He could have played first class cricket, but chose football.
Scored 48 goals for England and won the Golden Boot in a World Cup.
Never booked. Played for Barcelona, learned Spanish and speaks the language fluently.
A relaxed and confident TV presenter. Married to Betty Boo*. Quick-witted, podcast pal of Danny Baker. Multi-millionaire.
But his greatest achievement is leading the opposition to the Government’s repulsive anti-immigration rhetoric and his absolute refusal to take back what he said. He’s great.
*actually, I’m not sure about that one.
He’s pretty good on twitter as well.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/a-cabinet-minister-tried-to-criticise-gary-lineker-but-scored-a-massive-own-goal_uk_6409d143e4b039f62db5d00e
It’s by turns hilarious and depressing how the Daily Mail gang are demanding the sacking of a BBC freelancer for lacking impartiality, while taking affront at anyone who ‘can’t handle’ their take on foreigners coming over here to take our zzzzz. If Lineker was spouting Farage-lite bollo, they’d have no problem at all.
In the meantime, Johnson is back in business asking for a knighthood for his repellent dad and a place in the Lords for Paul Dacre that was knocked back at the first time of asking. The childcare system is in ruins. HS2 is not going as far north as they’d hoped because they spent too much. Nothing to see here.
It’s very telling how the Mail/Telegraph didn’t complain when “high profile BBC star” Alan Sugar was complaining about foreigners a few weeks ago.
I posted #IamGaryLineker on my FB page. So far, just me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. They should get our entire Cabinet out of Downing Street, drop them in Calais, give them an inflatable boat and tell them to make their way back. They might learn something.
It’s all very useful for the government that the story becomes one person’s opinion rather than the story itself. Actually, not even that. It’s is about his right to express that opinion because of his employer (and here am I, having an opinion about that).
I’m more concerned about Question Time’s Fiona Bruce, a news presenter on a current affairs debate programme, using her position as chair of that programme to give the impression that although Stanley Johnson hospitalised his wife by breaking her nose it’s not to be used against him because ‘it was a one off’. If anyone needs to be hauled over the coals for abusing their position it’s her. Perhaps she will be, it was only last night. But I won’t be holding my breath.
I’m more concerned about having Stanley Johnson on QT at all. Why?
What Bruce did was state the facts, as you’d expect from a journalist. If you watched the programme you’ll know that she did the same thing when Jenrick and Clarke were trying to claim there had been 500,000 asylum seekers. But you hear what you want to hear.
I found Jenrick’s use of the term ‘resettlement’ – in the context of a discussion of the rights and wrongs of Nazi-related language – literally incredible and unbelievably crass.
Is it a fact? Who are the people who said ‘it was a one off’, and what do they know of domestic abuse in the Johnson household? It wasn’t Stanley Johnson – who has said nothing – or his ex wife who had a completely different story.
It’s what I would expect to hear from a piss poor ‘journalist’ like Fiona Bruce.
She said three things that aren’t contested; that his wife said he did it; that he’s said nothing; and that his friends said he did it, but only once. All those are true. What did she do wrong?
What she did wrong was to take the word of his friends (who are they?), without applying any scrutiny to what they said or how they knew. Anybody can say anything. It is not the job of a highly paid, supposedly impartial journalist to repeat something that cannot be fact checked.
She didn’t ‘take the word’ of his friends. She reported what they said. When the incident was originally made public in Tom Bower’s book, the Mail on Sunday apparently verified it with ‘family friends’ and that’s where the ‘one-off’ claim comes from. I think what you’re saying is you don’t believe them – either the MoS or the friends. Well, neither do I. But Fiona Bruce didn’t make that ‘one off’ claim herself, and it’s amazing how much of the coverage of this today misses out that rather crucial detail.
As for “It is not the job of a highly paid, supposedly impartial journalist to repeat something that cannot be fact checked” – that would also prevent FB mentioning Mrs Johnson’s version of events.
The ‘one off’ is the problem surely. It seems obvious to me, and yes I’m inserting my own viewpoint here, that there is an unspoken ‘but’ before it. Even if it was a one off, which from what I understand of domestic abuse seems highly unlikely, surely it’s irrelevant that he ‘only’ did it once?
You are right, obviously, but that’s a different discussion. This one is about whether Fiona Bruce was right to mention that some people have put up that defence. Personally I think it reflects worse on Stanley Johnson that he has the sort of friends who think domestic violence is somehow forgivable if you only do it once. If you see it from that angle, her mentioning it takes on a completely different spin.
Who I believe, is irrelevant. My issue is that Bruce gives credence to an unnamed source. If the author of the book, or the MoS do, then that is their prerogative. I don’t think it is good enough for the BBC. She states as fact that “friends of his have said”. She doesn’t know this at all. If she had clarified that this is according to…, then that would be a little bit better, but it would still leave ignorant as to the closeness of the relationship and unable to judge whether we believe that the information was actually available to that person / persons.
Fiona Bruce had a subject come up quickly on a wide ranging discussion programme, and while this domestic violence has been reported elsewhere, it is literally her job to ensure no libel takes place. So yes this violence has been reported and yes SJ’s “friends” have downplayed it. It’s the same reason why, when someone is accused of a crime, reporters always say “such and such denies all wrongdoing.” If a person is imprisoned, you don’t need to add that caveat. Stanley Johnson has never been found guilty in court of domestic violence, hence the intervention. You don’t need to like it but it’s the rules.
It really is extraordinary that a panellist can say ‘He’s a wifebeater’ and everyone piles in on the host who provides the context for that claim.
@Alias
Bruce isn’t running a deep cover investigation, she’s hosting Question Time, a show whose format leaves little scope for forensic scrutiny, just a quick recap of the claims on either side of an issue
As Gatz says above, the current shiteshower would far rather see The Boy Linacre on the front pages than their latest inhuman and unworkable attempt to deter those risking their lives to reach the UK by traversing the world’s busiest shipping lane in flimsy boats.
Given that the Tories are mad keen to defund and defang the BBC and TBL knows full well how their supporters use his pronouncements as a rod to beat the broadcaster’s back, he really needs to be a bit more circumspect about what he tweets
As Gatz says above, the current shiteshower would far rather see The Boy Linacre on the front pages than their latest inhuman and unworkable attempt to deter those risking their lives to reach the UK by traversing the world’s busiest shipping lane in flimsy boats.
Given that the Tories are mad keen to defund and defang the BBC and TBL knows full well how their supporters use his pronouncements as a rod to beat the broadcaster’s back, he really should be bit more circumspect about what he tweets though
Typical BBC, nothing but repeats 😏
⬆️Deserves some recognition!
The BBC have no choice but to be circumspect with their funding under the control of the government. Lineker can choose not to, depending on the value he places on his BBC contract when set against his individual conscience.
I know the rules of Culture War require us to side with the obvious good guy to show how enlightened we are, but it’s a bit fucking rich to call someone a Nazi when you’re only recently returned from several lucrative weeks commentating at the contemporary version of the 1936 Olympics.
Pulling the odd somber face and a couple of hand wringing monologues don’t change the fact that you could play a World Cup on the bodies of crushed refugees and Lineker would be there, because football is just that important. Like everyone in the game, he had a recent opportunity to put his money where his mouth so frequently is… and passed.
The government are execrable, and will welcome this nonsense dominating the front pages. Lineker is brand building. All of it is the politics of distraction. Roll on the next election so we can get them out.
Where is he calling someone a Nazi here:
“There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”
Well quite apart from anything else, the words “not dissimilar” are doing a pretty considerable amount of heavy lifting there.
Gary Linaker is not the only one who believes language matters. A holocaust survivor confronted Shells Braverman over the issue:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/suella-braverman-holocaust-survivor-refugees-b2263059.html
Straw man: you’re implying people who disagree don’t believe language matters. Argument from authority: you’re implying people who disagree have no right to that view because “someone who knows” cannot be gainsaid. Two for two on the fallacies; see me.
Not just any language but that Suella Braverman’s resembles that of Germany in the 1930s.
Yes, but it doesn’t, as any reasonably serious acquaintance with the subject (and a mistrust of “anyone I don’t like is the Nazis” thinking) would probably confirm.
Nazi language: “the Jew is not the attacked but the attacker, not only anyone who attacks passes as his enemy, but also anyone who resists him. But the means with which he seeks to break such reckless but upright souls is not honest warfare, but lies and slander.
Here he stops at nothing, and in his vileness he becomes so gigantic that no one need be surprised if among our people the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”
Suella Braverman’s language: “There are 100 million people around the world who could qualify for protection under our current laws. Let us be clear – they are coming here.”
If you or anyone else thinks those are even remotely similar, as false and unpleasant as the latter is, they want to have a long word with themselves and read a few books.
Ah. The famous 100,000,000 “invaders” “and billions more”. (The population of the UK is under 68 million and the entire world under 8 billion.)
Last year, the UK had around 500,000 immigrants entering the country. 90% of them were perfectly legal. However, we need this new law to deal with the 50,000 that crossed the channel in a small boat. Extreme rhetoric and language, such as “billions more” invading us, is being used to persuade us of a new law’s necessity, even though it likely breaks international laws. Anyone against it is part of a “lefty blob” that includes civil servants and lawyers. The rhetoric sounded familiar to that holocaust survivor.
No-one, not even Gary Lineker, is accusing the government of committing crimes comparable to the Nazis but the language is unpleasant, exaggerated to a point of hysteria and targeted at a disadvantaged minority and a nebulous lefty blob. Soon, they’ll be restricting the right to protest, then curtailing the freedom of the press. Oh.
So the Tories *are* like the Nazis, or not?
Most of all, The Tories are stupid. They use stupid words, stupidly. Billions of invaders coming our way! I ask you.
The trouble is that, these days, words have consequences, especially when amplified via social media. Those protests outside hotels where migrants are housed did not happen in a vacuum.
Instead of employing enough people to process asylum claims, they spend billions on sending no-one to Rwanda and putting people in hotels.
Targeting and criminalising a tiny minority of desperate people is far from “compassionate and generous”. And very worrying.
Meanwhile, The far right across Europe, some of whom “are” like Nazis, applaud.
Is that all that the Nazis said? Somehow, after about 15 years in power, I imagined they’d have had a lot more to say.
You appear to be inferring that in the 1930s all Germans were Nazis. They gained a lot of support in ’30s Germany but not all of their supporters were extreme (for those times) and the quote you have used is a particularly extreme one.
I don’t agree it’s doing heavy lifting. I think it’s a reference to tone and language being similar that’s it. I suppose his point is nationalism has to start somewhere and this policy looks like a starting point.
Nationalism ≠ Nazism. You can hate both without making false equivalences.
Agreed. The lazy line that Lineker called the government Nazis doesn’t hold up though. And it gave the government a great opportunity to be offended by a football presenter and distract from the real story.
Was someone else in power in 30s Germany? Huge if true. Maybe he was talking about Kurt von Schleicher.
When did the Nazi party (first so called in 1926) move from being a political party with nationalist beliefs to a term that people seem to exclusively link only to the Holocaust? 1930s Germany had other policies and attitudes beyond genocide. In no way am I wishing to belittle the Holocaust with that comment, to be very clear.
It’s called Godwin’s Law. I learnt this from a comedian on The Last Leg last night.
It’s commonly misunderstood. People think that it means that once a comparison is made with the Nazis, the argument is lost. However, Godwin actually stated that the argument is ended.
It’s not working, is it.
Think that Godwin’s Law states that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.
All the other stuff is just colloquial, and – as you say – wishful thinking in this instance.
I think the amount of lifting the words “not dissimilar” are doing is about right, personally. No puerile accusations of Nazism, just a comparison of the words that have been used recently here with words that were used at a certain time in a certain place.
The ones being criticized by him are the ones who’ve invoked N-accusation. The left’s “all Tories are Nazis” headbanger tendency have further entrenched it by defending an accusation that was never made.
Lineker is not beyond criticism but his tax affairs and his World Cup commentary gig are dangerously close to whataboutery in the context of this.
Should some of you choose to discount Lineker’s concerns about treatment of small-boat asylum-seekers, because you don’t like certain other things that he’s done, perhaps you can point out who else with his huge public profile is sticking their neck out on the issue.
It isn’t “close to whatsboutery”, let alone “dangerously” so to point out that mere weeks ago Lineker participated in the Qatar World Cup.
The central issues here are the deprivation of free speech and the mistreatment of minorities. Both are key features of the Qatari regime the World Cup assisted.
Entirely legitimate to point that out, particularly when Lineker is making self aggrandising statements positioning himself as the champion of the voiceless. Diminishing the issue as people “not liking certain other things that he’s done” is gross and makes it sound as if it’s a question of taste.
Tons of famous people have tweeted in criticism of UK government rhetoric on small boats. Have a Google.
Deprivation of free speech is very important but is a complete red herring here. A sideshow.
The issues Lineker raised are the cruelty of the proposed legislation and the similarity of the government’s rhetoric to that used in Germany in the ’30s.
Of course I’m aware that a lot of people have tweeted criticism of this policy. My point was about the the magnitude of Lineker’s public profile as a critic of it. Who else with that amount of profile has criticized the policy?
Has Lineker “positioned himself as the champion of the voiceless” or is that just being inferred by others? What are those self aggrandising statements mentioned? I haven’t seen any such.
If free speech is a complete red herring, you may want to alert Lineker, his supporters, and the wider media. They all appear to have become confused.
Angela Rayner, for example, has said the following: ““The BBC’s cowardly decision to take Gary Lineker off air is an assault on free speech in the face of political pressure from Tory politicians. They should rethink”.
Lineker, meanwhile, has changed his all important Twitter profile photo to quote George Orwell: ““If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” He has also previously said: “Great to see the freedom of speech champions out in force this morning demanding silence from those with whom they disagree.”
This is very clearly a dispute about the right of BBC presenters (freelance or otherwise) to express political views in public. Which makes the lack of free speech in Qatar germane.
Here’s the Lineker quote on those with no voice: “I’ll continue to try and speak up for those poor souls that have no voice.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64891734
If you come out with a public statement like that it’s entirely legit for people to ask where your scruples were re: those with no voice a mere 10 weeks ago.
Certainly not in evidence when he was describing the Al-Bayt, built by immigrant slave labour, as potentially his favourite football stadium. Presumably no issue if we take asylum seekers straight off the boat and work them to death in the service of football tournaments, just so long as we don’t deploy the wrong rhetoric while doing so.
Think this needs a question mark after the word “Nazi”.
Well it needs a question mark. But I still think the actual text doesn’t support the comment that he’s calling someone a nazi.
The idea that the BBC can expect every freelancer they contract to present or appear in their programmes, to avoid making any kind of public political comment is completely unsustainable in the modern social media age even if you think it is a good idea (which I don’t). Senior management, and those working specifically in politics and news, yes, but beyond that it’s ridiculous. But of course this is really about Lineker making the wrong kind of comment.
What was really extraordinary was to see the BBC 10 o’clock news leading – leading! – with this as the main story, as opposed, for example, leading on the actual policy proposal itself. Utterly depressing.
Meantime apparently it is OK for the Chair of this politically disinterested organisation to have personally donated £400,000 to the Conservative Party.
The impartiality of both Tim Davie (DG) and Richard Sharp (Chair) are extremely questionable. A former Conservative MP and a party donor. Employees and contractors may not express political opinions but top management are seemingly not subject to that restriction.
Why we have to pay Gary Lineker’s ridiculous salary to hear his total nonsense is something only the BBC will know. I suspect that they’re quite happy to have someone to espouse their own world view while pretending to represent the license payer.
Whereas Laura Kuenssberg and Fiona Bruce are completely impartial…………
The BBC don’t pay him large amounts of money to have an opinion on our Government.
They pay him large amounts of money to front Match of the Day and other football events, because, in their opinion, he’s the best at it, and it’s their going rate – less than he’d get elsewhere, which is why he also works for BT Sport. Because he can.
Anyone can air their opinion on Twitter, and it’s up to TBL whether it’s OK to talk about immigration. I don’t agree with everything he says or does, especially the Qatar business, but all power to him in this instance.
Tsk. The noun is ‘licence’.
What total nonsense is it that you think he is espousing? Does it concern football?
Now, if he’d said in August – “I think Tottenham look good for a trophy this season” – that would have been complete nonsense.
Or, indeed, next season, or the one after that, or after that, ad nauseam.
The noun in standard British orthography is indeed ‘licence’.
The noun in standard North American orthography is ‘license’.
.co.uk
What he does and says on his own time is a matter for him. I doubt delivering yourself of pretty predictable media liberal opinions meets a bar of bringing the employer into disrepute, and if it does, why wasn’t the same standard applied to e.g. Andrew Neil? The whole thing’s a daft confection.
FFS – this is getting quite dangerous. The BBC are even censoring Attenborough now for telling the truth fearing a right wing backlash…
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/10/david-attenborough-bbc-wild-isles-episode-rightwing-backlash-fears?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
That article is twaddle – the documentary episode in question was always going to be an iPlayer only thing, probably due to the way it was funded.
This rather reinforces Gary’s point about echoes of 1930s Germany, does it not? Utterly disgraceful. Spineless of the BBC, but brought about by fear of right-wing pressures.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/10/david-attenborough-bbc-wild-isles-episode-rightwing-backlash-fears?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Fuck’s sake can nobody actually read real books about Nazi Germany in 2023 or something? There seems to be this view – see that godawful Michael Rosen poem – that the Nazis came in by stealth, disguised as regular conservatives, did shady backroom deals to quietly repress dissent and then surprised everyone by turning out to be the Nazis. No they didn’t. There was no subtext, no subtlety, no hidden anything: they smashed people’s shops in, murdered them, tried to seize power in armed coups, had a paramilitary wing that was constantly on the streets, and shouted very loudly – no dogwhistles – about hating Jews.
The Tories are absolute shite, and many are pretty bad people, but comparing them with a straight face to the Nazis is absolutely historically illiterate and hysterical. Anybody making the comparison is just completely unserious and needs to sit down.
But of course they won’t because being a smug Guardian liberal means never having to say something isn’t like the Nazis.
Agreed about how the Nazis were clear what they were about from the start. And agreed that comparing pretty much anything to Hitler and the Nazis is rarely a sensible thing to do. But Lineker didn’t say the Tory government were like the Nazi Party. He said that some of the language they were deploying around immigrants is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s.
I’d disagree that the Nazis were 100% transparent in their politics from the off. They blamed the problems of Germany on immigrants and made up Jewish conspiracy theories, but didn’t go as far as saying they would round them all up, gas and burn them, because they knew it wouldn’t sit well with the electorate. I’ve just been watching Ken Burns’ magnificent, if harrowing doc ‘The US and the Holocaust’ and it identifies the tipping points between what happened in 30s Germany and what happened in the U.S.
The documentary has made me reconsider some of the inflammatory language our right wing politicians use and, while the comparisons with 30s Germany may be easy, doesn’t mean they’re superficial. This is another Tory red meat issue, a distracting measure as fodder for cruel people while the real problems are ignored.
The Final Solution wasn’t policy at the time they were rising to power or prior to the war, so they could hardly have been expected to be upfront about something that didn’t exist. But upfront about violent hostility to, and desire to expel, Jews? 100%, from the absolute off.
OK, to clarify, the Final Solution was put in place because rounding up hundreds of Jewish people and other ‘undesirables’, shooting them, then burying them in mass graves, was too labour intensive. But while fuelling hatred of their enemies, the Nazi party didn’t advertise their ultimate methods to the public, hence their secrecy.
If you’d asked a few people on the streets of 1931 Germany whether they thought all Jews/Romany/etc should be murdered, they probably wouldn’t agree. But they probably would have said immigration and Jewish ‘control’ of industry was the most important issue facing Germany, and the main cause of their economic woes, because a supine right wing press had told them.
I mean, this just isn’t accurate but whatever. If you think “a supine right wing press” that looked *anything* like ours was the main vector of antisemitic thought in 1930s Germany, I really don’t know what to tell you.
Oh and also, the story is bollocks but confirmed lots of people’s priors. Supine *right* wing press, is it?
