JEREMY CLARKSON has criticised new rules that requires high-earning BBC employees to reveal their salaries more than a year after he was let go.
The TV presenter, who is to front a rival show to his old programme Top Gear, admits he draws a line at the “disgusting” new royal charter that demands all BBC employees who earn more than £150,000 must reveal their salaries.
READ MORE: Leave campaign chief Michael Gove backs 'brilliant' Brexit ruling High Court judges
He said: “Nobody talks about their earnings. You just don’t do it. I don’t know why it’s interesting what somebody earns. I think if you’re going to put somebody in a management position running the BBC for example, Tony Hall, you would assume and hope he is capable of deciding who gets paid what, and he doesn’t have to explain it to every single Tom, Dick and Harry in the country.”
Clarkson, 56, said: “It’s his job to say you get paid that, you get paid that. Why do we need to know?
“It’s like saying Kate Moss is really attractive so everyone should be that attractive. Well, they can’t be. Some people are rich, some people are poor, some people are beautiful, some people are intelligent. These are things that make the world go round.” Clarkson, who fronted Top Gear for over a decade with Richard Hammond and James May, is now launching new rival motoring series The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video.
This follows his being dropped from the BBC following a “fracas” with a producer over hot food in 2015, with Hammond and May joining him soon afterwards for their alternative programme in one of the biggest TV clinches in history. Praising his time at the BBC, he said it is a “brilliant organisation for letting you grow”.
He said: “Everything I know about making television I learnt from the BBC.
READ MORE: Leave campaign chief Michael Gove backs 'brilliant' Brexit ruling High Court judges
“How long were we bumbling around on BBC2? Three or four years I suppose? Awful. (We made) terrible mistakes and nobody was really watching and then after Richard Hammond went upside down everybody started to watch.”
“By then the show had got quite good. So (the BBC) is very good at letting a show develop and grow, until it becomes the masterpiece that is Autumnwatch now.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel