The BBC shouldn’t have taken Gary Lineker off air

The BBC’s decision to take Gary Lineker off the air is the sort of self-harming stupidity at which the Corporation excels. The Match of the Day presenter tweeted that the Illegal Migration Bill was ‘an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people’ and done ‘in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s’. As his social media activity makes clear, Lineker’s views are checklist progressive: anti-Tory, pro-Palestinian, anti-Brexit, pro-taking-the-knee. The BBC has previously censured him for a tweet it found to breach social media guidance and editorial standards of impartiality. 

Like other BBC staff or contractors, there are rules which Lineker must follow. I would dispute these rules being applied to social media, as opposed to how Lineker conducts himself on-air, but I’m probably in the minority. If his contract specifies that he must refrain from certain public activities, the BBC is entitled to enforce that contract.