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BBC boss Tim Davie could have to fire Gary Lineker over the Match of the Day presenter’s anti-Tory tweets flouting strict impartiality rules, it was claimed today.
Richard Ayre, the BBC’s former controller of editorial policy, warned that Mr Davie might have to ‘let him go unless he can be certain that this is the end of it’.
The £1.35million-a-year host has faced heavy criticism after comparing the language used during the announcement of the Illegal Migration Bill with 1930s Germany.
Lineker has doubled down on his remarks but the BBC’s news staff were said to be ‘boiling’ with anger that he breached impartiality rules that they have to obey.
Mr Ayre described Lineker as ‘one of the BBC’s crown jewels’, adding: ‘Just as you can’t have sundry members of the House of Windsor slagging off the government of the day because it would call the role of the King into question, you can’t have a member of the BBC royal family comparing Suella Braverman to the Third Reich.
Match of the Day host Gary Lineker, pictured at Wembley Stadium in London on April 16, 2022
Home Secretary Suella Braverman, pictured outside Downing Street in London on Tuesday
‘It just isn’t acceptable. So the question is do you stop, and really stop – not just pause, not wait a few months – do you stop now or do you have to go somewhere else?’
Asked whether director general Mr Davie could have to ‘let him (Mr Lineker) go’, Mr Ayre told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning: ‘I don’t think he is going to have any choice but to let him go unless he can be certain that this is the end of it.’
The former BBC trustee, asked also about a separate investigation into BBC chairman Richard Sharp concerning allegations of cronyism in his appointment, added: ‘It is quite likely that within the next few days or weeks, we’ll perhaps see two heads roll – one from the left and one from the right, the chairman and Gary Lineker.
‘And then maybe once each side has scored a goal, we can get back to normal business.’
He continued: ‘The BBC has an imperative over the next year or more to walk an absolutely straight line politically. You can almost sense… the start of a Government strategy here – re-energised disillusioned Brexit voters blame continuing immigration on lawyers like Keir Starmer, blame it on the Supreme Court, blame it on better still the European Court of Human Rights, blame it on the Refugee Convention, blame it on woke media, blame it on woke metropolitan elites.
‘It’s absolutely essential that if this culture war is going to be part of the next election campaign, the BBC’s role is simple. People like you [presenter Nick Robinson] have to ask the toughest questions, on the people who run the government and the people who want to run the government. But you’ve got to do it completely impartially.’
Richard Ayre, the BBC’s former controller of editorial policy, said the corporation’s director general could have to dismiss Gary Lineker following his recent Twitter commentary
BBC director-general Tim Davie chose his words carefully when asked about it, saying: ‘The BBC absolutely puts the highest value on impartiality and that’s clearly important to us’
Amid calls for Lineker to be sacked, the former England captain has defiantly resumed tweeting about the politically charged topic.
He told his Twitter followers yesterday that he had never known such ‘love and support’ and said he would ‘continue to try and speak ‘Irresponsible’ Lineker faces BBC crisis talks up’.
BBC sources say Lineker will be rebuked over his latest remarks – but the corporation refused to make any new statement yesterday.
Director-general Mr Davie chose his words carefully when asked about the controversy, saying: ‘The BBC absolutely puts the highest value on impartiality and that’s clearly important to us.’
In his original tweet on Tuesday, Lineker commented on a Home Office video in which Home Secretary Suella Braverman unveiled the Government’s plans to stop migrants crossing the Channel on small boats and said the UK is being ‘overwhelmed’.
He wrote: ‘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.’
Lineker’s remarks triggered a wave of criticism from Tories and even BBC staff.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick, whose wife’s parents were Holocaust survivors, said the presenter was ‘so far out of step with the British public’ and should be ‘shown a red card’
Former head of television news at the corporation, Roger Mosey, said there were ‘fundamentally incompatible positions’ between the BBC and Lineker, saying the situation was ‘something of car crash’.
Speaking to Radio 4’s The Media Show, he said the BBC had been ‘a bit weak and wobbly’ on the star’s social media activity over the past five or six years.
As the corporation’s bosses dithered over how to respond, there were claims from Conservative MPs that they were ‘sticking their head in the sand’ over the row.
Downing Street described Lineker’s criticism as ‘not acceptable’ and ‘disappointing’, while Mrs Braverman said his comments were ‘irresponsible’.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick, whose wife’s parents were Holocaust survivors, said the presenter was ‘so far out of step with the British public’ and should be ‘shown a red card’.
There are concerns at the BBC that Lineker was ‘harming the perception’ of the broadcaster, a source said.
One insider added: ‘Lots of BBC journalists are boiling about it because impartiality must be sacrosanct.’
Another insider said it was time for Mr Davie to ‘make a key call’ on Lineker’s future.
A separate source at the BBC said they expected Lineker to leave the corporation over the row.
BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Mr Robinson yesterday highlighted the discrepancy with the strict rules about impartiality that the broadcaster’s news staff must follow.
He said to the corporation’s media editor Katie Razzall: ‘Let’s be clear, if you or I said something like this, we would be fired.’
Mr Robinson added that if Lineker carried on in the same manner, ‘they’ve got to decide from the director general down whether they fire a guy who is very popular and very good at what he does’.
Many were astonished that, rather than avoiding further controversy, Lineker was back on Twitter yesterday.
He said: ‘Great to see the freedom of speech champions out in force this morning demanding silence from those with whom they disagree.’
Tory MP Peter Bone said of the BBC: ‘There is no point sticking their head in the sand and hoping it will go away. It won’t. He will do it again.’
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said she did not think it was ‘right to make comparisons with the 1930s’, but ‘people can have their own views’.
However Piers Morgan defended Lineker, arguing that the Match Of The Day host is ‘not a news reporter’.
The Talk TV host said Lineker’s remarks were ‘clearly incendiary’ but that his opinions ‘should not matter to the BBC’s news output’.
A spokesman for Lineker declined to comment.
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