Criticism
Paxman has been publicly criticised over his and his partner's home help arrangements. Having advertised on a Romanian website, they hired two people at below minimum wage without a written contract. While this is not illegal in the UK if employees live in, Paxman, known for grilling interviewees on workers' rights issues, was criticised when his employees went public, claiming to have been paid "the bare minimum".
Paxman's controversial remarks about the Scots have provoked anger at parliamentary level. Twenty Scottish Members of Parliament signed a House of Commons motion in March 2005 condemning him for comparing supposed Scottish dominance at Westminster to British rule in India: a "Scottish Raj" was running the UK, said Paxman. The row came right after a Cabinet minister had complained that the Newsnight host had been offensive about his Glasgow accent. Paxman's response served further to fan the flames. In an introduction to a new edition of Chambers Dictionary in August 2008 Paxman labelled the work of Scotland's national poet Robert Burns as "sentimental doggerel." Paxman himself is quarter-Scottish through his maternal grandmother, a fact which he stated has led to many of his comments being misunderstood as he regards the Scots "with affection".
Paxman has been widely condemned as disrespectful when commented in an absurd way the possible exit of Greece from the Eurozone ('like bad kebab vomiting") on 31 May 2012 edition of Newsnight. He received many angry messages from the audience on Twitter and other media accusing him for racist and inappropriate stereotypical analogies
Paxman has been criticised by John Pilger for his involvement with the British-American Project.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)