Janet Street-Porter
A former editor of The Independent on Sunday, Janet Street-Porter is now the paper’s editor-at-large. As a journalist and broadcaster she has had an innovative and groundbreaking career in television, creating programmes for the BBC, Channel 4 and LWT, for which she has won a Bafta and the Prix Italia. She is also vice president of the Rambler’s Association.
Editor-At-Large: Graduates leave with more debts than knowledge
On Friday I attended a moving ceremony in Maidstone. Hundreds of graduates of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and social backgrounds patiently queued up to receive their degrees from the University of Creative Arts, where the pass rate is a highly commendable 92 per cent.
Recently by Janet Street-Porter
Editor-At-Large: Superior BBC bosses take the biscuit over pay
Sunday, 28 June 2009
I can't waste energy getting worked up about BBC executives claiming for parking meters, bunches of flowers, hotel rooms and taxis – it's their smug sense of superiority that makes me nauseous. Pushed into revealing the pay and expenses of their top staff, we were told it was because the corporation is now being run in a more transparent way. Actually, it was because licence-payers and journalists asked hundreds of questions under the Freedom of Information Act.
Editor-At-Large: The class rift at the heart of the expenses debacle
Sunday, 21 June 2009
I laughed and laughed when a hapless MP moaned last week about the hypocrisy of journalists attacking MPs for creative work with their expenses. Well, if only I could claim that my work for this newspaper required my Aga being serviced or my garden weeded, and that charity wreaths, comedy wigs, flapjacks and hair straighteners were essential to carrying out my duties, I'd be thrilled. If I could charge for food against tax, you'd all be invited round on a rotating basis. Even now, MPs just don't get it, do they? On the radio on Friday, someone was trying to justify the expenses debacle by waffling, "They work in a palace, so this kind of grand behaviour has just rubbed off on them." I'm sure that the Queen's footmen can't claim for duck ponds, second homes or crisps, so that argument clearly doesn't wash. Another commentator called it "a sickness" – well, it's a pretty attractive disease that's got them a lot of property, big tellies, and a grandiose sense of their own importance.
Editor-At-Large: Hard-up mums need to work, but kids pay dearly
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Cameron Diaz says the planet is over-populated, and there's too much pressure on women to have children. She's right: I've managed four ex-husbands, a long-suffering partner, no kids and no pets, but deep down, I've always felt I made a selfish choice. My reasons, though, were very different from hers. There was never any question of having a family and a career when I started out, so I made a tough decision. I would never have got this far if I'd decided to breed, taken time off, and tried to combine motherhood with long hours.
Janet Street-Porter: Mixing politics and business turns off voters
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Perhaps Gordon Brown should take a look at the furore surrounding the antics of irrepressible Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and ask himself whether it was such a clever idea to bring Sir Alan Sugar into government. Not because Sir Alan surrounds himself with topless models, or cavorts with gorgeous female television weathergirls when he isn't being brutal on The Apprentice, but because events in Italy prove that mixing politics and the cut-throat attitude you need to run a thriving business causes nothing but trouble and turns off voters.
Editor-At-Large: Supermarkets lop a penny off, then ring up millions
Sunday, 7 June 2009
What recession? If you want to make money, invest in a supermarket. Last week Morrisons shares rose after they reported a sales increase of 8.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Tesco increased sales by 10 per cent over the past year, delivering a record £3.13bn profit. Sainsbury's profits were up 11.3 per cent to £543m, which means their boss takes home about £6m in pay and bonuses. And, even though Marks and Spencer's profits plummeted by 40 per cent to £604m, which meant shareholders get a reduced dividend, it turns out that directors will still receive bonuses of 11.25 per cent of their salaries, even when profits fall 10 per cent below internal targets. If they only manage to achieve these targets, and don't do really well and exceed them, executives can still trouser a whopping 45 per cent of their basic salaries! Even more incredible, the chap M&S hired to run their food division, dismissed after a mere 112 days in the job, took home more than a million quid, including his "golden hello" of £500,000.
Janet Street-Porter: 'Jeopardy' – television's crack cocaine
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
I only tuned into to the last 10 minutes of the Britain's Got Talent final, and even that tiny bit of blood sport made me feel extremely guilty. Surprising really, as I've created and produced quite a bit of television, and appeared in reality shows, starting with I'm a Celebrity... in 2004.
Editor-At-Large: Jail is pointless for Baby P's callous mother
Sunday, 24 May 2009
"Dear Judge," she snivelled, "by not being fully open with the social workers, I stopped them from being able to do a full job. As a direct result of this my son got hurt and sadly lost his short life. I am truly sorry."
I'd make a lousy MP – and so would Esther
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Janet Street-Porter: It's flattering when members of the public suggest you enter politics but I'm too much of an egomaniac - as is Esther Rantzen.
Editor-At-Large: Of course we're angry, but opting out is no answer
Sunday, 17 May 2009
It was unforgettable television. I haven't seen such baying for blood since Russell Crowe faced jeering Romans in Gladiators. This normally well-mannered audience was shouting, heckling, clearly incandescent. The tide has turned, and they have had enough. My experience of appearing on the BBC's Question Time has been one of struggling to get a word in edgeways between MPs reciting from pre-memorised notes. After last week's edition, things will never be the same. Quite simply, the public fought back. The victims (sorry, panellists) consisted of the chap who runs McDonald's in the UK (representing the voice of reason), Teresa May, Margaret Beckett, Ming Campbell (representing the misunderstood victims) and a surprisingly un-bumptious Ben Brogan from The Daily Telegraph (representing the enemy).
Janet Street-Porter: Time to give the rich a dose of reality
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Elizabeth Hurley refers to "civilians". We might prefer "them and us". Events of the past few days reinforce the notion that two parallel versions of life co-exist in modern Britain. Tax-payers and tax-fiddlers. The portico, pool and paddock people, and the rest of us. Wealthy men who think they're always right and everyone else is stupid.
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