John Humphrys: Being called a misogynist is ‘hurtful’

Oof! John Humphrys has been in the wars recently. Not only has the anchor of Radio Four’s Today programme voluntarily taken three pay-cuts — his salary is said to have been nearly halved — he has received little credit for having done so.

Instead, he has come under attack after a private conversation in which he joked about the BBC gender pay gap was leaked.

His comments so annoyed the so-called Minister For Loneliness Tracey Crouch that she refused to appear on Today.

Now the programme’s seven million listeners will never know her penetrating thoughts on Findus Meals For One or the benefits of joining a cribbage club.

‘Bizarre,’ is how Humphrys describes her boycott. ‘And somewhat insulting. Did she think that, were she to be interviewed by me, that I would treat her in a cavalier fashion because she is a woman? Bizarre is the word, but I am not seething with righteous anger about it.’

Others said to be considering entering a Humph no-fly-zone include former Tory minister Nicky Morgan and Labour MP Stella Creasy.

Meanwhile, Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey and others have voiced disapproval of what they perceived to be Humphrys’ misogyny.

And it is that, more than anything, which really upsets the 74-year-old broadcaster.

‘Oh, that was bruising,’ he says. ‘To be painted as a misogynist is hurtful and frustrating. And profoundly unjust. I have never, ever felt that there was a difference between men and women. I have always believed in equal pay for an equal job. I merely had a jokey exchange with an old friend which was turned into something that it wasn’t. And it wasn’t about women.’

Humphrys had been teasing the BBC’s North America editor Jon Sopel, about which of them earned most and how much they were going to have to give to Carrie Gracie, the BBC’s former China editor who resigned her post in Beijing over pay discrimination.

Not only has the anchor of Radio Four’s Today programme voluntarily taken three pay-cuts — his salary is said to have been nearly halved — he has received little credit for having done so

It seems to be affectionate braggadocio rather than secret grievance, but in the current febrile atmosphere at the BBC, where the sexes are pitted against each other over the gender pay gap, those who were minded to take offence took it. To them, Humphrys is the poster boy for the overpaid, patriarchal BBC elite.

Is this entirely fair? After all, Humphrys has worked with distinction for the BBC for 50 years, hasn’t had a pay rise for presenting Mastermind (for almost 15 years) and once turned down £1 million to join a rival broadcaster. Surely, loyalty and experience count for something?

‘There is a problem, no question about that,’ he says. ‘There are women in this organisation who’ve been penalised for being women. That’s absolutely wrong, of course, fundamentally wrong, and the BBC does recognise it.’

Licence-payers are entitled to know how their money is spent, he believes, and he wishes there had been transparency all along. ‘I was as surprised as anyone else about how big the gap was,’ he says.

And what about his own pay-cut? ‘Well, tough,’ he shrugs. Ever since 1987, Humphrys — the senior presenter and ‘voice’ of the programme — has been the interrogator most feared by politicians, because of his command of his brief and refusal to accept humbug and waffle. Useful weapons in his armoury have included the Derisive Snort, the Well-Timed Interruption and the occasional Gasp of Despair.

Listeners understand the morality that underpins Humphrys’ work and the clear ideology that drives him onwards even in his eighth decade; he has no personal axe to grind, he simply believes the public has a right to know what is going on.

And he is no stranger to controversy.

Former Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken once accused Humphrys of ‘poisoning the well of democratic debate’. While Labour attack dog Alastair Campbell called for his resignation in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry into the Iraq war — which proved to be such a perilous and divisive episode in the BBC’s history.

Humphrys has worked with distinction for the BBC for 50 years, hasn’t had a pay rise for presenting Mastermind and once turned down £1 million to join a rival broadcaster

‘We are going through a pretty nightmarish time here, no doubt about that,’ says Humphrys today. ‘But we have been through bigger crises in the past and we will come through this one, too. I have never lost the sense of what a huge privilege it is to work for the BBC.’

But the current pay row won’t go away.

‘Equal pay for what? It’s a bonkers concept,’ says Humphrys.

‘Someone like Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce [the TV newsreaders] have been doing their jobs for a very long time, building up authority and trust with viewers.

‘They have a connection to the audience, and they earn whatever they earn. Then you appoint a 27- year-old to be a newsreader for the news channel — man or woman, it doesn’t matter — do you pay them the same? The answer is: Of course you do not.’

He has no idea who inside the BBC leaked the tape of his private conversation with Jon Sopel. (He teased Sopel, saying: ‘How much of your salary are you prepared to hand over to Carrie Gracie to keep her?’ and, in reference to his own pay-cuts claimed to have ‘handed over already more than you f****** earn’. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I’m still left with more than anybody else and that seems to me entirely just.’)

He tells me: ‘I have been doing this for a long time, you make friends but you make enemies, too. I don’t know who it was who leaked and I don’t want to find them and punish them. To hell with it — it is done.’

We meet at 9am just after the pips herald the end of another edition of Today. Humphrys has been up and working since 3.30am and has a morning of meetings ahead.

Since 1987, Humphrys has been the interrogator most feared by politicians, because of his command of his brief and refusal to accept humbug and waffle

He exits the studio chatting amiably with co-presenter Mishal Husain. ‘Mishal has been fantastic, very supportive. She is a wonderful person. And bloody good at her job, obviously. We get on terribly well,’ he says. ‘And the same applies to Sarah (Montague), too.’

We go for a coffee, which involves him staring at the office machine in bafflement, before losing two £1 coins in the slot and promising to write to the management about it. He is joking. I think!

Now that he is earning half of what he did, has he had to drastically change his lifestyle?

‘Not the slightest. I don’t have extravagances. I don’t spend very much money. Some of it goes into my charity obviously. I have got children and grandchildren and all that sort of thing. I just do what any father or grandfather with a bit of spare money would do.’

He has a son, Owen (now 17) from a relationship with radio presenter Valerie Sanderson, and a grown-up son and daughter from his first marriage. He remained on good terms with his first wife, Edna, and was at her bedside when she died of cancer in 1997.

His Kitchen Table Charities Trust has given away nearly £4 million and supports small charities across the world, including sanitation projects in Sub-Saharan Africa that give teenage girls dignity and privacy.

He lives modestly, albeit between three properties; a house in West London, a farm in Wales and a villa in Greece which he rents out, all proceeds going to the trust.

He doesn’t smoke, rarely drinks and hardly ever takes a holiday. ‘God, I am perfect!’ he cries. Every now and again he has an £18 haircut and, as he finds clothes-shopping a ‘total chore’, he wears hand-me-downs from the Mastermind wardrobe and his son’s old shoes. He likes to run on an Astroturf track, often with his eyes closed, and he hasn’t bought a new pair of trainers for 20 years. ‘Mine have a hole in them.’

Tamara Ecclestone he is not. His plastic watch is from his brother’s market stall in Dorset and he used to get his spectacles there, too.

For just over a year he’s been in a relationship with Sainsbury’s heiress Sarah Butler Sloss (53), whom he met when she lived a few doors down from his London home.

Humphrys says he has no idea who inside the BBC leaked the tape of his private conversation with Jon Sopel

‘She is wonderful,’ he says. ‘I like being in a relationship, of course, I do, but this job means you need a lot of time by yourself. You have to go to bed at half past eight. You have to read all the bloody newspapers. There is relatively little time for one’s private life.’

Is he a good boyfriend? This questions elicits a classic Derisive Snort from the master.

‘I don’t know what being a good boyfriend is, but I even like washing up, so that can’t be bad.’

For him, a perfect day would be walking on the cliffs of west Wales with Sarah, then going back to a meal in front of the fire. A book, the occasional pint of bitter, a home-made curry and he is happy.

Unlike his younger girlfriend, Humphrys is from working class stock. His father was a French polisher and when Humphrys became a foreign correspondent he would lie about how much he was making. ‘I think I’ve always felt slightly guilty at how much I earn. My father worked bloody harder than me every day of his life and I don’t think he would have believed the amount.’

Today, Humphrys feels fitter ‘than I did when I was 30’. He has been on the Today programme for three decades and is even allowing himself to think that in ‘ten years’ he might not still be behind the microphones.

‘A decade ago I would probably have said that I can’t imagine life without the Today programme, now I can, but…’

But what?

‘It would be difficult.’