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Monday 13 March 2023

BBC Capitulates In Lineker Row

Look before you leap: one of the oldest of proverbs, and yet somehow overlooked by the BBC’s hapless Director General Tim Davie or anyone in his team. Last week he was on a mission to bring a little more of his version of impartiality to the Corporation; now, having failed abjectly to think through his and his team’s actions, he rightly faces calls for his resignation.

Match of the Day lead host Gary Lineker passed severely adverse Twitter comment on the Tories’ Illegal Migration Bill, noting that the language used by those promoting it was akin to that used in 1930s Germany, which it was. The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press became most indignant and demanded he be sacked for, well, something. The Mail was especially righteous on the matter, as ever.

Here was Davie’s opportunity: Lineker was to “step back” from presenting MOTD. At first this move was briefed as “agreed”. But it was not agreed: Lineker had made no such agreement. Still, impartiality was being enforced. But then a problem entered: what about Andrew Neil when he had been at the Beeb? What about Alan Sugar? What about Chris Packham, who was a freelance, like Lineker?

Then the house fell in: first Ian Wright, then Alan Shearer, then many others, withdrew their services in solidarity. MOTD was severely curtailed; other programmes were cancelled. Suspending Lineker had been intended to show that BBC management was still strong; instead, it served only to show weakness and supreme foolishness, as well as what looked like pro-Tory bias. And not impartiality.

It was OK for Neil to use his Twitter feed to promote the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, and get away with misogynist abuse directed at Carole Cadwalladr. It was OK for Sugar to smear former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. And on it went into the weekend, with Laura Kuenssberg obediently giving viewers a pro-Corporation, and apparently pro-Tory, slant on the affair.

But now a problem entered: in addition to all those hosts who had already declared their solidarity with their suspended colleague, a series of team meetings, at least partly via Zoom, had been scheduled for Monday morning. These could have proved mutinous. So, in another show of weakness, the BBC backed down. According to some accounts, they apologised to Lineker. He was reinstated to MOTD.

He would follow the Corporation’s social media guidelines, but this made no sense, as those guidelines were to be reviewed, which suggested they were not fit for purpose. Davie was now under severe pressure, with calls for his resignation coming from Ed Davey of the Lib Dems, and, at long last, Keir Starmer, although Labour has once again shown zero backbone in its response to the row.

After all, their talking heads refused to endorse Lineker’s criticisms, saying the presenter was OTT in his 1930s Germany comparison. This once again suggests The Red Team is so scared of the right-wing press that it dare not even peep in a direction that press finds disagreeable. But Starmer’s lukewarm response pales into insignificance when compared to the precarious position of Tim Davie.

The DG has shown himself to be both out of touch and inept: he is not there to bow down before the Murdoch and Rothermere press. He should treat the Tory fringe, whether it’s the European Research Group or the so-called Common Sense Group, as what they are: fringe wackos, paid up members of the Brexiteer death cult, a convocation of the mindless, bigoted, and intolerant.

But what he should also do as a matter of urgency is to signal his admission that he loused up, and then hand in his resignation. When leaving the building for the last time, he should take Richard Sharp with him: the Corporation’s Chairman should not be a Tory donor, or indeed former fixer for disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. The BBC should be independent.

Moreover, if we are to have impartiality, there is no place for Robbie Gibb anywhere in the organisation, and certainly not the news gathering and presenting part of it. This fiasco could, and should, have been avoided. The buck stops with the DG: that is all.

The BBC is not there to pander to the right-wing establishment. Clear out the Tories.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with all the above but can't help thinking that the main protaganist (Suella Braverman) has escaped the scrutiny and admonishment she truly deserves.

Anonymous said...

Agreed. But with the BBC still owned by Tory donors and Labour still spineless and leaning Leave, there's really no representation in press or opposition to the Brexit death cult. How can we make one happen?

Anonymous said...

Gary Lineker, political radical who threatened Britain's far right racist political establishment.

Christ. This country is on the verge of utter insanity on the lines of the US "model".

Arnold said...

as well as what looked like pro-Tory bias.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Steve Woods said...

There are two aspects of the BBC's behaviour that are worrying, i.e.:

1) It keeps scoring own goals; and
2) It keeps alienating those who should be rallying to its defence.

Burlington Bertie from Bow said...

Steve

Does the BBC management score any more own goals than do the boneheaded Tory MPs and ministers and the moronic Tory tabloids who appoint them and direct their actions? Or any more than the people cabinet members resemble most, those shiny, entitled, self-awareness voids who voluntarily proclaim their stupidity to the nation every week in The Apprentice.

The remarkable thing about their response to Lineker is that nobody in the Tory/tabloid/moron media camp seems to have realised what the likely outcome would be. And doesn't this have so much in common with all their other built-in-U-turn policies over the last few years?

This Tory government are undoubtedly a fairly evil bunch of bastards but their more noticeable characteristic, I'd say, would be stupidity. They seem to have no idea about the nature of the people they govern and seem to assume that the success of UKIP, the Brexit 37% and the sales figures of the Sun, Mail and Express indicate that Farage, Lee Anderthal and barely-functioning alcoholic Dorries somehow embody the National Spirit.

They don't. We're better than that. But it's a fundamental aspect of the right-wing psyche to believe and expect the worst in people.

Given the sort of people they spend most of their time with. maybe that's not all that surprising.

Mr Larrington said...

I do Mr Lineker starts legal proceedings against noted halfwit and alleged MP Jonathan Gullis. Doubly so if he's aided and abetted by fellow sports broadcaster Brian Moore. Either on the legal side or by “accidentally” [“Removed after taking legal advice from someone other than Brian Moore” – Ed.]