No sympathy for Ross, Brand

I have, reluctantly, decided to comment on this stupid, infantile story as I feel that no one is really thinking of the little people in the media sandstorm Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand have whipped up. Their careers will, undoubtedly, get back on track but it is the like of Lesley Douglas (the now resigned former Controller of BBC Radio 2) who has bitten the bullet. This whole saga is unedifying and, as I read in one of today’s newspapers, the BBC now has to decide whether to keep or let go of Ross.

JR is, unquestionably, one of the top broadcasters in the UK. But Mark Lammarr, Stuart Maconie, Sir Terry Wogan, Jeremy Vine and Steve Wright are all just as capable at radio 2. These presenters have large audiences. Wogan has literally millions of listeners and why should anyone, including the BBC, treat Ross any different?

I was once sacked from an unpaid position and if that was my fate, shouldn’t an overpaid broadcaster, someone with responsibilities to those they broadcast to, face the same punitive action? Is Ross above reproach? Well I don’t know many people who are paid £16,000 a day for what amounts to piss-taking.

This story isn’t worth commenting on at length – everyone from left-wing historians (Tristram Hunt) to right-wing ex-tabloid editors (Kelvin McKenzie) has made known their views. But it is as much to do with justice and fairness that in these times of recession and belt tightening (ouch!) the obscenity of bank rolling such ‘stars’ exists. The legacy of this sorry episode will rest on Ross/Brand’s paymasters and why these two celebrities are so royally paid.

The lesson should be: No one is beyond censure. Not Russell Brand and certainly not Jonathan Ross. Indeed both these jokers, at this moment in time, could probably buy and sell half of Africa. Andrew Sachs has had to suffer an insult from two of the best known broadcasters in Britain. This would be compounded if Ross were allowed to stay at the beeb. He should be booted!