How do you solve a problem like Gary Lineker?

[Achtung Englander]

Personally I find he has done no wrong. Every person is entitled to an opinion and he is not working for BBC News, so I am not sure impartiality matters that much. If he is free to talk about human rights in Qatar, why is he not free to talk about human rights here in the UK?

The BBC and the DG have somewhat fucked up here

[Wrathbone]

They could have just said that views expressed outside of the BBC (i.e. on Twitter) by its presenters do not necessarily reflect the views of the BBC and therefore do not impact impartiality. Instead they’ve made a martyr of him for saying what many people are thinking. Part of me wonders if this was an intentional move by the BBC to keep the pressure on Braverman while openly protecting their impartiality stance, but I think it’s more likely that they’ve just completely misjudged the situauton.

[Mantis]

I think the bigger issue at hand is that the current head of the BBC is completely in the Tories pocket. They weren't going to do anything until he personally intervened and had Lineker removed.

The whole thing is just a convenient distraction from the fact that the governments immigration policy is an unworkable mess designed simply to drum up support from their most rabid supporters whilst distracting the rest of us from how utterly messed up they've left the rest of the country.

Lineker should be allowed to say what he wants on his personal social media platforms and his audience will judge his words accordingly. As it so happens, when you consider some of the bile coming out of Suella Braverman's mouth over the last few months, I don't think his comments were really all that far off the mark.

[Animalmother]

Didn't they pull an episode from David Attenborough's new series least it offend the Tories over their shit treatment of the environment?

Apparently it's Attenborough's last series so that would be a real fuck you to the great man.

[Hatredsheart]

He's won then

https://news.sky.com/story/gary-lineker ... s-12832734

[Achtung Englander]

The BBC should make their rules (not guidelines) easy to follow in this day and age.

If you work for the BBC as a presenter you should not engage in any political discorse on social media or risk being let go. Otherwise, just ignore the whole thing and do what WB suggested - distance themselves from his opinion.

Linekar won but it could be a pyrrhic victory if this another nail in the coffin of the BBC. I would like to see the BBC adapt to the 21st century and I would not want to see its demise because then all we have will be commercial media.

On a side note - its easy for Linekar to be liberal about this issue but I am more interested in the opinion of the people who on the front line of immigration and the communities most affected by these boats (I am thinking of the coastal towns). I am bit fed up of listening to what multi-millionaires have to say about issues that affect them the least. As I said at the start, the guy is entitled to his opinion, but I take what he says with a pinch of salt.

[Sly Boots]

Interesting piece on the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... ways-a-lie

For some reason, coming from a position of near-total ignorance on the matter, given the Right's hatred of the BBC I'd kind of always assumed it was slightly left-leaning in its politics (certainly shows like Have I Got News For You etc give that impression), whereas it seems the opposite is true.

Seems like it's not so much a case of "don't voice political opinions" as "don't voice political opinions we don't agree with"... very slippery slope.

[Achtung Englander]

The right says it's left wing and the left say it's right wing

It seems management is right wing and content creators are left

[Hatredsheart]

[Raid]

It's bloody appalling that foreign newspapers print better articles than our own "free" press.

I'm not willing to assume that the majority of BBC staff are right-leaning - I think you only have to look at how other presenters rallied around Lineker to show there are people who agree with him, or that at least care more about solidarity than the content of his tweet, but it's blatantly obvious that the leadership is in league with the government. And the government always has the threat of defunding them to make them sing a lovely Tory ditty (Königgrätzer Marsch comes to mind).

I'll be fascinated see what happens to the BBC if the Tories lose the next election, god willing.

[OzzyMosley]

The right says it's left wing and the left say it's right wing

It seems management is right wing and content creators are left

It's just different pitches of kazoo going off at the same time as far as I can hear.

[Snowy]

The rules around impartiality rightly only applies to those staff working in the news elements of the BBC, not to the broader spectrum of broadcasters, so Lineker was perfectly justified to speak his mind on Twitter.

James O'Brien on LBC did a great piece on why it caused such outcry: