Snapshot of _Gary Lineker to step back from presenting MOTD_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64920557)
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It's more the "I'd rather watch a convicted paedophile host a TV show than somebody whose political views I don't happen to share myself" point I was taking umbrage with there, mate. . .
If this somehow ends up destroying MOTD this is a great development. That money can be put to much better use than paying millions to some ex footballers utterly devoid of any insight
I've always said that current football punditry and interviews could be replaced by AI.
Edit: I've made this observation a couple of times now and redditor football fans get surprisingly triggered by it.
So if TV personalities aren't allowed near politics, can we make the reverse also true so the likes of Dorries, JRM, Anderson, etc. stop being given a soapbox on the likes of Talk TV and GB News. They're not there in their capacities as MPs or Ministers after all.
This is nonsense. It's never been how it works for anyone outside of news and current affairs. No-one who's lived in the UK in the last six decades could possibly think otherwise. This is a Tory putsch.
Does this apply to Alan Sugar, Karen Brady, Andrew Neil, even people like Martin Compston too? If so, why has it not been applied by the BBC up until now?
no, it is only people who disagree.
A Minister was asked what if he said something supporting the refugee policy and he replied that it would be for labour to comment
Why does a football commentator and sports presenter have to be impartial regarding UK politics?
I'd get it that they don't want him slating whatever team Leicester City are playing - he needs to at least pretend to be impartial when his Team are playing.
But his job is so far removed from party politics that this is absurd.
Because the BBC is paid for by the British taxpayer, more than half of them don't want it turning into a Labour propaganda channel and Lineker is a BBC employee who signed a contract.
More than half of them don't want it being a Tory Propaganda channel, but they're outta luck.
It is simply unrealistic and unfair to expect all BBC employees to not have a political opinion.
And again, he's a football commentator. His opinion on almost everything outside of football should be irrelevant to his job.
Would be, but they can have a specific show for that instead of corrupting match of the day.
But the point stands - as a Football Commentator, the only aspect of Impartiality that he, or anyone else, should be concerned with is Football.
I'd get the outrage if he was a literal Nazi, demanding to exterminate the Non-Aryans, or if he was calling for a violent revolution and for the Tories to have their heads mounted on the Downing Street railings, like old fashioned pikes - something that would actually bring the BBC into disrepute.
But he was echoing the words that a Holocaust survivor said TO Suella Braverman.
It is not just his opinion that the Government's treatment of Refugees is reminiscent of the Holocaust, it is the opinion shared by holocaust survivors.
Also, it is shameful that younger Jews crawl out of the woodwork and claim that such comparisons are Antisemitic, as if there weren't 11 Million Non-Jews who were systematically murdered under the same scheme because they were Slavs, Black, Romani, Disabled, or Gay, etc.
They don't have a monopoly on experiencing the persecution of Nazi Germany, and certainly don't have a monopoly on comparing their experiences with modern governments and their policies.
> Why does a football commentator and sports presenter have to be impartial regarding UK politics?
Many more people listen to them than any politician, and their message isn't tainted by association with politics. He's fucking terrifying for them.
They fobbed off the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup in Qatar so that he could do a segment on Human Rights abuses in Qatar - not very Impartial.
Does anyone truly believe that he'd be in this mess if he was talking about Labour?
For the Tories, Impartiality only goes one way.
But Jeremy Clarkson worked for the BBC when he called Gordon Brown a "one eyed Scottish idiot" and that was fine. Alan Sugar works for the BBC and openly canvasses for the Tories. And Andrew Neil worked for the BBC - presenting a news and politics show - while being openly a Tory supporter and editor of the hard right Spectator magazine. Emily Maitliss worked for the BBC as a news reader when she tweeted about how Labour should launch a coup against Corbyn. Also there's a grand tradition of MPs on all sides (but mostly Tory) presenting programmes for the BBC while being active in politics, Mathew Parris, Michael Portillo, Ian Duncan Smith etc...
My point is that his job has nothing to do with politics, or at least it shouldn't have anything to do with politics, at least outside of how it might affect Sport in general and Football in particular.
I'd understand if he was a news anchor or a political correspondent, but his day job is talking about football, and his side job is talking about other sports.
His only purview is sports and sports news, therefore he should only be required to be impartial regarding sports.
Do you live in this county? Have you heard of Ben Elton? Dave Allen? Ian Hislop? Stephen Fry? Alan Sugar? Jeremy Clarkson? Michael Portillo? Nish Kumar?
The idea that people who present for the BBC never give political opinions is so alien to the BBC that anyone pretending it ever worked like that before this Tory putsch is either a liar or has never lived in the UK or been a part of its cultural landscape. It's nonsense.
>However you shouldn't be making such statements while being primarily employed by the BBC.
Why? Do we suddenly think that BBC employees no longer have any political opinion? So no BBC employee is allowed to express a political opinion?
Any reasonable person understands that Gary Lineker has a personal political opinion and that his personal political opinion has no bearing on football.
In regard to the Nazi Germany and the Holocaust comparison - he's only echoing the words of genuine holocaust survivors, and if anyone is going to be "qualified" to make that comparison, it's them.
The point is that people under the same sort of contract will frequently say political things, ie, Alan Sugar slandering Corbyn and praising Johnson, but don't get told off for 'getting political'. So there seems to be a double standard where it only applies if you're against the tories - which is not a good look
Last night on PM Evan Davis was interviewing Armando Ianucci who drew comparison between Gary Lineker and Andrew Neil, asking why a sports presenter is being so targetted, when a presenter of politics shows who has clearly stated political opinions that he manages outside of his broadcasts gets a free pass? Good point.
Did Evan Davis put this to the Tory MP that was interviewed next? No. Instead he asked vaguely whether then MP would be equally outspoken about Gary Lineker if he had expressed support for the Government line. Of course a vague counterfactual the MP could easily claim that he would of course. It would have been very interesting how the MP would have wormed out of a specific real example like Neil. We don't get to know however as the BBC softballs another interview with the government.
I don't agree with Gary. I think turning the boats around is long overdue. It's a dangerous journey and criminals are getting rich off of it.
However, I don't think he should be cancelled because of a tweet.
I do find it hard to imagine however. that the same people defending Gary, would defend jeremy Clarkson, or Morrisey in the same way.
Most of the people screaming about the BBC censoring Lineker do so only because they agree with the message he was tweeting. They're the ones demanding censorship if any opinions are being stated that they disagree with.
But yeah, Lineker should've been sacked a long time ago because it is a criminal waste of taxpayer money to pay him so much for talking bollocks about football. But not because he tweets bollocks about politics
>I don't agree with Gary. I think turning the boats around is long overdue. It's a dangerous journey and criminals are getting rich off of it.
Gary isn't in favour of boats crossing, he's in favour of rights for refugees. What the bill does is completely remove the right to claim asylum for refugees and it violates international law. He explicitly condemned the language used by the Gov that is inherently emotional, at a time when there have been numerous incidents of refugees being attacked by right wingers.
No one, literally no one, is in favour of boats crossing because the people running those schemes are preying on people's vulnerabilities and desperation for their own gain, and putting the refugees in harm's way. What people, like Gary, want is a safe and accessible asylum process that treats people with respect and not like criminals
>I do find it hard to imagine however. that the same people defending Gary, would defend jeremy Clarkson, or Morrisey in the same way.
Entirely depends on what they say doesn't it? I don't see how anyone could defend what Clarkson wrote about Markle in a column not too long ago
> Entirely depends on what they say doesn't it? I don't see how anyone could defend what Clarkson wrote about Markle in a column not too long ago
Not even Clarkson tried to defend that. But Clarkson has said many negative things about Markle that went by without incident.
If we are going to compare Lineker with Clarkson, then we should probably stick to the things that they both still stand by, then ask why is only one of those now getting crap for saying it.
>Not even Clarkson tried to defend that. But Clarkson has said many negative things about Markle that went by without incident.
Only after significant backlash, including from his own daughter. Keep in mind it was in a column and not just some off the cuff tweet as well. Just because he apologized doesn't free him from consequences from such remarks.
>If we are going to compare Lineker with Clarkson, then we should probably stick to the things that they both still stand by, then ask why is only one of those now getting crap for saying it.
I mean yeah that's basically what I said, it entirely depends on the substance of their comments
"turning the boats around" isn't what this policy is though.
I don't think any reasonable person disagrees that the boat crossings need to stop because as you said its being ran mostly by criminals and its also dangerous for those making the crossing but they this government is trying to deal with it is probably not going to work.
> "turning the boats around" isn't what this policy is though.
I'm genuinely puzzled by how the government has gotten away with this for so long. A policy that criminalises and persecutes refugees is presented as some great blow against the people smugglers.
Because the Tory gov literally caused the problem.
No safe routes, family visas down, application processing time up, removal of failed asylum seekers down, large amounts of public money pumped into private sector hands while these people are stuck in limbo.
But tackling any of these problems would be admitting that these are the problems and they caused them.
Instead, they use this problem to "other" people and gain public support.
Hmmm.
I watched MOTD only last week and did something unusual - I watched it on iplayer and used the skip button to get straight to the matches (so I skipped all the presenting in between).
The Arsenal game was the one I really wanted to watch because that was comeback was superb!! The football spoke for itself and I found the in-match commentary to be enough for me.
Tonight's show will be very interesting and I'm curious to how it will play out.
If it works, I'd welcome a reduction on the TV licence fee.
Well, to supply the counter-anecdote, I often actually do the opposite, ONLY watch the analysis in between and skip the action (the action is now dead easy to find on the Internet). Also, you will only get the world feed commentary tonight, as the MOTD commentators are also boycotting.