It’s incredible how far this one has gone, even since the WWF clarification. People hear what they want to hear.
Too much to summarize here. His latest gaffe is to compare current immigration policy to that of Germany in the Thirties. Regarding football, I don’t know whose idea it was to not show the World Cup opening ceremony but have an hour long rant about Qatar. They must have thought that the previous twelve years hadn’t given enough time to get their views across,
I didn’t see any comparison of policy, or accusation of political alignment. What I read was a comparison of the language being used, that’s all.
If he’d just kept it to a criticism of the Tories, no-one would have given a monkeys.
And now the Great Purge begins. What a sorry day for the BBC and for freedom of expression.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/10/gary-lineker-step-back-match-of-the-day-bbc?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
The gReat PuRgE
My god, dry up
You seem to be directing unnecessary anger and contempt at me rather than the deserved target. Hope you feel better for it.
Well, it’s just that comfy Guardianistas lazily invoking the language of one of the two greatest crimes against humanity of the modern age, to describe some unpleasant but hardly extremist attitudes to immigration, makes me a bit angry.
‘Invasion’? ‘Resettlement’? You don’t think these are inflammatory in today’s context? You’re not aware of how people like Farage and Hopkins have used even more extreme language to draw distinction between us and ‘them’? You of all people should be aware of the insidious power of language to create division and hate.
Do I think they’re inflammatory? Yes. Do I think they compare with “the eternal Jew”? No. Do I think the Tory government wants to round up and exterminate people based on ethnicity? Of course I fucking don’t, and neither do you, so what are we talking about here?
It’s only you that’s brought “the eternal jew” into this discussion.
I understand and agree with your pointing out that likening the Tories to Nazis is stepping much too far. However, your hammering of that point is obscuring the real point, as I see it, of how extreme nationalism can be facilitated by the rhetoric of unscrupulous politicians
On a separate note, I found this closing paragraph of the Guardian article interesting.
“One issue for the BBC is whether Lineker would be happy to walk away from presenting Match of the Day, given that he has extensive business interests outside the corporation and has shown no indication that he will retract his comments.”
It struck a chord with something I’ve been thinking since this row blew up. What if Lineker just isn’t bothered enough about keeping his MOTD contract to alter his stance?
Have a read of Umberto Eco’s short book ‘How To Spot a Fascist’ & his essay ‘Ur Fascism’ if you think that the current UK climate is not sliding in that direction.
While you’re at it, have a look at the ‘Early Warning Signs of Fascism’ sign (easy to Google’ which was a best seller in the US Holocaust Museum & see how many of them resonate today.
Fascism & National Socialism are not completely interchangeable but of course have many common aspects.
What the victims of both systems have consistently warned of is complacency & LACK of vigilance about ‘any* tendencies in those directions, & of the dangers of sleepwalking into allowing the conditions for it to flourish again.
The maxim that ‘The road to Fascism is paved with people telling you you are overreacting’ very much holds true.
The Tories have 18 months left, tops. I like my odds fairly well. I’ve read the Eco, by the way. Interesting.
Well that’s OK then – Eco is officially ‘interesting’.
Not sure what you want me to say; it *is* interesting. It’s also one person’s opinion.
I’d like to think the Tories will be out next time but the whole Stop the Boats slogan appears to be designed to appeal to the Red Wall voters that believed Boris had Got Brexit Done so I’m not holding my breath.
‘Hardly extremist…’ 🤔
Matter of perspective, I guess. I tend not to lend the language of a government in its death throes too much weight when it has zero hope of being able to enact anything real, and is relying on the only thing it still knows how to do: get a rise out of exactly the people who are most likely to lose their minds over it.
For what it’s worth, the idea that immigration is always an unalloyed good is a very recent one, and still largely untested. I happen to think anyone willing to get in a little boat and – as one occupant put it this week – “rather live a prisoner in England than free in France” should have the welcome mat rolled out all day long, but others disagree and have good faith reasons for disagreeing.
We never get to hear the voices of all those Aborigines who welcomed the new settlers
I think I have that album somewhere.
“Hardly extremist”? Dear god ..
XTCtremist? This is pop but we dabble in a little bit of politics now and then.
I agree 100% with Gary, a thoroughly decent bloke.
However, what would I be thinking if he had said “Quite right, send the buggers back, me and Braverman are soul mates” ?
That, I think, is a key question. There is much talk about freedom of speech, but i wonder how many of Linekar’s supporters would react if a high profile BBC presenter started tweeting demands that the government curb immigration, or abortion. Would they defend their right to do so, or demand their removal ?
It would depend on whether they agreed or not, obviously.
Thank God we have Andrew Neil and Alan Sugar to use as possible case studies…
Sugar’s comments ( and I mention him because he works in light entertainment, not news), have drawn a whole heap of criticism, which rather seems to underline my original point.
Andrew Neil is a complex case. Works in news, has a clear political standpoint, but apparently so willing and able to put the boot into anyone that right of centre politicians have refused to be interviewed by him.
Sugar also tweeted in 2019 that he supported Johnson for PM. No reprimand. Imagine what would have happened if he had tweeted support for Corbyn.
Also, Tom Peck of The Independent pointed out in a tweet that Sugar’s sidekick Karen Brady is a serving peer, subject to the Tory whip.
And she routinely uses her column in the Sun, as well as Twitter, to comment on political matters, most recently supporting Badenoch’s dismal decision not to make menopause a protected characteristic. Like Sugar, she makes no attempt to be impartial, but remains unsanctioned by the BBC. Former Tory minister Michael Portillo continues to be paid to write political columns whilst making “Great Continental Train Journeys”. Is the BBCs view of impartiality being applied impartially? It seems not.
Maybe nobody from the establishment left has complained vehemently about the fact? Maybe if they had?
Are you referring to the left wing cabal that’s been in charge during these thirteen years of Tory rule? They are secret. No-one knows who they are, hence Braverman’s descriptor “blob”. They aren’t going to reveal themselves over such a trivial matter as a Sugar sidekick.
In the absence of Lineker, Shearer and Wright, the BBC have called off the bench Frank Lampard, Sol Campbell and Peter Shilton. The football analysis will be bobbins but the those offended by the woke Guardianista tofu eating coverage to date can watch without fear of offence, although the BBC are still working on a way of pixelating out game play that veers out too far on the left wing.
Who needs who here? Lineker already has plenty of other irons in the fire with other channels and no doubt plenty more outlets will be forming a queue to offer more for far more than the BBC pay. From the BBC’s point of view, I doubt anyone watches MOTD or the handful of live matches just because Lineker is presenting.
The bigger story is the David Attenborough one.
Stalwart, the ultimate stalwart, not just of the BBC, anywhere, makes 6 episodes for a series, 5 go out on TV, the other one is squirrelled away, like one of his… erm… squirrels.
