The Bank of England Governor is having a month to forget.
Andrew Bailey produced a PR clanger at the start of February by telling workers to moderate their pay demands despite spiralling prices - the wealthy telling others not to ask for more rarely works out well.
And those comments came back to haunt him yesterday as he faced questions about the controversial remarks and managed to create another round of furious headlines.
Before we look at his latest comments – and the backlash – let’s take you back to the beginning.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Bailey, whose salary is 18 times that of the average earner, suggested that hard-up workers should not ask for a big wage increase.
The comments, made as many begin to feel the ‘big squeeze’, were widely condemned as being ‘tone deaf’.
Not many stories manage to get the front page on both the Daily Star and the Financial Times. But Mr Bailey achieved this rare feat. The tabloid labelled him ‘The Plank of England’, while the Pink ‘Un reported he had been accused of pay rise hypocrisy.
It was also a story we featured during a recent episode of The Media Landscape podcast.
Host Julia Belle said at the time: “Bailey’s team would have hopefully sussed that the topic of pay rises was going to come up, and they would have known what his views on them was – not to ask for one.
“So, you would have hoped someone said ‘hang on, we need to prepare for this question’ because if you say that, it will look terrible and distract from all the other important message we need to get across.
“The wording of the message and the messenger himself were not thought through. And it shows in the backlash.”
The clear lesson from the saga was that the question should have been anticipated and a better response prepared – when you watch the clip, you can see even the journalist is surprised by the answer.
But that vital media training lesson about preparation does not appear to have been learnt.
Because during the governor’s next public appearance, he made similar mistakes.
Appearing before the Treasury Select Committee, Mr Bailey told MPs he can’t remember how much he is paid, got the country’s median salary wrong and struggled to answer a question about the average salary for a care worker.
Here’s the key, toe-curling exchange:
Angela Eagle MP: Can you tell me what the median annual pay was for a full-time employee in the last period – to April 2021?
Bailey: Median annual pay – I think it is somewhere in the sort of upper £20,000 range.
Eagle: £31,285. Can you tell me what the median care worker wage was during the same period?
Bailey: I know it is considerably lower. I can’t tell you exactly what it is, I’m afraid.
Eagle: £9.01 an hour and 77 per cent of care workers are paid below the Living Wage Foundation Rate. What was your pay over the same period?
Bailey: Substantially higher.
Eagle: What was it, governor?
Bailey: It is somewhere over £500,000. I can’t tell you exactly what it was. I don’t carry that around in my head.
Eagle: I think, including pension, £575,538. Without pension £477,000. That’s how many more times.
Bailey: Substantially more. It is substantially more, I know that.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said there were clear inflation risks. According to forecasts, it will peak at a 30-year high of around 7.25% in April when a 54% rise in regulated household energy bills takes effect https://t.co/AG3E3e02Fr pic.twitter.com/0KD3iUmcHf
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 23, 2022
Unsurprisingly, this has led to another round of damaging headlines:
Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey admits he CAN'T REMEMBER how much he is paid as MPs slam call for workers to rein in inflation by shunning big wage hikes (hint: It's £575,000 a year) Daily Mail
PAY DISMAY Wealthy Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey 'can't remember' how much he gets paid The Sun
'What's your pay, governor?': BoE's Bailey chided over wages talk Reuters
'I don't know how much I'm paid' Bank governor tells MPsThe Times
Fury as Bank of England boss admits he 'can't remember' his £575,000 salary LBC
Mr Bailey and those who advise him must have anticipated his pay rise comments would be raised during this session. They surely realised he would be in for a grilling.
Yet, he seemed poorly prepared again.
And his struggles with questions about average pay and his salary add to the impression he is out of touch.
Most people not only know their salary but also how much they have left to get through to the next payday. So, saying he does not carry this information in his head does him few favours in the court of public opinion.
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It sounds and feels insulting. A bit of a slap in the face. Who else could afford to forget about £75,000 of their salary?
Instead of being so evasive, why not be honest about his salary and then point out it is substantially less than that of his predecessor?
But the other crucial media training lesson from this is that the continued struggles around his pay is becoming a significant distraction and is taking focus away from everything else he says.
He needs to be better prepared when he next talks to journalists or appears before a committee because the issue seems unlikely to go away.
And perhaps he shouldn't ask for a pay rise any time soon.
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