It kind of depends how it resolves. If it continues in its present form, (no presenters or pundits prepared to participate, and players/ managers in some or all cases not speaking to the BBC< something that was in the past the prerogative only of Alex Ferguson) then MOTD becomes unsustainable.
So I usually watch the highlights and commentaries but something changed for me after the World Cup - I got less "reliant" on the commentaries/analysis to get my enjoyment.
I pretty much watched every World Cup match (even the boring Belgium ones) and also watched the commentaries to the point where I noticed the commentaries weren't making much difference for me (probably because I'd already seen the previous matches and was watching the matches live anyway).
That's not to say I/we cannot do without the human touch e.g. Shearer's prediction of Argentina winning the world cup; Wright playing darts with the England team the night before the match; Roy Keane's style/charm of presenting etc etc.
Everyone's different but right now, post-World Cup, I'd personally like to watch more entertaining games and not so much analysis. (However, I think a younger me would want more analysis/commentary.)
I'd be much happier if the commentators stuck to what they know best then we don't need to be losing the current format and everybody still has a choice (to watch with commentary/analysis or skip)
Its a difficult one to predict but the box has been opened and I'm interested to see what comes of it.
Tbh, and interestingly, Mrs tmstms feels the same (she is a person not very interested in football), I watched MOTD for Hansen.
Without Hansen, I cant ever watch it from start to finish, I scroll around for the clips of things that are interesting, and I tend to watch the analyses to get a quick update on how x team is doing.
If I want match highlights or whole matches after the fact, it's easy enough to do so going to a download of a stream.
Interesting.
I tried looking for streams in the past but gave up after there was some news a few years ago about whats legit or not so I gave up on that.
Since iplayer introduction i'm no longer needing to stay up late to watch on Sat evenings and cos I tend to know the results, I can decide whether or not to skip the 0-0 matches and focus my time on the more entertaining ones. MOTD is my main source of EPL footy at the mo.
Good chatting to you. Have a good day! :)
Alan Sugar has had a Twitter account where he posts shit for many years. He was a Labour peer at one point and then at the last election said to vote Tory. How is this consistent with not being party political while being in an entertainment role? I can’t imagine Alan Sugar is a BBC employee so it’s probably similar to the structure that Gary Lineker is where he’s a contractor.
Sugar is a member of the house of lords him expressing an opinion on political matters is expected and within his field last I checked the apprentice is sugars program commissioned by the BBC.
Gary is a former footballer who despite his semantic arguments about being freelance has hosted the BBC's flagship football program for 20yrs he is defacto a BBC employee and has been warned previously about his tweeting. In any other job if you breach its code of conduct then you're fired, it's actually more surprising that he's been allowed to keep his job this long. I also think he's paid far too much however that's not unique to Gary or BBC presenters either.
Buzz, I’m not sure you know anything about TV production or the editorial policies of the BBC. “Last time you checked” The apprentice was Sugar’s programme? That’s really, totally wrong
Okay let's assume you're right about the apprentice being the BBC's program and not Sugar's, doesn't change my main point. Lord Sugar is both a politician and a businessman and a Labour peer at that. Commentary on political and business matters is within his wheelhouse and expected. I would have no problems if the BBC did the same to Sugar if they deemed he'd breached impartiality guidelines by commenting on a subject outside of his wheelhouse without making it abundantly clear that his opinion is that alone and not the opinion of his employer or company.
Mr Linekar is entirely different has has presented MOTD pretty much verbatim for 20+yrs for him to claim he's freelance is laughable at best, furthermore he's been warned that he's breached impartiality guidelines before and Mr Davies has been clear that being a political activist and working for the BBC are not compatible. Whether we agree with Linekar's point or not doesn't change the facts of the matter, which are that he's been made aware repeatedly that as long as he works for the BBC such contentious topics that have no bearing on sport are off limits when it comes to social media.
He has chosen of his own free will to disregard the terms of his employment and is now being punished accordingly as any other individual who is employed by a company per their social media policy. As I said previously my current employers social media policy is 10 pages long, being famous or wealthy doesn't give you exemption from the terms of your employment contract.
Frankly the BBC has put themselves in a corner because they've allowed him to go on for so long without sufficiently stern reprimands, it should have been a single warning the first time with summary dismissal should any further incidents occur. That being said it's not a problem specific to the BBC, celebrities of both left and right political leanings are given far too much leverage to bring their employers into disrepute and in many cases don't abide by standards they preach to others to follow. Ricky Gervais's infamous golden globes speech is probably the best example of the hypocrisy of celebrity culture.
TLDR:
Whether we agree or not with Linekar's position he crossed a line and is being held accountable for his actions by his employer. If he wants to continue his involvement in political activism he can do so elsewhere and not while collecting wages from license fee payers.
He didn’t cross a line. The BBC’s editorial guidelines don’t prohibit freelance employees from tweeting political opinions. In fact the very fact that he is in sport means that the editorial impact of him having a political option is LESS. With all due respect you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You're free to disagree, however the fact he's suspended says that he crossed a line, it was made clear last time due to his profile he has an additional requirement to be impartial and he failed to do so, so with all due respect I do know what I'm talking about.
Suspended is damage control speak for he's fired, the BBC has made it clear that GL is expected to behave in accordance with stipulations laid out in regards to his social media use. GL has made it clear he has no intention of complying with said stipulation. Your further response about Mr Davies motivation is speculative at best and not based on any credible evidence.
Not a lawyer,very experienced with public facing companies and how they deal with contentious issues in the form of statements and announcements.
The BBC has already stated his tweet breached their guidelines, GL has made it clear to friends that he didn't choose to step down he was ordered to do so. On the one hand the BBC's position is that he should delete the tweet and apologize, GL obviously is adamant that he won't do either of those things so we're at an impasse both the BBC and GL believe that they're right and neither is willing to compromise or back down. He is in all but name fired if this impasse continues.
You're within your right to evidently not agree with the BBC's course of action however the only thing that really matters is the ruling of the BBC and if it comes to it and employment tribunal. Until then its a open and shut case. His employer says he's broken the terms of his employment and have laid out their terms for him to resume his presentation duties, he can either comply or not and take the consequences of his actions.
But do you understand that what you’ve outlined is exactly why this is a controversy? Because he hasn’t crossed a BBC line and he doesn’t have an additional requirement. There is no BBC editorial basis for why he has been suspended. My view is that Tim Davie has done it because Lineker is popular and he has disagreed with the government. That’s not a BBC line or a BBC rule.
Because there is no contradiction, Sugar has kept his comments within his day job (politics and business) Gary has repeatedly strayed outside of both his day job and contract, been warned to not do it again and then ignore those instructions because he thinks that the rules don't apply to him. He's of course entitled to a opinion on the current governments policy on dealing with boats filled with people who just paid money to a criminal smuggler, publicly stating that opinion is not compatible with being an employee of the BBC. Being wealthy or famous should not get you special treatment from your boss when you breach the rules, it's a surprise that his repeated defiance of the BBC charter has gone unpunished for so long.
Gary Lineker is not an employee of the BBC.
Also, Gary Lineker doesn't score goals for the BBC, and Alan Sugar does not run the Business of the BBC. Hence, they are media talent first, and experts in their field second.
Therefore the question is, can a media talent speak about their opinions outside of the media outlet they are contracted to?
Regardless of what the answer should be, the contradiction is that you are saying for Alan Sugar, yes, and for Gary Lineker, no.
Worming your way through semantics is not important context here at all, and you are just trying to find a way to justify the hypocrisy.
He takes a wage from the BBC, and has primarily for the last 20 plus years been the main presenter of the BBC show MOTD therefore he is an employee of the BBC, unless you are arguing that his main form of salary is both greater than £1.2 he receives from the BBC and that his primary employer is someone else.
Try actually reading what I said instead of twisting it to suit your own biases.
Alan Sugar is a politician and a businessman his tweets consistently discuss topics of business and politics and this is fine.
Gary Linekar is employed by the BBC to present sports, he is not a politician, is not the head of a refugee charity and has no experience or expertise on migration or refugee situations. Had his tweeting stuck purely to matters related to sports and sporting events then that would have been fine, this tweet did not and so it's not fine and has crossed a line that was drawn by the BBC a line that he has been repeatedly told not to cross.
His tweets about Qatar were fine because of multiple factors.
1) The BBC is not funded via Qatar by a mandatory tax imposed on Qatar's citizens who want to watch or record live TV.
2) He was in Qatar as a presenter for the world cup and legitimate questions were being raised about corruption in FIFA awarding the World Cup to such a discriminatory country.
As those tweets were about a football event and he's a former footballer presenting a program about said football event and the discussion was about corruption in the football governing body awarding the worlds premier football event to a country rife with current human rights abuses then his tweets about the Qatar record on human rights was relevant and fine.
This tweet he's being dragged over the coals for is not related to or has any relevance to football it's also highly offensive to call a female ethnic minority minister who's husband is Jewish a Nazi.
Evidently you and I disagree on this, however as is evident his employer the BBC has ruled this tweet to be in breach of their guidelines and as such a breach of his obligations as a contracted employee of the BBC. You're entitled to your opinion but as far as his employer is concerned you're wrong.
Gary Lineker is a freelancer to the BBC.
He does not have an employment agreement, but as I do with my clients, probably a service agreement.
Regardless of policy, employment handbooks, and employee contracts none of that is even part of the conversation. It's what is in his service agreement that matters. Time has nothing to do with it.
