C4 boss Andy Duncan tries to defend his pay scale

It seems some MPs, criticised from every corner for their exploitation of the parliamentary expenses system, are determined to get their own back at members of the media who they believe are overpaid and, down the years, have been just as adept at filling in expenses forms as they are.

It happened twice yesterday. As reported on The First Post, the veteran Scottish Labour politician George Foulkes - now Baron Foulkes of Cumnock - demanded to know of the BBC News 24 anchor Carrie Gracie what she earned. When she told him it was £92,000, he blustered on about she was being paid - "to talk nonsense" - almost twice what an MP receives. (Not true - MPs earn £64,000 plus, of course, expenses!)

And at a Culture Select Committee hearing to examine the proposed partnership between BBC Worldwide and Channel 4 - a tie-up designed to help C4 out of its current financial mess - MPs said that the rewards of the channel's top executives were "grossly excessive" given that the broadcaster was hoping for state support.

The MPs grilled C4's top team - including chairman Luke Johnson, chief executive Andy Duncan, and director of television Kevin Lygo - about the fact that 10 per cent of the channel staff were being paid more than £100,000 a year during a recession that had cost a quarter of the staff their jobs.

Duncan argued that the MPs were taking "an unfair view" of the situation. "We need good people to do the job," he said. "We have had a very strong creative and commercial period."

Both he and Lygo had taken voluntary pay cuts - but the figures were never going to impress the MPs. Duncan's annual package had been cut to £600,000 and Lygo's to £575,000.

Luke Johnson, trying to stick up for his boys, argued: "We are part of the private sector in the sense that we have to generate all our revenues in the market place. We fight to keep the best talent with ITV, Sky and others who pay significantly more than we do." ·