I don’t quite know what sums up the 1930s – but I’m sure the above completely sums up 2023, and it’s only March!
See what I mean, @hedgepig?
Standard.
Erm… approaching it from the BBC side… Attenborough ever so slightly – by about 50 years – (that’s F.I.F.T.Y. years – oh yeah, that is a football reference you might not understand – sorry) more connected to the Corporation than Gary Lineker…
Dismiss the above… following the statement below…
That said, the two commentators above were v. quick to get busy.
The story is flatly untrue; there’s no angle. You just wanted it to be true because it suited you.
It was a story that was floating around… I heard it, my wife heard it, you heard it… it was heard… recently, very recently, by a load of people… get off your high horse.
The height of the horse isn’t the issue here, it’s the flatness of the lie; this was never an episode in the series.
Good point… I was approaching the scenario from the brevity of the donkey and the flatness of my Aunt Sally’s chest, but then I always do that.
About my Aunt Sally’s… OK, too much information.
What’s the “banned” Attenborough about?
How grey squirrels (essentially rats with tails but a very good PR company behind them) came over and drove out our cuddly red British squirrels?
Wait til someone introduces venomous snakes to the Emerald Isle.
Statement from the Beeb. Nothing to see here…😏
There’s an excellent podcast on the rise of the Nazis in the 30s: The Rest is History. To equate our bumbling government to a totalitarian state who actively practiced genocide is rather silly.
Lineker is a sports presenter; he’s
not presenting Newsnight. I don’t particularly mind if he voices an opinion. As many have pointed out, however, he was more than happy to take money from Qatar via Al Jazeera – £400,000 p/a, to be precise.
It’s this, of course. The BBC are being ridiculous and weak; the Tory government are appalling; Lineker is a cowardly hypocrite who’s perfectly entitled to express opinions which don’t bring his employer into disrepute; plenty of right-wingers working for the same employer have aroused none of the same outrage for identical behaviour; Guardian readers find critiquing the right without bathetically and insultingly invoking the Nazis next-to-impossible. All of these can be, and are, true at the same time.
Not for the first time are all parties found wanting. No one comes out of it well.
It might be silly but the arguments are that the sort of obscene programme that the Nazis eventually adopted started off as something pretty mild and more palatable to the voters they were trying to recruit.
Refusing refuge for desperate people when you are a country as wealthy as the UK is pretty appalling. Whatever we think of Lineker he had the balls to speak out. Shame on the BBC for caving in to the Daily Mail and the rest of the Tory mob who think they can shape how we should think.
He’s no Charles Darwin I’m afraid.
“the arguments are that the sort of obscene programme that the Nazis eventually adopted started off as something pretty mild and more palatable to the voters they were trying to recruit”
Yes, but those arguments would be untrue, unless we’re using “more palatable” only in the sense that anything is more palatable than industrial murder (which idea only seriously occurred to the Nazis themselves around the time of Wannsee). The idea that the Nazis were in any way subtle about their racial programme, or publicly toned it down in any way to gain votes, bears no scrutiny.
This is spot on.
Everyone’s a winner here: the government get a handy distraction from their utter cack-handedness, Lineker gets his ego fluffed and his public persona varnished. Hell, some people might even start defending him on the tax charges because he said something they like on Twitter.
Ironically, a Lineker-owned production.
Not a huge fan of Lineker. There are many objectionable stories about him being quite an odious individual. Maybe these are not true, who knows.
But what he said wasn’t particularly strong. And when you have plenty of other BBC personalities saying controversial shit the other way, for example picking one out, old grey vagina face “Lord” Sugar who is very vocal in a right wing manner, it’s a bit hypocritical to pick on Gary alone for voicing his opinion.
The BBC have utterly lost the plot. They are a dying organisation I’m afraid
I can see both sides of this argument and the right decision has been made to have a chat ‘offline’ and come to a social.media presence agreement and financial settlement.
The media storm around this is pathetic.
Replacement already found.
See no problems there – clear the schedules for Fulchester United and a special profile of Billy The Fish
Love Melly, hate the Fish – he was a scaley, fishy, b’stard and we sang horrible songs about him at Dagenham.
Contentious, I know.
That’s Wright, Shearer, Scott, Jenas and Richards (at least) standing in solidarity with Lineker and saying they won’t present MOTD tomorrow. Twitter of course is crackling with whimsical substitutes, and as a media story it’s now bigger than ever and currently dwarfing the issues of refugees and the government policy towards them. Either the BBC have handled this appallingly or it’s going exactly to their plan. I tend to favour cock up instead of conspiracy as a default theory.
BBC PR F..k up here definitely
If the BBC had waited a week, the story will have fizzled out. They think they will be OK now, because they did what the Government wanted but – oh look – his co-presenters aren’t turning up for work either.
The belligerent right of the Conservative Party had their one great victory in 2016 when they whipped up anti-EU sentiment and got exactly what they wanted – but only just. With their backs against the wall, they are clearly trying to do this again by highlighting this immigration issue as the biggest problem we have. The BBC and the others are falling for it, as per usual.
They haven’t got it right this time. It’s pathetic. Househoulds looking at their eye-watering bills while people in power are openly corrupt will vote for change.
Lineker didn’t tweet his opinion spontaneously. The Government is all “woah…where did THAT come from…?” which, again, is pathetic. Penny Mordaunt’s toe-curling attempt at wit at Lineker’s expense in the House was an embarrassment. This wasn’t a confident and devastating put down – it was awful. This is the best they’ve got.
… absolutely right… and in terms of the presenting, what are we talking about? Who will present MOTD on Saturday? I don’t watch MOTD, neither do the vast majority of the population, and I “do ” live sport – 3 games this weekend.
I’ve been watching re-runs of West Ham and the likes on Big Match Revisited and, Brian Moore does the job, love the guy, but it’s more about Chelsea being shite for me… and it’s the same today.
Amazed to learn that football personalities are capable of boycotts. Was recently assured that such a thing was simply never likely to happen. Glad to see they’ve saved it for the really big issues 🗑️.
It IS quite a big issue, to be fair…
It really really isn’t.
The pundits are not boycotting over government policy. They’re boycotting over Lineker’s ability to tweet freely.
They’re all fresh off the plane from participating in an event that publicised a government which tortures homosexuals and abuses slave labour. Those are big issues. And none of these cowards boycotted over them.
This is a Twitter storm that’s escaped into real life.
Sorry; I should add to this – I personally think BBC presenters should be free to speak their minds off air. All of them.
But it isn’t half telling that THIS is the issue that has moved these guys to a boycott.
I agree entirely.
I don’t understand half the things you say (about music to clarify) @bingo-little but this is absolutely on the nail. Well said.
The issue is that an employer suspended someone for speaking out against a government policy., unrelated to his job. Don’t tell me that you would just take that, if it was you.