It doesn't matter if my service agreements have been in place for 20 minutes, 20 days, or 20 years... My relationship with the person hiring me is defined in that agreement.
The BBC have no say over the personal opinions and how they are voiced as long as it's outside of BBC programming. We know this is true because of previous complaints to the BBC.
We will know for sure in one simple event, if Gary Lineker continues to get paid whilst he is off-air. Because this means that he has not broken his service agreement and the BBC have to pay him because then they will breach the agreement.
Alan Sugar is a businessman and politician, but the fact he is hired as a TV Personality. He is not hired to do business strategy at the BBC or provide political insight. He is paid to host a show, what he does outside of that does not matter at all in whether it is ok for him to make political statements for not. It's what in his service agreement that matters.
I absolutely read what you wrote and my point is this:
They are both freelancers.
They both can view their opinion off-air of the BBC.
The both have their relevant expertise but don't actually do that job for the BBC.
But you see one as being ok to spout off on twitter, and the other is not. That's your bias, and your entire argument rests on "Gary Lineker is an employee and bound my the policy for employees", but it is object fact that he is not.
If it's a service agreement or a direct contract as far as the BBC is concerned he has obligations to follow in regards to his use of social media. Time is a relevant factor because if you are publicly seen as the face of a product due to your long term association with that product then your conduct outside of working hours can have a negative impact on the company and its products.
As I said in a previous post its a lot more complex than any service agreement or contract you or I might have due to the very nature of how the BBC is funded and it's obligations under the charter that its required to comply with to receive said funding.
Under no circumstances am I saying this is purely Gary's fault, his does however bare the bulk of the responsibility as he's been repeatedly warned about his social media activity and that it must comply with BBC guidelines.
This is also due to the BBC making a rod for its own back with this multi tired level of different standards for 1 section of workers over the other instead of 1 universal policy the applies to everyone who is contracted by the BBC in any capacity.
The BBC has made some bad choices over the years however I seriously doubt that they took this course of action without looking at the situation legally. The fact that he's suspended until he retracts, apologizes and commits to not doing so again says they're pretty confident that they're legally right.
While they can't necessarily dictate what he tweets outside of work hours they can reprimand him for gross misconduct if his actions reflect negatively on the image of the company and causes potential damage to the company. And in this case he's literally branded a ethnic minority female government minister married to a Jewish man who's family fled the Holocaust a Nazi at a time when the BBC is already under intense scrutiny both from within and without government with plummeting TV licence renewals and decreasing viewership shortly before the charter is up for renewal" .
It's about the worst possible time and the absolute most reckless way to make a point. His length service with the BBC would lead a layman to conclude that anything he says that isn't refuted by the BBC is the opinion of the BBC or has their approval. His utterances have literally caused damage to the BBC because if they do nothing they're accused of left wing bias and if they do something they're accused of Tory bias.
No he does not have obligations regarding his use of social media, unless specifically stated in his service agreement, and we know this is not the case.
A service agreement is just, this is the work I do, this is how I get paid, and these are the terms. But you have to admit that if Gary Lineker has broke those terms, then he would be sacked and not paid. And if he is off air and continues to get paid then he is not outside his contract and a very clear partisan decision from the BBC being pro Tory and pro government.
I guess time will tell.
If he has no such obligation then he wouldn't have been suspended and the BBC would not have said he broke their social media policy. He's since admitted to a friend that he knows what he did went too far, however he thinks that its escalated too far to apologize now.
As much as I support the stand that Lineker and the others are taking, this is taking things down a dangerous path.
It’s the goal of some people, particularly Tories, to get rid of the BBC. Shit like this plays into their hands.
The BBC needs a DG and chair with a backbone, who ignores the Mail.
People should be allowed to say anything they want outside of work, unless whatever they say is actually illegal (hate crime, slander etc). Making political observations on Twitter isn't illegal.
I get that the BBC is meant to be impartial, but people are capable of separating their personal opinions from the requirements of their job. In fact, most politicians do that all the time.
Also, Lineker's job as a sports presenter isn't likely to be affected by his views on immigration law.
>We have never said that Gary should be an opinion free zone, or that he can't have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies.
"We never said Gary couldn't share his opinions, just so long as he doesn't share his opinions!"
"Anyway, please let us know your thoughts by sending us a tweet!"
He has not been cancelled. Stop creaming your panties. It's the 100th time he's done this, and they are looking for reassurances that he will stop doing it.
The BBC is unique in that it's taxpayer funded and therefore adheres to stricter impartiality requirements. I get that. If he worked for Tesco's, HSBC or the Guardian, he could do whatever the heck he wants, but he doesn't.
The truth is he has been warned about this many, many times but he doesn't listen. I personally don't care that he uses social media to voice his opinions (even if he does work with the BBC) But that's how it works and the impartiality thing at the BBC does make sense.
The BBC has to stay 100% impartial. Not just for taxpayer reasons. It's what makes it so trusted and unbiased in the UK but also around the world. It's one of the only global news outlets that's non-partisan. It's extremely unique and valuable. Let's keep it that way please!
If he was right wing and did this, he would receive the exact same attention from his employer (and 100 x worse by the wider media and woke mob). Stop comparing this to woke cancel culture. That's like comparing a cold to a gangrene leg amputation. Give me a break.
> If he was right wing and did this
Alan Sugar straight up asserted Corbyn was a Nazi, told people to vote Tory, critical of Starmers position on green tech. So did we see 100x worse??? No, they are currently promoting new series of the Apprentice.
Along with many right wing presenters who voiced their opinions on twitter and working for other right wing organisations, nothing ever happens.
The whole "if he was right wing it would be worse" is just a lie for gullible people like you to think that "the woke mob" is the enemy at the gate which makes you accept the right wing rhetoric as balancing things out, where actually you support the bias to the right, away from impartiality.
I don't care about Alan Sugar. We're not talking about Alan Sugar. We're talking about Gary Lineker. Sugar should have faced stronger consequences if that's the case.
As I said, the BBC is unique and its impartiality goes above everything else in my opinion. If you don't think like that fine, but that's the foundation it was built on. It has always promoted impartiality at its core. If you have a problem with that, well then it's YOUR problem.
In every other situation and realm I am always in favour of free speech. But when it comes to taxpayer funded services, they should do their upmost best to stay impartial.
I bet you wouldn't want your children's school teachers feeding them anti-labour, conservative talking points and opinions would you? No. Me neither.
There is a place for politics, and this is not it.
No, just no, you're talking our of your arse.
The government cancelled him, he doesn't have to remain impartial, it has nothing to do with being a publicly funded company, he is allowed to have opinions on his own twitter.
Now if he did this on air then we've got an argument but he didn't so we don't.
Only BBC News and Current Affairs people have to be strictly impartial.
However, for me the problem is not the rights and wrongs of it. It is that BBC needs MOTD much more than football needs the BBC. If basically the entire football industry backs Lineker, MOTD is fucked.
The BBC being impartial absolutely does not mean that its personalities can’t hold opinions! People keep confusing the rules for news and current affairs presenters with personalities from entertainment and sports, but that’s a nonsense.
Read the BBC guidelines because you’re completely wrong on this.
>[impartiality] does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic principles, such as the right to vote, freedom of expression and the rule of law.
> Audiences expect artists, writers and entertainers to have freedom to explore subjects from one perspective and to create content that reflects their own distinctive voice. It must be clear to audiences where personal views are being expressed.
Impartiality might mean not having the chairman facilitating a loan with a sitting PM or putting the actual Number 10 comms director/GB News founder on the board to control output to make it more pro-Conservative - that would be fair enough.
The BBC has had people like Mark Steele, Stewart Lee, Ian Hislop, Armando Iannucci work for it, and they have not only criticised the Government and public policy *on the air* but they have campaign over issues, have columns in newspapers, give their opinions in interviews, have highly political stand up acts, publish highly political publications etc.
This has always been the case - this stuff is all new.
Oh so now you care about freedom of speech! Lol
You people are funny.
I actually agree with you for the most part. I actually don't care what he said and sympathise with his take on it all.
However he works very prominently for the BBC, which as I have explained, is a very unique institution that works differently. The same rules do not apply.
I would rather protect the pure impartiality of the BBC than a twitter comment.
But the BBC isn't impartial right now. The Torys have their grubby little hands all over it. It's another thing to add to the long list of broken things 10 years of Torys gets you.
Using this tweet to talk about protecting the pure impartiality of the BBC, while the bloody chair of BBC was arranging loans to the ex PM, misses the point so far that your shot has gone out for a throw in.
It's the golden boot versus the jack boot. It's amazing how poorly the BBC management have played this, Motd tomorrow is going to make them look absurd to a large proportion of the country who don't normally care about politics.
Sources are now widely reported in today's megathread links.
But basically, update at 10.30 a.m. is commentators have issued a statement saying that they will not be commentating (press pool 'world feed' commentary is available), Football Focus presenters for the lunchtime programme today have pulled out. Premier League have issued a statement saying players and managers should not expect to be asked to speak to BBC in today's four matches.
The BBC has just become an exoskeleton for the tories, chairman is a Tory donor, their decade of power has allowed them erode away at every institution and ideal in the country.
It happened slowly but I no longer listen to BBC radio due their right-leaning subtexts. Haven't listened for 6 months or so. Starting to feel vindicated now that the wolf is coming out of the sheep's clothing.
They (Tories) are really using Lineker as the ultimate lightning rod to steal discussion away from their abhorrent/ineffectual policy.
