The BBC’s decision to back down and allow Gary Lineker to return to presenting is a welcome conclusion to a weekend of extreme silliness. In withdrawing the Match of the Day presenter from the airwaves over a crass and stupid tweet in which Lineker compared the government’s rhetoric on illegal migration to that of 1930s Germany, the Corporation escalated a minor skirmish into an all-out war, a war it could not win.
It’s the Tories, not Gary Lineker, who compel you to fund his £1.35 million fee
Lineker is a highly opinionated chap whose opinions mostly stand in opposition to the Tory party and right-of-centre ways of thinking. His own views aren’t all that left-of-centre, just the usual midwit progressivism that gets status-hungry blue-ticks retweeting like crazy. But they have caused the BBC problems in the past, with an investigation finding his 2022 tweet about Russian donations to the Tory party to be in breach of social media and impartiality guidelines.
As I argued on Coffee House on Saturday, Lineker is a sports presenter, not a news anchor, and his social media activity has no bearing on either the BBC’s editorial output or a reasonable person’s perception of that output. (You may think the Beeb shockingly biased in one direction or another but no one thinks this because of a Gary Lineker tweet.)
His return to the airwaves is a victory over an attempt by the right to get into the cancel culture business. Lineker was always going to win, and not just because cancelling is something that can only be done by progressives to non-progressives. Bluntly put, whatever the terms of his contract and whatever the BBC’s social media guidance, Lineker is simply too big a star for the Corporation to fight on this. If the Beeb wants to employ or contract former top-flight footballers — celebrities with big followings in the country — it has to accept that they can’t be taken off the air without prompting a backlash.
Yes, I know it’s unfair that a much junior freelancer who tweeted what Lineker did could be suspended or dropped altogether with none of this fuss. I know it’s just as unfair that other junior staffers or casuals who downed tools in solidarity with that freelancer would face consequences that Lineker’s big-name sympathy strikers will not. I appreciate that the BBC’s decision to capitulate will have been informed more by the views of the Labour party, the progressive media, and Lineker’s famous mates than by what the ordinary licence fee payer makes of it all.
Finally, I understand that, had Lineker invoked 1930s Germany to criticise Labour politicians or progressive policies, the outcome may have been very different. There is hypocrisy and unfairness at work here but that’s life: not all views or BBC freelancers are created equal. Right-wingers can rail against this situation, and complain about being forced to pay for it, but few raised an eyebrow when Boris Johnson dropped plans to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. It’s the Tories, not Gary Lineker, who compel you to fund his £1.35 million fee.
I made the point over the weekend that there was no good outcome for the BBC. If it stuck to its guns, it would incur the wrath of culturally powerful progressives. If it caved in, it would further convince conservative-minded punters that it’s a den of pinko liberalism. Worse, in caving, the Corporation is unlikely to have brought the matter to a close. There will have to be a post mortem on who made the decision to take Lineker off-air, and why, and who took the decision to reverse course – and why.
All this could have been avoided if the BBC didn’t try to impose its obligation for impartiality in news and current affairs on freelance football presenters and others whose social media activity has no connection whatsoever to the Corporation’s news output. The BBC has done more damage to its public standing this weekend than any foolish and offensive Gary Lineker tweet ever could.
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