GPs must now accept they are less esteemed than barristers, businessmen, footballers and Big Brother celebrities
Thursday April 20, 2006
Which is worse? The discovery that Jonathan Ross earns £530,000 a year for one three-hour show a week - or the revelation that a minority of GPs now earn up to £250,000 a year? As this paper's health correspondent has pointed out, the average GP's salary is probably closer to £100,000, but even this figure strikes many critics of the new GP contracts as being an absurdly excessive, almost disgusting amount to pay someone who is meant to have a vocation to test your bodily secretions.
What business do they have, these probably plump, almost certainly Aston Martin-driving, high-net-worth quacks, to trouser at least three times more than the average high-earning nanny? Or, to put it another way, to take home almost an eighth of the amount earned (for Newsnight alone! Including the minutes when he's not on screen!) by Jeremy Paxman, yet another of the individuals whose contribution to this week's delirium of salary-related news prompted a renewed outbreak of envious calculation.
Why, for that money the BBC could easily replace him on Newsnight with a rota of 26 nannies, eight averagely paid doctors, five prime ministers, a few minutes of Jonathan Ross, nine years of
Jade Goody or an evening (incl snacks and free glass of white wine) with Cherie Blair.
Full feature in
The Guardian