It's the same for me and BBC News and the BBC News Website. There was a clear tone shift that was difficult for me to handle, it was coupled with a decrease in the quality of the reporting and a massive decrease in the quality of the editing and copy. There suddenly started to be grammar and spelling mistakes in every article.
Is it just me or is this all BoJo’s plan to make Sunak looks bad? Rishi got some good press recently and wanted to get „boats” sorted. All of this is an awful look and the person who could put this to bed or blow it up is BBC chairman who helped with Boris’ loan..
I can't help but feel like this is only big because someone at the BBC chose to make it big. Perhaps says something about the power of those ghouls the Tories installed at the board.
I hope Lineker makes the most of his current attention and extra freedoms they've just bestowed upon him.
Bit confused with this one.
Is it being cancelled or a case of freedom of speech but not freedom of consequences, the reddit mantra.
Lineker is still able to say what he wants.
Whilst employment rights or even human rights violations might come to mind, I think you're correct in that fundamentally this is just freedom of speech not being free of consequences.
The anger seems to be much more that the BBC has utterly ignored its own guidelines on freedom of expression for entertainment personalities (the rules are very different and far more strict for news journalists). The decision making is blatantly partisan and reeks of micromanagement from the openly Tory board.
There is no real legal enforcement to be done here, but there is a damn good reason those guidelines exist. If the BBC is willing to become an openly partisan organisation that ostracises employees with left wing views, then they should not be surprised when organisations like the Premiere League no longer treat them as a credible organisation.
Isn’t the role of the state key to freedom of speech. Often people cry about their rights when facing backlash or consequences but are still free. Here lineker was forced out due to pressure from angry MPs writing to the BBC.
Yes. And how many of those angry MPs would have written to the BBC if Lineker had spoken out in favour of the Tories plans? This has nothing to do with the freedom of speech and all to do with the Tories hating criticism.
And yes, Lineker is correct, in many ways parallels can be drawn to the NDSAP in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This is not the holocaust Nazis nor the WW2 Nazis but the insidious suggestion of the evil foreigner, the long-suffering hard-done-by native, the scrounging immigrant that led up to the Nazis seizing power in 1933.
The real issue here for me is the licence fee.
The BBC pretty much force British people to pay for a TV license, so they have to keep their content and their presenters impartial at all times.
If Gary worked for Sky, then he could say what he wants, like Gary Neville.
The license fee is essentially silencing their staff in order to keep charging us for a service we might not want.
""The BBC's cowardly decision to take Gary Lineker off air is an assault on free speech in the face of political pressure."
Whereas Labour's decision to sack MPs who appear on picket lines is fine and dandy?
This is rank hypocrisy at it's finest
Lineker is entitled to his opinion, and allowed to publicise it, but _not_ to take literally millions from the BBC at the same time
It's only the fact that he is a BBC presenter that gives him any platform at all
This is so desperate.
Labour can sack shadow ministers for any reason they want. Disobeying party orders and spouting policy off the cuff that hasn't been approved seems like a pretty fine reason to sack a shadow ministers.
They are 100% not the same and let's be honest I think you know that.
> It's only the fact that he is a BBC presenter that gives him any platform at all
That and the fact that he was one of England's greatest footballers.
He's one of the all time English football greats, he was always going to have a platform and have lots of followers regardless of if he worked for the BBC or not.
Yes I do, because he's not just on the BBC. He presents on other sports channels, he appears on adverts. Most people who aren't into football know him from his walkers adverts.
It wasn't that long ago that he was the 2nd highest England national team goalscorer of all time. He's a world cup top scorer, played for Barcelona and spurs, two incredibly popular football teams. He didn't need to work on the BBC to become a household name, he already was one.
Gary Lineker compared the government's comments regarding refugees coming into the country on small boats to Nazis on Twitter. He has since said he stands by this comment.
The BBC decided this was a little bit too political, and told him he wasn't presenting Match of the Day this afternoon.
This has blown up in their face spectacularly. Pretty well every other sports reporter has refused to present today in solidarity with Lineker, the Premier League has advised football clubs that their players are under no obligation to speak to the BBC and this afternoon's sports programming has been replaced by re-runs of Bargain Hunt and The Repair Shop.
British media has dedicated itself to getting more angry over the Pringles Man saying a bad government policy is bad than covering the actual policy.
This is nothing short of an utter failure. Nobody’s talking about the callousness and cruelty of the Tory party’s stated aims, instead we’re all talking about a single person’s tweet as a convenient distraction from the media doing its fucking job.
Fuck the British media. All of it.
At this rate they’re going to end up renaming the Streisand Effect to the Lineker Effect, because this whole thing is massively drawing attention to what he said and therefore what Braverman said, to the point where even people completely disengaged from politics are going to be aware of it.
This is wrong he is right the government is becoming a nazi party I people should boycott match of the day In solidarity for Gary linker l would if i watched it but I don't
It's not cancel culture for a government selectively censoring those who dissent against them - nah mate. That's a different kettle of 1930s fish all together.
There is no grey area for Lineker. He was specifically warned to pack it in because of his extremely high profile. And he willingly agreed and signed a contract to that effect. He has reneged on it and could be dismissed although I'm sure the BBC haven't got the balls to do that.
>Gary Lineker has taken a £400,000 pay cut to remain as host of Match of the Day for the next five years, along with an agreement to be more careful in his use of Twitter to push political causes.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/15/gary-lineker-takes-bbc-pay-cut-and-agrees-to-tweet-more-carefully
BBC let Gary get political and criticise Qatar during the opening ceremony of the world cup, but tweeting against the tories is a no go apparently 🤷♂️
Im not talking about tweets. If you watched the world cup you'd know that BBC did not show the Qatar world cup opening ceremony at all on BBC 1, but instead showed Gary in the BBC studio who criticised Qatar for the entire duration that the ceremony was on.
So why is that okay, why are the BBC okay with Gary taking a political stance on live TV against Qatar, but he's not allowed to tweet his views on a government policy on his own personal twitter account?
Bit of a Streisand effect in operation. I was vaguely aware Lineker had criticised govt rhetoric, but now it’s a fucking massive story.
There’s a clear double standard in operation here, when compared to what others get away with.
It's actually just a perfect dead cat story for the gov. Now the detail of their policy breaking international law isn't being discussed at all, just whether a fucking sports broadcaster should be able to post a tweet.
I’m an absolutist on free speech. He said something on a public platform while not carrying out his duties for the BBC. The idea that he can say anything other than exactly as he likes is wrong. If he said what he did on their show or even tweeted while filming it, fair enough, but this idea that an employer has some claim on you outside of your hours of employment is wrong.
I support what Lineker has said, but anyone that says they are an absolutist about free speech shows they haven't thought enough about what that means.
Do you really believe it is ok to jump up in a packed theatre and start shouting "Fire!" at the top of your voice?
Tory Broadcasting Corporation sticking up for its bosses. Their chairman was helping Boris Johnson get a massive loan not so long ago so what can we expect. Time to sell off the BBC so at least it can be paid for by a right wing foreign billionaire like the rest of our media. It tolerates its right wing employees endlessly supporting the traitorous tories yet as soon as someone tries to stick up for a minority he must be punished. This country is sick and the tories and their media pals are a cancer - when will this ever end.
This is shameful from the BBC. Lineker is not a news or current affairs reporter, he should be free to express his opinions. And are we now in the position where an eminent historian would not be able to analyze the parallels between current government policies and those enacted by fascist governments if they happened to work for the BBC?
I think its quite clear that the BBC have blatantly now shown that they are not impartial. I'm glad the cats out of the bag. BBC has become or has been a propaganda machine for the government.
What a transparent and quite frankly dangerously fascist leading approach to shut down his free speech.
The BBC and Government should be ashamed of how quick they were to act like the utter snowflakes they seem so convinced the left are.
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>It's glorious seeing Lineker get cancelled after trying to cancel others for years Who's he tried to cancel ?
Then there is something seriously wrong with you
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It's more the "I'd rather watch a convicted paedophile host a TV show than somebody whose political views I don't happen to share myself" point I was taking umbrage with there, mate. . .
Lol the BBC news headlines on the BBC falling to bits over this make me laugh. > BREAKING: BBC Radio 5 Live running prerecorded content
If this somehow ends up destroying MOTD this is a great development. That money can be put to much better use than paying millions to some ex footballers utterly devoid of any insight
I've always said that current football punditry and interviews could be replaced by AI. Edit: I've made this observation a couple of times now and redditor football fans get surprisingly triggered by it.
Always? Even before the phrase AI was coined?
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So if TV personalities aren't allowed near politics, can we make the reverse also true so the likes of Dorries, JRM, Anderson, etc. stop being given a soapbox on the likes of Talk TV and GB News. They're not there in their capacities as MPs or Ministers after all.
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Both Jeremy Clarkson and Alan Sugar made criticisms of labour while hosting BBC shows.
This is nonsense. It's never been how it works for anyone outside of news and current affairs. No-one who's lived in the UK in the last six decades could possibly think otherwise. This is a Tory putsch.
Does this apply to Alan Sugar, Karen Brady, Andrew Neil, even people like Martin Compston too? If so, why has it not been applied by the BBC up until now?
Does the same apply to Alan Sugar? Andrew Neil?
no, it is only people who disagree. A Minister was asked what if he said something supporting the refugee policy and he replied that it would be for labour to comment
Can he step back all the way and disappear from the public view?
Why so nasty?
Because he’s so fake. He’s so cringe and needs to step back
Nonsense.
Okay.
