Andy Coulson

The BBC should admit its mistake and get Lineker back

Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images.

While sports fans this morning are discussing why the entire England rugby team backed Gary Lineker by choosing not to turn up at Twickenham, the drama rumbles on. At its heart, this is a communications crisis borne out of that all-too-often-seen disease of people with important jobs taking themselves far too seriously.

First we have Gary Lineker: who, clearly unhappy with his lucrative lot in life, feels the need to get involved in politics. I’m interested in the views of all sorts of people outside of Westminster – including on the deeply complex issue of immigration. But Gary, whilst being one of my go-to thinkers on football, doesn’t make that list. Just as his fellow multi-millionaire pundit Gary Neville is not a person I pay a lot of attention to on the subject of food banks.

Next up on the taking-themselves-too-seriously list: the Tory MPs who quickly whipped themselves into an artificial outrage, claiming an historic breach of the BBC’s impartiality rules. By a tweet. From a football presenter. And maybe a few advisers in No.10 too who were, no doubt, applying angry pressure to their counterparts behind the scenes sensing, entirely wrongly, some kind of strategic opportunity. All of them taking Lineker’s tweet and themselves far, far too seriously.

Finally, Tim Davie the BBC Director General, who for reasons best known to himself decided this one deserved full defcon one status. He is mates with Lineker, one of his most expensive presenters. They speak frequently, yet he too failed to see the tweet for what it was. Davie, who is one of the smarter DGs of recent years, has previously displayed a deft touch but unfortunately, on this occasion, decided instead to take a long, luxurious swim in Lake Tim. To be fair, he must be a bit jittery given the recent revelations about Richard Sharp and his apparent informal role as financial adviser to Boris Johnson.

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