The Greens got very worked up yesterday about Guido’s exclusive story that the party only paid one of their ‘co-leaders’, Jonathan Bartley, whilst Sian Berry got nothing from the party. Typical of the responses was from Jenny Jones, the Green Baroness tweeted that

“Sian has a full time job, Jon doesn’t. We Greens are not greedy. Hard to understand, isn’t it??”

Very noble, and it is fair to say that Sian is paid generously by the rate payers of Camden where she is a councillor and London where she is an Assembly member. Her co-leadership of the Green Party is the third of her part-time jobs.

Jenny and others owe Guido an apology because the co-leadership of the Green Party is the third of Jonathan’s part-time jobs too. He is paid a 5-figure allowance by the rate payers of Lambeth for being a councillor and will receive extra by virtue of being leader of the opposition on Lambeth Council. So his co-leadership is the third of his part-time jobs too. Except he is paid and she is not for “co-leading” the Green Party.

If Jonathan and Sian are both genuine co-leaders, both with two ratepayer paid elected positions, why is only one paid for their leadership of the Green Party? Academic research suggests that the gender pay-gap is often because men are more aggressive when it comes to pay negotiations. The inequality in pay implies Jonathan is the real (paid) leader of the party and Sian is just an unpaid fig-leaf for spin purposes. Otherwise why aren’t they paid equally for their equal work as the law insists they should be?