Technically, the BBC has suspended Lineker for breaching their impartiality rules. The same rules which, whether we agree with them or not, apparently apply (or should apply) to all their employees and freelancers. Rules which Lineker publicly and unapologetically breached.
My current employer has all sorts of internal rules with which I am required to apply. Some of them I don’t agree with personally, and some actually do impact my ability to speak in public on certain matters.
I don’t really care whether they suspend him, to be honest. Per the above I think this is all just a nonsense distraction being hyped up into something far more meaningful and sinister than it actually is. Lineker and the other pundits will do fine out of it all.
The guidelines I saw discuss high risk and low risk scenarios. They even offer an example of a low risk scenario – a sports presenter discussing political issues.
As many have said, Alan Sugar tweets quite frequently about his political views and gets no such treatment. When Lineker tweets, I have never thought “that’s going to piss off the BBC” because it’s nothing to do with them. They should have – quite literally – done nothing and said that a conversation will take place. The conversation being “we’re not going to do anything, Gary. See you at the studio”. A few days later it would have been forgotten. This is the BBC being infected by Tory incompetence.
Sure. It may very well be that the guidelines are being enforced unevenly. I personally don’t think they’re tenable for that very reason – you’ll always end up in controversy over balance of application.
But it does rather reinforce the point I’m making above; the matter over which these pundits are boycotting is a triviality compared to what they all let slide in Qatar. It’s risible that we’re a mere 4 months on and they’ve suddenly discovered how boycotts work because one of them can’t say what he wants on Twitter.
Moreover, many of them had over a decade to make themselves unavailable for the Qatar World
Cup if they felt that strongly about it. In the event they all took the blood money, directly or indirectly. Which isn’t entirely surprising, given the enthusiasm so many in the football community have for trips to Dubai.
If Lineker had spoken out about the Qatar tournament, he definitely would have lost his job. I think that stinks – but those guidelines mentioned earlier would have been breached because it was directly about the event being covered.
When Lineker tweeted about something entirely different, and he is suspended, there is definitely a lot wrong with that. The subject matter is not trivial. Neither is the attempt to gag someone for daring to disagree with the Government.
Per the above, describing it as “gagging someone for disagreeing with the government” is hyperbole. He’s being punished for breaching a workplace rule of which he was made aware in advance.
Lineker did speak up on Qatar and didn’t lose his job, so that surmise is plainly incorrect. If he’d not attended he wouldn’t have lost his job either – he’s a vital asset for the BBC, which is why he’s paid what he is. The notion that he was somehow powerless to speak/act in Qatar is plainly undermined by his actions in the present instance. He has simply prioritised.
Frankly, even if he had lost his job, he’s a near pensionable multi millionaire. If he’s not going to take a stand on these things (he who is now proclaiming himself a voice for the voiceless) who will? He shouldn’t have gone to Qatar. He knows that, you know that and I know that. Having done so, all this posturing rings more than a little hollow.
And yes, the subject matter is deeply, deeply trivial. Give it 6 months and you’ll barely remember it happened.
@bingo-little For Cliff’s sake, I thought you were saying he didn’t speak out about Qatar – but we now we agree that he did. He didn’t boycott it, though – I’ll give you that. Perhaps he should have, but that would have been a clear breach of his contract so as a famously diligent rule-follower, he chose not to.
He was entitled to believe he was on safer ground by objecting to the Government’s treatment of asylum seekers. But it turns out he wasn’t. The Government doesn’t like it when people disagree with them and will do everything in their power to close them down.
If the subject matter was trivial (e.g. not being permitted to promote Walkers crisps) we would be in full agreement – but the policy itself and the fact that he has been punished for expressing reasonable doubts about the Government is not trivial. If they can do it to him, they can do it to the rest of us.
If you tolerate this, Harry Lineker will be next..
“If they can do it to him, they can do it to the rest of us.”
I’m intrigued as to how specifically, based on the fact pattern here, the government might prevent (say) me from tweeting negative things about them? I’m really not sure applying pressure to the BBC would cut it, since they don’t employ me.
Perhaps they might use the regressive law they passed in 2020 permitting a 5 year prison term for “anyone who broadcasts, publishes, or republishes false or biased rumours, statements, or news… with the intent to harm national interests, stir up public opinion, or infringe on the social system or the public system of the state”.
No, wait – that’s the Qatari government. And the difference between the above and Lineker’s case is what makes the statement about “doing it to the rest of us” further hyperbole.
However tendentious Lineker’s tweet was, the support he has received is a symptom of the unease, to put it mildly, about the direction of the govt’s immigration policy. The nuance-free, spittle-flecked ranting of the tabloid commentariat is now mirrored by the government, who no longer seem to care what the rest of the world thinks of us. The fact that they are being advised by Tony Abbott, whose own exploits in this field led to Oz being condemned by the UNHCR, is just the icing on the cake.
The Hedgester can lecture us all he likes about the need to read up on Nazi history before making lazy comparisons (and I recommend Victor Klemperer’s diaries for a detailed account of the slow drip of petty restrictions and insults in the 30s, and the disbelief of the thinking classes that Hitler was getting away with it), but the fact is that we seem to have entered a dark and illiberal phase in the country’s history which I for one find deeply worrying. I hesitate to call anybody a fascist who isn’t an actual card-carrying fascist, but you don’t have to be Rick from The Young Ones to find yourself pondering parallels, at the very least.
There my be unease about the policy from some quarters but I’ve just seen a comment on Facebook below an article about the Lineker situation (from Ladbible or some such site) that criticises him for not focusing on ‘our’ homeless soldiers and struggling families. It had over 700 likes when I saw it, significantly more (by several hundred) than the comments agreeing with him.
Other way round on Twitter the last time I looked. ‘Our’ homeless soldiers are a perpetual straw man trotted out when someone focuses on subject A and not subject B. It’s the government’s job to look after homeless soldiers, if they want to be looked after, also struggling families. In this context Stop the Boats is a classic dead cat.
war … great for votes.
The funding of the consequences afterwards shouldn’t be charitable ones… but that’s just me! Crazy, I know.
Okay, I’m calling it; tomorrow’s MOTD will be presented by Adrian Chiles with Matt le Tissier and Barry from Eastenders as the pundits.
Apparently not.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/10/gary-lineker-step-back-match-of-the-day-bbc?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
To be fair I always record it then start watching far enough into the programme that I can skip all the guff between the matches and only watch the play, so that development makes no difference to me. And I’m out at a gig tomorrow night anyway. That aside …
I’ve always wanted Enfield Town… but this is the perfect chance to get Enfield on MOTD…
“If Lineker came into the BBC studio to present Match of the Day, a mainstay of footballing excellence loved by millions, I’d say “NOOOOO…. LINEKER, YOU MAY HAVE BEEN A CENTRE-FORWARD WITH AN UNCANNY KNACK FOR…”
@mikethep
The papers are now saying there will be no pundits at all
Presumably Bradley Walsh and Steven Graham were busy
We had Robbie Savage down as a
Shoe-in. He’s washing his hair I gather.
