenter power this morning, i insisted we end the show with scotland versus england at the european football championships in utrecht tonight. i wonder how my lot got on? goodnight. it is the first real opportunity. it has been taken. clean off the line. they followed it. and taylor again. what an effort from her. it is on the side and history is made. a free header and then touched in. it is six right at the death. there has been enough energy in the

atmosphere to produce further thunderstorms across parts of north wales and north—west england as well. they began through the afternoon, shown clearly here. flush flooding reported in the rural area. they continued to journey northwards. dramatic scenes of torrential rain with the flash flooding. quite a wet night to come for much of scotland. for england and wales, patchy rain at times. quite a warm and humid night across central and eastern areas but something fresher pushing in it from the west. 0utbreaks something fresher pushing in it from the west. outbreaks of rain across

central and eastern areas. eventually that reina will push out into the north sea and confined to the north east of scotland. then something drier and brighter pushing in through the afternoon. at cooler, fresher feel from the wind of the atlantic. cooler than that in the north. sunny spells to compensate. some sunshine in the southern scotland. heavy rain for the northern ireland. later in the day, cluster of showers through northern ireland. that is because of this low pressure. this will be a feature on friday and into the weekend as well. tightly packed isoba rs. friday and into the weekend as well. tightly packed isobars. for the western half of the uk on friday, very windy weather and a slow—moving weather front bringing lots of rain to the south—west of england, the midlands and into northern ireland.

treacherous road conditions of them. feeling pleasantly warm in the east. through friday night, low pressure moving further north. a floating around the country. as we head through the weekend, it stays u nsettled through the weekend, it stays unsettled with further showers, some heavy and thundery and it will remain cool and fresh fall this time of year. i'm mariko 0i in singapore, the headlines. donald trump's son, son—in—law and former campaign manager are all due to testify before congress next week as part of the investigations into russia collusion claims in the us election. a new zealand patient in a japanese

psychiatric hospital draws attention to possible ill—treatment. i'm babita sharma in london. also in the programme. plastic plastic everywhere — scientists say we've manufactured