Day five and the Gary Lineker row shows no sign of abating any time soon. The BBC has gone into meltdown; the Prime Minister has been forced to distance himself. Lineker’s show Match of the Day was shortened to a mere 20 minutes without commentary, with his co-stars boycotting the programme in ‘solidarity.’ Faced with a staff mutiny and a 200,000-strong petition to reinstate Lineker, how on earth does the Beeb’s management sort this one out?
One possible victim of the row is not Lineker but the BBC chairman Richard Sharp. There is an ongoing KC-led review into his appointment as BBC chairman and whether he failed to properly disclose details of his involvement in the facilitation of an £800,000 loan guarantee for the then PM Boris Johnson. Sharp has denied any involvement in the arrangement of a loan for Johnson but he is facing growing pressure to resign. Lord Patten, who chaired the BBC Trust from 2011 to 2014, has today joined that band of critics, telling the Sunday Times that he was ‘surprised’ by Sharp’s silence during the furore and that he should now ‘consider his position’.
And Ed Balls and George Osborne didn’t make Sharp’s life any easier, with both suggesting on the Andrew Neil Show today that the chairman’s departure from the BBC could be imminent. Osborne admitted Sharp ‘might be’ collateral damage and argued that ‘in the next couple of days’ he must show he can ‘defend the BBC, come thick or thin, against the government.’ Balls meanwhile lambasted the BBC’s ‘catastrophic couple of days’, concluding that:
I would say the big loser for the last couple of days though in the end is going to be Richard Sharp, the chairman, because neither the Managing Director Tim Davie or the Chancellor this morning Jeremy Hunt were willing to defend the position of Richard Sharp. I think his position now looks totally untenable.
Time will tell if Lineker’s suspension was an own goal for the Beeb’s management. Osborne added that: ‘some language used on immigration by some Conservatives – not all – is not acceptable.’ Who could he have in mind….
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