Word is the match commentators are falling into line with the studio presenters now and may refuse to commentate. It’s looking more and more like the BBC picked the wrong fight.
There is also talk of players refusing to honour their media commitments too.
Gosh, where will it all end? Footballers will refuse to play matches…..Walkers will refuse to make crisps……asylum seekers will refuse to come here in boats any more…. No, wait….
If they had wanted to retaliate with a modicum of wit, they could have commandeered the legendary TUb Of Lard from HIGNFY.
That particular joke is well past its sell-by-date by now
Ron Manager and Mike Bassett
Graham Norton, Alex Jones and Rylan Clarke on standby …
Holly and Phil would be queueing up to host the show, too.
While I wouldn’t want to question Mr Lineker’s motives one way or the other, it is a matter of public record that he is still under investigation by HMRC for the small matter of £5m in tax, er, “mitigation” (https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/07/gary-linekers-political-tweets-could-help-him-avoid-49m-tax-bill) and that having public rows like this with his “employer” (or otherwise) may help his case in that department.
M’lud.
(If I could be bothered, it might be interesting to tally how many of you lauding Mr Lineker for his views also call Amazon “tax dodgers”… but life is too short.)
The discussion is not about Lineker’s tax affairs. Feel free to start a new thread about that though
The discussion about his tax affairs is of such complexity that people just throw in the towel and accuse him of dodging tax. Apparently he’s actually paid the tax, the argument is over whether he or the Beeb should pay it. I think.
His complex tax affairs appear to have confused HMRC into believing he owes them a little under £5m.
🙄 See below.
The below confirms the above.
No don’t look here, you need to look over there! Honest.
If Mr Lineker is a BBC employee, he has a duty of impartiality; if he’s not, he has duty to pay a lot more tax than he has, good socialist that he is, to pay.
mikethep: is there anyone else you’d care to give a free pass to because “tax affairs are of such complexity”? I’ve searched and I can find no record of him paying the bill HMRC has charged him with.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/feb/27/gary-linekers-lawyers-say-hmrc-tax-probe-looking-in-the-wrong-place?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I refer m’ learned friend to the following passage: ‘ Lineker says all taxes were paid on the income via a partnership set up in 2012 with his ex-wife, Danielle Bux, and is appealing against the demand.
On Monday, a preliminary hearing in London was told Lineker has now paid the income tax in full.’
The argument now is about whether HMRC’s interpretation was correct. He seems to have done it by the book, but perhaps his accountant was using the wrong book, who knows.
As for don’t look over there etc, you were the one who raised his tax affairs.
The preliminary hearing was told by Lineker (underline that last bit) that Lineker has paid all his taxes. That he has actually done so is being disputed by HMRC.
Your “he seems to have done so by the book” is untrue, unless you are simply taking his testimony as gospel.
This article isn’t evidence that he has paid his taxes. It’s evidence that he is disputing that he hasn’t done so.
I have no idea how this case will pan out. I’m not a tax specialist. But right now what’s clearly true is that the tax authorities are still going after Lineker for a substantial amount in unpaid taxes.
This is quite correct. Mr Lineker is still under investigation for his tax affairs.
He may (or may not be) a paid BBC employee. If the latter he has a duty of impartiality; if not he owes a lot of money to the common good he publicly espouses but privately seems reluctant to pay for.
Have it your own way, both of you. Can’t be bothered to argue any more. I’m either whistling in the dark or pissing in the wind, not sure which.
Like that one. Feel the same way.
Can I check? Did you also call for Andrew Neil to STFU when he was a BBC employee? Or Alan Sugar? I’m struggling to remember you being quite so vociferous with regard to them.
Or it just the left leaning views that you have an issue with?
GL contends that he was an employee between 2013 and 2018. He’s one of thousands of contractors / sole traders who have been snared by HMRC off the back of the rolling clusterfuck that is IR35.
If GL is successful in making his case that he was an employee across these years – and HMRC have lost the majority of cases they have bought to date -(but it’s not hard to see why they are chasing this one) it has no bearing on his current contractual terms with the BBC and the validity of any gagging clauses they now apply in the name of “impartiality”. Such clauses must have been introduced when GL was last re contracted. Otherwise he’d be well within his rights to tell them to shove them up Richard Sharp’s arse, totally impartially of course.
Thank you for this. I looked up IR35 (carefully omitting ‘rolling clusterfuck’ from my search terms), and I’m even more inclined to give Gaz the benefit of the doubt.
I hope he is fully paid up with IPSE. HMRC have made a lot of people’s lives hell over the last few years fucking around with the IR35 rules. It pains me to know that the IR35 debacle started with a Labour politician trying to make a name for herself.
The rules in this area are notoriously complex and somewhat outdated, and the waters are further muddied by the fact that Lineker used a partnership not a limited company. In effect that suggests the only saving would have been in National Insurance, not in income tax. The difference between what he’s already paid and what HMRC claim he owes is supposedly around 500k. In my opinion, he has a good chance of winning this case, but of course will be massively out of pocket anyway due to his legal costs.
Case won by Lineker
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65103265
It was David Gauke, no?
We should always always always make time to name and shame the rich and/or famous for failing to pay their taxes imo. Even (especially) the ones we like.
And we should always make time to believe that a government department can make a mistake, and that anyone, no matter how rich or famous can challenge their decisions. Even the obscure and far from rich, like me, have had HRMC cock up their taxes in the past.
Isn’t it best to wait for the tribunal decision before judging Lineker?
I quite agree, although I note a few tax specialists below who are ready to pronounce his innocence.
The above post isn’t specifically re: Lineker. It’s about the concept that it could ever be off topic to point out the rich and famous evading (or indeed accused of evading) tax.
As I’ve said elsewhere; I have no view on whether Lineker is at fault. As you say, that’s for the tribunal to decide.
Tax evasion is, of course, illegal. Tax avoidance, ie minimising your liability to HMRC, is not and is something everyone presumably seeks to do. The BBC must take some responsibility here as they, if memory serves, insisted on presenters working as freelancers, and there have been a number of cases like this one in recent years, with outcomes going both ways.
Meanwhile it looks as though no one is prepared to appear on today’s Football Focus or Final Score.
As David rightly says above, we should wait for the tribunal to reach a verdict rather than guessing.
Personally, I am not a fan of tax avoidance and I don’t practice it myself. I find the now widespread idea that we should all be turning somersaults to reduce our tax bills regrettable, particularly as those somersaults are dramatically easier to perform for the very rich. I am quite happy to pay my taxes – in fact, I’d be quite happy to be taxed more if the money can be used appropriately.
