This week, the BBC has been thrust into the awkward position of reporting on itself. The story is hardly flattering to the public service broadcaster. Payroll details, which the BBC was forced to disclose as part of its new Royal Charter agreement, showed that only a third of its highest-paid staff are women, that the seven highest earners are all men, and that the highest-paid man makes about four times as much as the best-paid woman.

For a public corporation that often investigates inequity in business and government, these are ugly headlines. The BBC still performs better than average but that is not saying much. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons the average pay gap between men and women in the UK is 18 per cent.

PwC UK, for example, pays its female workers 14 per cent less than their male counterparts, according to company disclosures. The gap at Schroders, the asset manager, is 33 per cent. The US does not do much better. By one analysis, the gap at the White House has tripled since President Trump came to office, with female staffers earning just 63 cents for every male dollar. The differential at national level is 17 per cent.