Lineker's solidarity strikers could speed up the end of the licence fee

I never expected staff at an entire department of the BBC to put their shoulders to the wheel of the campaign to bring about an early demise for the television licence fee. Yet that is what those working for BBC Sport have done with their rock-solid sympathy strike on behalf of Gary Lineker.

Of course, most of them probably don’t realise what they are doing. With many of the big names of BBC Sport being former professional footballers themselves, one should not expect a particularly exalted level of intellectual reasoning.

There is no way that a compulsory universal licence fee can support this level of factionalism among its prime beneficiaries

But if they help Lineker win the right to continue engaging in hyperbolic left-wing tweeting while being the BBC figure paid most loot by TV licence fee-payers, they will surely hasten the end of the compulsory fee.

BBC director general Tim Davie – effectively its editor-in-chief – has previously reminded Lineker about his responsibility not to compromise the corporation’s impartiality via his social media utterances.