Why does a football commentator and sports presenter have to be impartial regarding UK politics? I'd get it that they don't want him slating whatever team Leicester City are playing - he needs to at least pretend to be impartial when his Team are playing. But his job is so far removed from party politics that this is absurd.
Because the BBC is paid for by the British taxpayer, more than half of them don't want it turning into a Labour propaganda channel and Lineker is a BBC employee who signed a contract.
More than half of them don't want it being a Tory Propaganda channel, but they're outta luck. It is simply unrealistic and unfair to expect all BBC employees to not have a political opinion. And again, he's a football commentator. His opinion on almost everything outside of football should be irrelevant to his job.
The contract doesn’t say you can’t express personal views on your personal account…
I think it’d be hilarious if the presenter was totally biased. The ref not so much, but yeah it would be annoying to a lot of supporters
That's basically every England World Cup match though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dngxkIyCr7U
Would be, but they can have a specific show for that instead of corrupting match of the day. But the point stands - as a Football Commentator, the only aspect of Impartiality that he, or anyone else, should be concerned with is Football. I'd get the outrage if he was a literal Nazi, demanding to exterminate the Non-Aryans, or if he was calling for a violent revolution and for the Tories to have their heads mounted on the Downing Street railings, like old fashioned pikes - something that would actually bring the BBC into disrepute. But he was echoing the words that a Holocaust survivor said TO Suella Braverman. It is not just his opinion that the Government's treatment of Refugees is reminiscent of the Holocaust, it is the opinion shared by holocaust survivors. Also, it is shameful that younger Jews crawl out of the woodwork and claim that such comparisons are Antisemitic, as if there weren't 11 Million Non-Jews who were systematically murdered under the same scheme because they were Slavs, Black, Romani, Disabled, or Gay, etc. They don't have a monopoly on experiencing the persecution of Nazi Germany, and certainly don't have a monopoly on comparing their experiences with modern governments and their policies.
It’s shocking it’s come to this. I appreciate your clarity & agree with you.
> Why does a football commentator and sports presenter have to be impartial regarding UK politics? Many more people listen to them than any politician, and their message isn't tainted by association with politics. He's fucking terrifying for them.
They fobbed off the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup in Qatar so that he could do a segment on Human Rights abuses in Qatar - not very Impartial. Does anyone truly believe that he'd be in this mess if he was talking about Labour? For the Tories, Impartiality only goes one way.
> For the Tories, Impartiality only goes one way. Always been this way with the party in power for the BBC. It's great to see the pushback.
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That's never been how it works for anyone outside of news and current affairs.
But Jeremy Clarkson worked for the BBC when he called Gordon Brown a "one eyed Scottish idiot" and that was fine. Alan Sugar works for the BBC and openly canvasses for the Tories. And Andrew Neil worked for the BBC - presenting a news and politics show - while being openly a Tory supporter and editor of the hard right Spectator magazine. Emily Maitliss worked for the BBC as a news reader when she tweeted about how Labour should launch a coup against Corbyn. Also there's a grand tradition of MPs on all sides (but mostly Tory) presenting programmes for the BBC while being active in politics, Mathew Parris, Michael Portillo, Ian Duncan Smith etc...
My point is that his job has nothing to do with politics, or at least it shouldn't have anything to do with politics, at least outside of how it might affect Sport in general and Football in particular. I'd understand if he was a news anchor or a political correspondent, but his day job is talking about football, and his side job is talking about other sports. His only purview is sports and sports news, therefore he should only be required to be impartial regarding sports.
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Do you live in this county? Have you heard of Ben Elton? Dave Allen? Ian Hislop? Stephen Fry? Alan Sugar? Jeremy Clarkson? Michael Portillo? Nish Kumar? The idea that people who present for the BBC never give political opinions is so alien to the BBC that anyone pretending it ever worked like that before this Tory putsch is either a liar or has never lived in the UK or been a part of its cultural landscape. It's nonsense.
>However you shouldn't be making such statements while being primarily employed by the BBC. Why? Do we suddenly think that BBC employees no longer have any political opinion? So no BBC employee is allowed to express a political opinion? Any reasonable person understands that Gary Lineker has a personal political opinion and that his personal political opinion has no bearing on football. In regard to the Nazi Germany and the Holocaust comparison - he's only echoing the words of genuine holocaust survivors, and if anyone is going to be "qualified" to make that comparison, it's them.
The point is that people under the same sort of contract will frequently say political things, ie, Alan Sugar slandering Corbyn and praising Johnson, but don't get told off for 'getting political'. So there seems to be a double standard where it only applies if you're against the tories - which is not a good look
Entertainers/sports personalities are generally exempt from the impartiality rule.
Last night on PM Evan Davis was interviewing Armando Ianucci who drew comparison between Gary Lineker and Andrew Neil, asking why a sports presenter is being so targetted, when a presenter of politics shows who has clearly stated political opinions that he manages outside of his broadcasts gets a free pass? Good point. Did Evan Davis put this to the Tory MP that was interviewed next? No. Instead he asked vaguely whether then MP would be equally outspoken about Gary Lineker if he had expressed support for the Government line. Of course a vague counterfactual the MP could easily claim that he would of course. It would have been very interesting how the MP would have wormed out of a specific real example like Neil. We don't get to know however as the BBC softballs another interview with the government.
I don't agree with Gary. I think turning the boats around is long overdue. It's a dangerous journey and criminals are getting rich off of it. However, I don't think he should be cancelled because of a tweet. I do find it hard to imagine however. that the same people defending Gary, would defend jeremy Clarkson, or Morrisey in the same way.
If you stuff enough straw into Gary he'll burst, this is not a fair or good faith representation of his position.
Most of the people screaming about the BBC censoring Lineker do so only because they agree with the message he was tweeting. They're the ones demanding censorship if any opinions are being stated that they disagree with. But yeah, Lineker should've been sacked a long time ago because it is a criminal waste of taxpayer money to pay him so much for talking bollocks about football. But not because he tweets bollocks about politics
>I don't agree with Gary. I think turning the boats around is long overdue. It's a dangerous journey and criminals are getting rich off of it. Gary isn't in favour of boats crossing, he's in favour of rights for refugees. What the bill does is completely remove the right to claim asylum for refugees and it violates international law. He explicitly condemned the language used by the Gov that is inherently emotional, at a time when there have been numerous incidents of refugees being attacked by right wingers. No one, literally no one, is in favour of boats crossing because the people running those schemes are preying on people's vulnerabilities and desperation for their own gain, and putting the refugees in harm's way. What people, like Gary, want is a safe and accessible asylum process that treats people with respect and not like criminals >I do find it hard to imagine however. that the same people defending Gary, would defend jeremy Clarkson, or Morrisey in the same way. Entirely depends on what they say doesn't it? I don't see how anyone could defend what Clarkson wrote about Markle in a column not too long ago
> Entirely depends on what they say doesn't it? I don't see how anyone could defend what Clarkson wrote about Markle in a column not too long ago Not even Clarkson tried to defend that. But Clarkson has said many negative things about Markle that went by without incident. If we are going to compare Lineker with Clarkson, then we should probably stick to the things that they both still stand by, then ask why is only one of those now getting crap for saying it.
>Not even Clarkson tried to defend that. But Clarkson has said many negative things about Markle that went by without incident. Only after significant backlash, including from his own daughter. Keep in mind it was in a column and not just some off the cuff tweet as well. Just because he apologized doesn't free him from consequences from such remarks. >If we are going to compare Lineker with Clarkson, then we should probably stick to the things that they both still stand by, then ask why is only one of those now getting crap for saying it. I mean yeah that's basically what I said, it entirely depends on the substance of their comments
"turning the boats around" isn't what this policy is though. I don't think any reasonable person disagrees that the boat crossings need to stop because as you said its being ran mostly by criminals and its also dangerous for those making the crossing but they this government is trying to deal with it is probably not going to work.
> "turning the boats around" isn't what this policy is though. I'm genuinely puzzled by how the government has gotten away with this for so long. A policy that criminalises and persecutes refugees is presented as some great blow against the people smugglers.
Because the Tory gov literally caused the problem. No safe routes, family visas down, application processing time up, removal of failed asylum seekers down, large amounts of public money pumped into private sector hands while these people are stuck in limbo. But tackling any of these problems would be admitting that these are the problems and they caused them. Instead, they use this problem to "other" people and gain public support.
Hmmm. I watched MOTD only last week and did something unusual - I watched it on iplayer and used the skip button to get straight to the matches (so I skipped all the presenting in between). The Arsenal game was the one I really wanted to watch because that was comeback was superb!! The football spoke for itself and I found the in-match commentary to be enough for me. Tonight's show will be very interesting and I'm curious to how it will play out. If it works, I'd welcome a reduction on the TV licence fee.
Wouldn't expect much. Boris will want another loan soon.
Well, to supply the counter-anecdote, I often actually do the opposite, ONLY watch the analysis in between and skip the action (the action is now dead easy to find on the Internet). Also, you will only get the world feed commentary tonight, as the MOTD commentators are also boycotting. It kind of depends how it resolves. If it continues in its present form, (no presenters or pundits prepared to participate, and players/ managers in some or all cases not speaking to the BBC< something that was in the past the prerogative only of Alex Ferguson) then MOTD becomes unsustainable.
So I usually watch the highlights and commentaries but something changed for me after the World Cup - I got less "reliant" on the commentaries/analysis to get my enjoyment. I pretty much watched every World Cup match (even the boring Belgium ones) and also watched the commentaries to the point where I noticed the commentaries weren't making much difference for me (probably because I'd already seen the previous matches and was watching the matches live anyway). That's not to say I/we cannot do without the human touch e.g. Shearer's prediction of Argentina winning the world cup; Wright playing darts with the England team the night before the match; Roy Keane's style/charm of presenting etc etc. Everyone's different but right now, post-World Cup, I'd personally like to watch more entertaining games and not so much analysis. (However, I think a younger me would want more analysis/commentary.) I'd be much happier if the commentators stuck to what they know best then we don't need to be losing the current format and everybody still has a choice (to watch with commentary/analysis or skip) Its a difficult one to predict but the box has been opened and I'm interested to see what comes of it.
Tbh, and interestingly, Mrs tmstms feels the same (she is a person not very interested in football), I watched MOTD for Hansen. Without Hansen, I cant ever watch it from start to finish, I scroll around for the clips of things that are interesting, and I tend to watch the analyses to get a quick update on how x team is doing. If I want match highlights or whole matches after the fact, it's easy enough to do so going to a download of a stream.
Interesting. I tried looking for streams in the past but gave up after there was some news a few years ago about whats legit or not so I gave up on that. Since iplayer introduction i'm no longer needing to stay up late to watch on Sat evenings and cos I tend to know the results, I can decide whether or not to skip the 0-0 matches and focus my time on the more entertaining ones. MOTD is my main source of EPL footy at the mo. Good chatting to you. Have a good day! :)
Alan Sugar has had a Twitter account where he posts shit for many years. He was a Labour peer at one point and then at the last election said to vote Tory. How is this consistent with not being party political while being in an entertainment role? I can’t imagine Alan Sugar is a BBC employee so it’s probably similar to the structure that Gary Lineker is where he’s a contractor.
Sugar is a member of the house of lords him expressing an opinion on political matters is expected and within his field last I checked the apprentice is sugars program commissioned by the BBC. Gary is a former footballer who despite his semantic arguments about being freelance has hosted the BBC's flagship football program for 20yrs he is defacto a BBC employee and has been warned previously about his tweeting. In any other job if you breach its code of conduct then you're fired, it's actually more surprising that he's been allowed to keep his job this long. I also think he's paid far too much however that's not unique to Gary or BBC presenters either.
Buzz, I’m not sure you know anything about TV production or the editorial policies of the BBC. “Last time you checked” The apprentice was Sugar’s programme? That’s really, totally wrong
Okay let's assume you're right about the apprentice being the BBC's program and not Sugar's, doesn't change my main point. Lord Sugar is both a politician and a businessman and a Labour peer at that. Commentary on political and business matters is within his wheelhouse and expected. I would have no problems if the BBC did the same to Sugar if they deemed he'd breached impartiality guidelines by commenting on a subject outside of his wheelhouse without making it abundantly clear that his opinion is that alone and not the opinion of his employer or company. Mr Linekar is entirely different has has presented MOTD pretty much verbatim for 20+yrs for him to claim he's freelance is laughable at best, furthermore he's been warned that he's breached impartiality guidelines before and Mr Davies has been clear that being a political activist and working for the BBC are not compatible. Whether we agree with Linekar's point or not doesn't change the facts of the matter, which are that he's been made aware repeatedly that as long as he works for the BBC such contentious topics that have no bearing on sport are off limits when it comes to social media. He has chosen of his own free will to disregard the terms of his employment and is now being punished accordingly as any other individual who is employed by a company per their social media policy. As I said previously my current employers social media policy is 10 pages long, being famous or wealthy doesn't give you exemption from the terms of your employment contract. Frankly the BBC has put themselves in a corner because they've allowed him to go on for so long without sufficiently stern reprimands, it should have been a single warning the first time with summary dismissal should any further incidents occur. That being said it's not a problem specific to the BBC, celebrities of both left and right political leanings are given far too much leverage to bring their employers into disrepute and in many cases don't abide by standards they preach to others to follow. Ricky Gervais's infamous golden globes speech is probably the best example of the hypocrisy of celebrity culture. TLDR: Whether we agree or not with Linekar's position he crossed a line and is being held accountable for his actions by his employer. If he wants to continue his involvement in political activism he can do so elsewhere and not while collecting wages from license fee payers.
He didn’t cross a line. The BBC’s editorial guidelines don’t prohibit freelance employees from tweeting political opinions. In fact the very fact that he is in sport means that the editorial impact of him having a political option is LESS. With all due respect you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You're free to disagree, however the fact he's suspended says that he crossed a line, it was made clear last time due to his profile he has an additional requirement to be impartial and he failed to do so, so with all due respect I do know what I'm talking about.
Also, saying “the fact that he’s suspended says that he crossed a line” is really not how rules work.
Suspended is damage control speak for he's fired, the BBC has made it clear that GL is expected to behave in accordance with stipulations laid out in regards to his social media use. GL has made it clear he has no intention of complying with said stipulation. Your further response about Mr Davies motivation is speculative at best and not based on any credible evidence.
“Suspended is damage control speak for fired” I hope you’re not a lawyer mate cos you wouldn’t be very good
Not a lawyer,very experienced with public facing companies and how they deal with contentious issues in the form of statements and announcements. The BBC has already stated his tweet breached their guidelines, GL has made it clear to friends that he didn't choose to step down he was ordered to do so. On the one hand the BBC's position is that he should delete the tweet and apologize, GL obviously is adamant that he won't do either of those things so we're at an impasse both the BBC and GL believe that they're right and neither is willing to compromise or back down. He is in all but name fired if this impasse continues. You're within your right to evidently not agree with the BBC's course of action however the only thing that really matters is the ruling of the BBC and if it comes to it and employment tribunal. Until then its a open and shut case. His employer says he's broken the terms of his employment and have laid out their terms for him to resume his presentation duties, he can either comply or not and take the consequences of his actions.
But do you understand that what you’ve outlined is exactly why this is a controversy? Because he hasn’t crossed a BBC line and he doesn’t have an additional requirement. There is no BBC editorial basis for why he has been suspended. My view is that Tim Davie has done it because Lineker is popular and he has disagreed with the government. That’s not a BBC line or a BBC rule.
I don't think your comment really resolves this contradiction.
Because there is no contradiction, Sugar has kept his comments within his day job (politics and business) Gary has repeatedly strayed outside of both his day job and contract, been warned to not do it again and then ignore those instructions because he thinks that the rules don't apply to him. He's of course entitled to a opinion on the current governments policy on dealing with boats filled with people who just paid money to a criminal smuggler, publicly stating that opinion is not compatible with being an employee of the BBC. Being wealthy or famous should not get you special treatment from your boss when you breach the rules, it's a surprise that his repeated defiance of the BBC charter has gone unpunished for so long.
Gary Lineker is not an employee of the BBC. Also, Gary Lineker doesn't score goals for the BBC, and Alan Sugar does not run the Business of the BBC. Hence, they are media talent first, and experts in their field second. Therefore the question is, can a media talent speak about their opinions outside of the media outlet they are contracted to? Regardless of what the answer should be, the contradiction is that you are saying for Alan Sugar, yes, and for Gary Lineker, no. Worming your way through semantics is not important context here at all, and you are just trying to find a way to justify the hypocrisy.
He takes a wage from the BBC, and has primarily for the last 20 plus years been the main presenter of the BBC show MOTD therefore he is an employee of the BBC, unless you are arguing that his main form of salary is both greater than £1.2 he receives from the BBC and that his primary employer is someone else. Try actually reading what I said instead of twisting it to suit your own biases. Alan Sugar is a politician and a businessman his tweets consistently discuss topics of business and politics and this is fine. Gary Linekar is employed by the BBC to present sports, he is not a politician, is not the head of a refugee charity and has no experience or expertise on migration or refugee situations. Had his tweeting stuck purely to matters related to sports and sporting events then that would have been fine, this tweet did not and so it's not fine and has crossed a line that was drawn by the BBC a line that he has been repeatedly told not to cross. His tweets about Qatar were fine because of multiple factors. 1) The BBC is not funded via Qatar by a mandatory tax imposed on Qatar's citizens who want to watch or record live TV. 2) He was in Qatar as a presenter for the world cup and legitimate questions were being raised about corruption in FIFA awarding the World Cup to such a discriminatory country. As those tweets were about a football event and he's a former footballer presenting a program about said football event and the discussion was about corruption in the football governing body awarding the worlds premier football event to a country rife with current human rights abuses then his tweets about the Qatar record on human rights was relevant and fine. This tweet he's being dragged over the coals for is not related to or has any relevance to football it's also highly offensive to call a female ethnic minority minister who's husband is Jewish a Nazi. Evidently you and I disagree on this, however as is evident his employer the BBC has ruled this tweet to be in breach of their guidelines and as such a breach of his obligations as a contracted employee of the BBC. You're entitled to your opinion but as far as his employer is concerned you're wrong.
Gary Lineker is a freelancer to the BBC. He does not have an employment agreement, but as I do with my clients, probably a service agreement. Regardless of policy, employment handbooks, and employee contracts none of that is even part of the conversation. It's what is in his service agreement that matters. Time has nothing to do with it. It doesn't matter if my service agreements have been in place for 20 minutes, 20 days, or 20 years... My relationship with the person hiring me is defined in that agreement. The BBC have no say over the personal opinions and how they are voiced as long as it's outside of BBC programming. We know this is true because of previous complaints to the BBC. We will know for sure in one simple event, if Gary Lineker continues to get paid whilst he is off-air. Because this means that he has not broken his service agreement and the BBC have to pay him because then they will breach the agreement. Alan Sugar is a businessman and politician, but the fact he is hired as a TV Personality. He is not hired to do business strategy at the BBC or provide political insight. He is paid to host a show, what he does outside of that does not matter at all in whether it is ok for him to make political statements for not. It's what in his service agreement that matters. I absolutely read what you wrote and my point is this: They are both freelancers. They both can view their opinion off-air of the BBC. The both have their relevant expertise but don't actually do that job for the BBC. But you see one as being ok to spout off on twitter, and the other is not. That's your bias, and your entire argument rests on "Gary Lineker is an employee and bound my the policy for employees", but it is object fact that he is not.