Evasion is, of course, a much more clear cut wrong, but I am quite in favour of naming and (where appropriate) shaming for those who do either, particularly where they’re being paid with public monies.
I hear what you say, but as I posted earlier, a bit further up, my professional opinion, for what it’s worth, is he will win this case.
If it gets any worse for the Beeb, Gary might just be in time to have
his name added to Johnson’s Resignation Honours list
Doesn’t everyone fast forward through the pundits chat to get to the action anyway?
The show will be 30 minutes tomorrow for a change of full action.
No – I enjoy it. Particularly when Alan Shearer brings in the “eeh…back in my day” stuff as if he wasn’t paid squillions to pay football.
Fair dos to big Al, he “puts in a shift”
But not tonight.
No, given that he’s got his fresh legs on, he’s probably “off to the races” instead
Sorry, I’ve been out. So is Gary a Nazi or not? Need to know what to say down the pub tomorrow. TIA.
Gary who?
Oh, you mean this:
One thing this whole situation might illustrate is the fact that MOTD doesn’t need a presenter earning £1 million+; Alan Shearer is also on a pretty hefty wage.
Like many, I fast forward the knee-slapping ‘even you could’ve scored that one, Micah’ badinage.
In a similar fashion, if the BBC show Man Utd v Liverpool in the FA Cup, they could have Limahl and Valerie Singleton doing the punditry – nobody has ever turned off a football match they’re genuinely interested in because they don’t like who’s in the studio. Even if it’s Robbie Savage.
I have no significant interest in football – and even less interest in watching MOTD. However, I’d make a point of watching it if Valerie Singleton was “doing the punditry”!
There was never any truth, or probably not much anyway, in the Joan Armatrading rumour, it was just pathetic gossip by people who should have been minding their own business and, I know you won’t mind me saying, you’re a despicable swine for bringing the whole thing up again. Facist.
Good gracious me!
I’d like to retract any accusations and all insinuations made in my previous comment. I was totally thinking of someone else.
Watch your racist language!
😶
Good point.
Two points:
The title of the 1955 George Martin-produced 45 was GoodNESS Gracious Me;
Peter who? When I shut my eyes, I can only see Sophia Loren…
The way you added NESS on the end of “good” there was very deft, Very adroit and dextrous. You’d be a natural at the Wordiply word game over on the @Gary‘s WordTHINGY thread. Have a go. Don’t leave it till it’s too late.
Eh?
You were clearly mimicking Peter Sellers while he was probably wearing blackface or something. I honestly don’t know what’s got into you today. It’s like having a conversation with Joseph Goebbels.
Eh?? This is a very odd exchange of views…
I can see why you might think that.
Could Judith Chalmers step in at short notice?
One would hope so. She has been married to a sports commentator for sixty years. Added to which, there is seemingly no end to the woman’s talents.
They did ask Limahl, but he declined because….
wait for it…
wait…
not yet…
oh, ok then…
he was too shy.
Please tell me you are not here all week.
What is wonderful about this whole Jamboree is the sound of Government Ministers and their fan club (Charles Moore etc.) trying to get to grips with this pesky thing called football.
Moore makes a clumsy reference to Lineker abiding by the referee’s decision (he went to Eton so he’s as thick as custard – if I had a business no one from Eton would get within a mile of the place) with absolutely no knowledge of Lineker’s almost exemplary discipline record!
Another speaks of him being a goal hanger instead of a centre-forward (I’ll have to revisit my Charles Buchans to work that one out), while yet another says that the BBC made Lineker.
And there was I thinking it was his family, his school, Leicester City and, more than anything, himself, because what they hate most is that he is completely self-made in a marketplace which is a thousand times more alluring to young people and a thousand times more competitive than the shady aand jaw-droppingly dull ones they’ve emerged from, clutching their silver spoon. It’s the reason they hate Marcus Rashford. Correction, it’s “one” of the reasons they hate Marcus Rashford.
There must be others, there’s a book in compiling all the mistakes and misunderstandings. They try to blind you with Latin or a Shakespearean quote (Fat Boy J. etc.) but when faced with a subject on which millions of us all around the world have significant knowledge, their ignorance is breathtaking.
Wouldn’t it just be best to cancel MotD and put a decent film on instead?
@Gary
Escape To Victory?
Beat me to it.
I was sadly tied up with extra time and a penalty shoot out
I rest my case
You rest your case on leftie shock jock? Oh dear…
What did you disagree with?
Point by point… don’t just say “everything”.
Leftie shock jock? Oh dear ….
Thanks @Lodestone_of_wrongness. James O Brien is right on target.
Well that’s just a daft thing to write.
Other presenters have not had action taken against them. Seemingly in this case a more progressive position is seen to be more problematic but Chris Packhan has been able to carry on tweeting political opinions without trouble. It appears in Linaker’s case that the action is proportionate to the degree of outrage of the right wing media and politicans whose opinions the BBC is most worried about.
As regards the language of the 1930s, this is part of a strategy of right wing populist parties and politicians, in order for a them and us polarisation to develop with the help of social media. It’s the methods of Nazism without the goose stepping and swastikas. So the tweet is pretty accurate. By being muddled and inconsistent the BBC just ends up looking hopeless and gutless.
Overnight viewing figures just in for last night’s presenter-less MoTD: 2.5 million.
Last week’s: 2.0 million.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity, etc.
Guess that’s what they mean by car crash Television
I was pleased to be able to get to bed at a decent hour instead of falling asleep in the chair waiting after midnight for my team to appear.
A pedantic note on the Nazi question: There is an impeccable analytical logic that says nazism and nationalism are two different things; rather like cabbages and kings are. But no mater how you exaggerate any particular feature of a cabbage, you will not get a king out of it. But if you exaggerate a particular feature of nationalism, perhaps to a fanatical extent, you may end up with something rather like …
Just saying.
Set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931:
That’s the key moment in the film. The Cabaret is full of pisstaking but, in the park, a sweet, innocent young boy with an angelic voice sings a song of hope, and the shivers run down the spine.
Worth hearing John Barnes’ take on the issue
I was disappointed that he didn’t make it into a rap. Ing-er-lund!
Lineker’s back. The BBC has apologised.
He has said that the plight of refugees is something he’s going to continue to highlight.
I didn’t want to bring it up before, but it turns out my double hamper was intercepted in Dover and is now in Rwanda.
Michael Rosen’s post on the subject.
https://www.facebook.com/633167224/posts/pfbid0zheDBqCnbwGbF4N8FpUrydEiNC1G33ELzJzYPDKqXdtb1wspJERZMKubGjoj9F2il/
Sorry it’s on Facebook.
The morals point is interesting. The Tory Party has one “Boris Johnson” in its ranks.