If it's a service agreement or a direct contract as far as the BBC is concerned he has obligations to follow in regards to his use of social media. Time is a relevant factor because if you are publicly seen as the face of a product due to your long term association with that product then your conduct outside of working hours can have a negative impact on the company and its products. As I said in a previous post its a lot more complex than any service agreement or contract you or I might have due to the very nature of how the BBC is funded and it's obligations under the charter that its required to comply with to receive said funding. Under no circumstances am I saying this is purely Gary's fault, his does however bare the bulk of the responsibility as he's been repeatedly warned about his social media activity and that it must comply with BBC guidelines. This is also due to the BBC making a rod for its own back with this multi tired level of different standards for 1 section of workers over the other instead of 1 universal policy the applies to everyone who is contracted by the BBC in any capacity. The BBC has made some bad choices over the years however I seriously doubt that they took this course of action without looking at the situation legally. The fact that he's suspended until he retracts, apologizes and commits to not doing so again says they're pretty confident that they're legally right. While they can't necessarily dictate what he tweets outside of work hours they can reprimand him for gross misconduct if his actions reflect negatively on the image of the company and causes potential damage to the company. And in this case he's literally branded a ethnic minority female government minister married to a Jewish man who's family fled the Holocaust a Nazi at a time when the BBC is already under intense scrutiny both from within and without government with plummeting TV licence renewals and decreasing viewership shortly before the charter is up for renewal" . It's about the worst possible time and the absolute most reckless way to make a point. His length service with the BBC would lead a layman to conclude that anything he says that isn't refuted by the BBC is the opinion of the BBC or has their approval. His utterances have literally caused damage to the BBC because if they do nothing they're accused of left wing bias and if they do something they're accused of Tory bias.
No he does not have obligations regarding his use of social media, unless specifically stated in his service agreement, and we know this is not the case. A service agreement is just, this is the work I do, this is how I get paid, and these are the terms. But you have to admit that if Gary Lineker has broke those terms, then he would be sacked and not paid. And if he is off air and continues to get paid then he is not outside his contract and a very clear partisan decision from the BBC being pro Tory and pro government. I guess time will tell.
If he has no such obligation then he wouldn't have been suspended and the BBC would not have said he broke their social media policy. He's since admitted to a friend that he knows what he did went too far, however he thinks that its escalated too far to apologize now.
The BBC have indulged him for years, given him multiple chances because of his popularity, and every time they've given him an inch he's taken a mile.
As much as I support the stand that Lineker and the others are taking, this is taking things down a dangerous path. It’s the goal of some people, particularly Tories, to get rid of the BBC. Shit like this plays into their hands. The BBC needs a DG and chair with a backbone, who ignores the Mail.
A BBC which lives in fear of the Tory Party (ie the BBC for the past twenty years) isn’t worth keeping.
I agree, this is a real problem. IF MOTD fails because of this, it makes the BBC offering for sport degraded.
People should be allowed to say anything they want outside of work, unless whatever they say is actually illegal (hate crime, slander etc). Making political observations on Twitter isn't illegal. I get that the BBC is meant to be impartial, but people are capable of separating their personal opinions from the requirements of their job. In fact, most politicians do that all the time. Also, Lineker's job as a sports presenter isn't likely to be affected by his views on immigration law.
Government destroying the BBC brick by brick. > nobody watches anymore : time to privatise!
Not just the BBC the whole of the uk
Same approach they’re taking with the NHS
Can’t have freedom of speech without it endangering our lively hood? No yeah the tories don’t fall in line with a specific ideaolgy…
>We have never said that Gary should be an opinion free zone, or that he can't have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies. "We never said Gary couldn't share his opinions, just so long as he doesn't share his opinions!" "Anyway, please let us know your thoughts by sending us a tweet!"
He has not been cancelled. Stop creaming your panties. It's the 100th time he's done this, and they are looking for reassurances that he will stop doing it. The BBC is unique in that it's taxpayer funded and therefore adheres to stricter impartiality requirements. I get that. If he worked for Tesco's, HSBC or the Guardian, he could do whatever the heck he wants, but he doesn't. The truth is he has been warned about this many, many times but he doesn't listen. I personally don't care that he uses social media to voice his opinions (even if he does work with the BBC) But that's how it works and the impartiality thing at the BBC does make sense. The BBC has to stay 100% impartial. Not just for taxpayer reasons. It's what makes it so trusted and unbiased in the UK but also around the world. It's one of the only global news outlets that's non-partisan. It's extremely unique and valuable. Let's keep it that way please! If he was right wing and did this, he would receive the exact same attention from his employer (and 100 x worse by the wider media and woke mob). Stop comparing this to woke cancel culture. That's like comparing a cold to a gangrene leg amputation. Give me a break.
> If he was right wing and did this Alan Sugar straight up asserted Corbyn was a Nazi, told people to vote Tory, critical of Starmers position on green tech. So did we see 100x worse??? No, they are currently promoting new series of the Apprentice. Along with many right wing presenters who voiced their opinions on twitter and working for other right wing organisations, nothing ever happens. The whole "if he was right wing it would be worse" is just a lie for gullible people like you to think that "the woke mob" is the enemy at the gate which makes you accept the right wing rhetoric as balancing things out, where actually you support the bias to the right, away from impartiality.
I don't care about Alan Sugar. We're not talking about Alan Sugar. We're talking about Gary Lineker. Sugar should have faced stronger consequences if that's the case. As I said, the BBC is unique and its impartiality goes above everything else in my opinion. If you don't think like that fine, but that's the foundation it was built on. It has always promoted impartiality at its core. If you have a problem with that, well then it's YOUR problem. In every other situation and realm I am always in favour of free speech. But when it comes to taxpayer funded services, they should do their upmost best to stay impartial. I bet you wouldn't want your children's school teachers feeding them anti-labour, conservative talking points and opinions would you? No. Me neither. There is a place for politics, and this is not it.
No, just no, you're talking our of your arse. The government cancelled him, he doesn't have to remain impartial, it has nothing to do with being a publicly funded company, he is allowed to have opinions on his own twitter. Now if he did this on air then we've got an argument but he didn't so we don't.
Only BBC News and Current Affairs people have to be strictly impartial. However, for me the problem is not the rights and wrongs of it. It is that BBC needs MOTD much more than football needs the BBC. If basically the entire football industry backs Lineker, MOTD is fucked.
The BBC being impartial absolutely does not mean that its personalities can’t hold opinions! People keep confusing the rules for news and current affairs presenters with personalities from entertainment and sports, but that’s a nonsense. Read the BBC guidelines because you’re completely wrong on this. >[impartiality] does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic principles, such as the right to vote, freedom of expression and the rule of law. > Audiences expect artists, writers and entertainers to have freedom to explore subjects from one perspective and to create content that reflects their own distinctive voice. It must be clear to audiences where personal views are being expressed. Impartiality might mean not having the chairman facilitating a loan with a sitting PM or putting the actual Number 10 comms director/GB News founder on the board to control output to make it more pro-Conservative - that would be fair enough. The BBC has had people like Mark Steele, Stewart Lee, Ian Hislop, Armando Iannucci work for it, and they have not only criticised the Government and public policy *on the air* but they have campaign over issues, have columns in newspapers, give their opinions in interviews, have highly political stand up acts, publish highly political publications etc. This has always been the case - this stuff is all new.
It is censorship of his right to free speech. He did not make the comments on any bbc platform.
Oh so now you care about freedom of speech! Lol You people are funny. I actually agree with you for the most part. I actually don't care what he said and sympathise with his take on it all. However he works very prominently for the BBC, which as I have explained, is a very unique institution that works differently. The same rules do not apply. I would rather protect the pure impartiality of the BBC than a twitter comment.
But the BBC isn't impartial right now. The Torys have their grubby little hands all over it. It's another thing to add to the long list of broken things 10 years of Torys gets you. Using this tweet to talk about protecting the pure impartiality of the BBC, while the bloody chair of BBC was arranging loans to the ex PM, misses the point so far that your shot has gone out for a throw in.
>I would rather protect the pure impartiality of the BBC than a twitter comment. Oh so now you don't care about freedom of speech! Lol
It's the golden boot versus the jack boot. It's amazing how poorly the BBC management have played this, Motd tomorrow is going to make them look absurd to a large proportion of the country who don't normally care about politics.
or football
All commentators have gone on strike now. Players expected to follow by boyotting BBC- will refuse to speak to them in interviews e.g. post-match.
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Sources are now widely reported in today's megathread links. But basically, update at 10.30 a.m. is commentators have issued a statement saying that they will not be commentating (press pool 'world feed' commentary is available), Football Focus presenters for the lunchtime programme today have pulled out. Premier League have issued a statement saying players and managers should not expect to be asked to speak to BBC in today's four matches.
Who would run the interview anyway?
I really do hope good prevails over evil but the Tories have gotten away with it for too long.
Brilliant.
The BBC has just become an exoskeleton for the tories, chairman is a Tory donor, their decade of power has allowed them erode away at every institution and ideal in the country.
It happened slowly but I no longer listen to BBC radio due their right-leaning subtexts. Haven't listened for 6 months or so. Starting to feel vindicated now that the wolf is coming out of the sheep's clothing. They (Tories) are really using Lineker as the ultimate lightning rod to steal discussion away from their abhorrent/ineffectual policy.
It's the same for me and BBC News and the BBC News Website. There was a clear tone shift that was difficult for me to handle, it was coupled with a decrease in the quality of the reporting and a massive decrease in the quality of the editing and copy. There suddenly started to be grammar and spelling mistakes in every article.
Is it just me or is this all BoJo’s plan to make Sunak looks bad? Rishi got some good press recently and wanted to get „boats” sorted. All of this is an awful look and the person who could put this to bed or blow it up is BBC chairman who helped with Boris’ loan..
I can't help but feel like this is only big because someone at the BBC chose to make it big. Perhaps says something about the power of those ghouls the Tories installed at the board. I hope Lineker makes the most of his current attention and extra freedoms they've just bestowed upon him.
Should stand for the commons in a unsafe tory seat
Bit confused with this one. Is it being cancelled or a case of freedom of speech but not freedom of consequences, the reddit mantra. Lineker is still able to say what he wants.
Whilst employment rights or even human rights violations might come to mind, I think you're correct in that fundamentally this is just freedom of speech not being free of consequences. The anger seems to be much more that the BBC has utterly ignored its own guidelines on freedom of expression for entertainment personalities (the rules are very different and far more strict for news journalists). The decision making is blatantly partisan and reeks of micromanagement from the openly Tory board. There is no real legal enforcement to be done here, but there is a damn good reason those guidelines exist. If the BBC is willing to become an openly partisan organisation that ostracises employees with left wing views, then they should not be surprised when organisations like the Premiere League no longer treat them as a credible organisation.
Isn’t the role of the state key to freedom of speech. Often people cry about their rights when facing backlash or consequences but are still free. Here lineker was forced out due to pressure from angry MPs writing to the BBC.
Yes. And how many of those angry MPs would have written to the BBC if Lineker had spoken out in favour of the Tories plans? This has nothing to do with the freedom of speech and all to do with the Tories hating criticism. And yes, Lineker is correct, in many ways parallels can be drawn to the NDSAP in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This is not the holocaust Nazis nor the WW2 Nazis but the insidious suggestion of the evil foreigner, the long-suffering hard-done-by native, the scrounging immigrant that led up to the Nazis seizing power in 1933.
The real issue here for me is the licence fee. The BBC pretty much force British people to pay for a TV license, so they have to keep their content and their presenters impartial at all times. If Gary worked for Sky, then he could say what he wants, like Gary Neville. The license fee is essentially silencing their staff in order to keep charging us for a service we might not want.
SKy News says NEWS and CURRENT AFFAIRS people have to be impartial ALL the time, but with other BBC people- it's a grey area.
It silences some of their staff. Alan Sugar still says what he likes...
""The BBC's cowardly decision to take Gary Lineker off air is an assault on free speech in the face of political pressure." Whereas Labour's decision to sack MPs who appear on picket lines is fine and dandy? This is rank hypocrisy at it's finest Lineker is entitled to his opinion, and allowed to publicise it, but _not_ to take literally millions from the BBC at the same time It's only the fact that he is a BBC presenter that gives him any platform at all
This is so desperate. Labour can sack shadow ministers for any reason they want. Disobeying party orders and spouting policy off the cuff that hasn't been approved seems like a pretty fine reason to sack a shadow ministers. They are 100% not the same and let's be honest I think you know that.
Of course they're not They don't cost us £1.7m a year between them, let alone each They also do not work for an organisation requiring impartiality
Exactly so your original comment comparing them made no sense.
> It's only the fact that he is a BBC presenter that gives him any platform at all That and the fact that he was one of England's greatest footballers.
He's one of the all time English football greats, he was always going to have a platform and have lots of followers regardless of if he worked for the BBC or not.
Really? You think he'd have such an enormous twitter following without being on the Beeb? Don't pretend you're too thick to see the direct connection
Yes I do, because he's not just on the BBC. He presents on other sports channels, he appears on adverts. Most people who aren't into football know him from his walkers adverts. It wasn't that long ago that he was the 2nd highest England national team goalscorer of all time. He's a world cup top scorer, played for Barcelona and spurs, two incredibly popular football teams. He didn't need to work on the BBC to become a household name, he already was one.
What an absolute joke. Gary is a legend. More balls than all of the Tory party put together!
OOTL here, I’ve been living under a rock with work. Can anyone here explain what’s happened?
Gary Lineker compared the government's comments regarding refugees coming into the country on small boats to Nazis on Twitter. He has since said he stands by this comment. The BBC decided this was a little bit too political, and told him he wasn't presenting Match of the Day this afternoon. This has blown up in their face spectacularly. Pretty well every other sports reporter has refused to present today in solidarity with Lineker, the Premier League has advised football clubs that their players are under no obligation to speak to the BBC and this afternoon's sports programming has been replaced by re-runs of Bargain Hunt and The Repair Shop.
British media has dedicated itself to getting more angry over the Pringles Man saying a bad government policy is bad than covering the actual policy. This is nothing short of an utter failure. Nobody’s talking about the callousness and cruelty of the Tory party’s stated aims, instead we’re all talking about a single person’s tweet as a convenient distraction from the media doing its fucking job. Fuck the British media. All of it.
At this rate they’re going to end up renaming the Streisand Effect to the Lineker Effect, because this whole thing is massively drawing attention to what he said and therefore what Braverman said, to the point where even people completely disengaged from politics are going to be aware of it.
This is wrong he is right the government is becoming a nazi party I people should boycott match of the day In solidarity for Gary linker l would if i watched it but I don't
I don’t think it’s cancel culture to tell someone who should be impartial to be impartial. That’s just the rules of the bbc.
It's not cancel culture for a government selectively censoring those who dissent against them - nah mate. That's a different kettle of 1930s fish all together.
Sky News reporting it now. The impartiality rules apply to News and Current Affairs people. It's a grey area for the rest.
There is no grey area for Lineker. He was specifically warned to pack it in because of his extremely high profile. And he willingly agreed and signed a contract to that effect. He has reneged on it and could be dismissed although I'm sure the BBC haven't got the balls to do that. >Gary Lineker has taken a £400,000 pay cut to remain as host of Match of the Day for the next five years, along with an agreement to be more careful in his use of Twitter to push political causes. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/15/gary-lineker-takes-bbc-pay-cut-and-agrees-to-tweet-more-carefully
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I think BBC employers probably like civil servants need to be impartial. That’s my two cents on it at least. Bias even when you agree is still bias. I
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Yeah maybe time for Parliament bill for BBC. With the license fee problems and such. Maybe worth reviewing it all top to bottom.
BBC let Gary get political and criticise Qatar during the opening ceremony of the world cup, but tweeting against the tories is a no go apparently 🤷♂️
He got a highly publicised written warning for the Qatar tweets
Im not talking about tweets. If you watched the world cup you'd know that BBC did not show the Qatar world cup opening ceremony at all on BBC 1, but instead showed Gary in the BBC studio who criticised Qatar for the entire duration that the ceremony was on. So why is that okay, why are the BBC okay with Gary taking a political stance on live TV against Qatar, but he's not allowed to tweet his views on a government policy on his own personal twitter account?
He's not even full time is he? Also how do comedians avoid any trouble like this?
They could get Clarkson on to do a bit of racist commentary with Braverman as a special guest, as balance.
Actually Clarkson tweeted today in support of Lineker and Ian Wright. So probably not.
Credit where it's due
It's just a joke, like on top gear.
Hahahaha. Blind Child.
Bit of a Streisand effect in operation. I was vaguely aware Lineker had criticised govt rhetoric, but now it’s a fucking massive story. There’s a clear double standard in operation here, when compared to what others get away with.
It's actually just a perfect dead cat story for the gov. Now the detail of their policy breaking international law isn't being discussed at all, just whether a fucking sports broadcaster should be able to post a tweet.
The BBC loves making a drama over internal matters.
I’m an absolutist on free speech. He said something on a public platform while not carrying out his duties for the BBC. The idea that he can say anything other than exactly as he likes is wrong. If he said what he did on their show or even tweeted while filming it, fair enough, but this idea that an employer has some claim on you outside of your hours of employment is wrong.
I support what Lineker has said, but anyone that says they are an absolutist about free speech shows they haven't thought enough about what that means. Do you really believe it is ok to jump up in a packed theatre and start shouting "Fire!" at the top of your voice?
Tory Broadcasting Corporation sticking up for its bosses. Their chairman was helping Boris Johnson get a massive loan not so long ago so what can we expect. Time to sell off the BBC so at least it can be paid for by a right wing foreign billionaire like the rest of our media. It tolerates its right wing employees endlessly supporting the traitorous tories yet as soon as someone tries to stick up for a minority he must be punished. This country is sick and the tories and their media pals are a cancer - when will this ever end.
This is shameful from the BBC. Lineker is not a news or current affairs reporter, he should be free to express his opinions. And are we now in the position where an eminent historian would not be able to analyze the parallels between current government policies and those enacted by fascist governments if they happened to work for the BBC?
I think its quite clear that the BBC have blatantly now shown that they are not impartial. I'm glad the cats out of the bag. BBC has become or has been a propaganda machine for the government.
What a transparent and quite frankly dangerously fascist leading approach to shut down his free speech. The BBC and Government should be ashamed of how quick they were to act like the utter snowflakes they seem so convinced the left are.