[Football] Gary Lineker to step back from presenting MOTD

[Titanic]

Gary Lineker to step back from presenting MOTD

Gary Lineker to step back from presenting Match of the Day until agreement reached on social media use - BBC statement

www.bbc.co.uk

Gary Lineker is to step back from presenting Match of the Day until an agreement is reached on his social media use - BBC statement.
It follows an impartiality row over comments he made criticising the government's new asylum policy.
In a tweet, the presenter had compared the language used by the government to set out its plan to "that used by Germany in the 30s".

 

[rogersix]

Imagine it like a football match. Brighton are playing for the League Title, the ground is full, and a thousand people are trying to climb the wall to get in.

The police are worried that they wil impale themselves on the fence, so they say they will allow an extra 250 people to come in if they apply in the proper manner at the main gate. They all apply, and 250 get in. Does this stop the other 750 from trying to climb the wall? No. The only way to stop them trying to climb the wall is to let them all in.

have you been drinking?

 

[LamieRobertson]

Amazing that a thread has reached 700 posts before I opened it.

Anyone able to give me a summary of what I've missed? Thanks.

I’m right ..no I’m right …no I am …oh and the thread header but you havnt missed that ….oh and everyone (ok nearly) hates the government ..nothing new really

 

[Weststander]

Amazing that a thread has reached 700 posts before I opened it.

Anyone able to give me a summary of what I've missed? Thanks.

Entrenched:

Lineker is a God, he clearly didn’t mean the Nazi Party, but Braverman has now set us on course for the murder of and attacks on migrants as we saw with the Holocaust through her deliberate call to the right. The BBC is right wing.

versus

Lineker used ill informed words, he clearly meant the Nazi Party, Braverman either; won’t ever see this through for various reasons, or she’s a God for dealing with illegal economic migrants. The BBC had to take a stand as he is a presenter with a wide following from that role.

 

[Easy 10]

If he'd come out with this on MOTD - fair game

The fact he's used his own Twitter account - as a freelance contractor - to give his opinion...where does the BBC get off on this ? Pathetic. They have no right to gag him. They can bin him, thats their right. But to do it over this, cowing to this foul, disgusting, corrupt, two-faced lying government. It speaks VOLUMES more about the stuffed suits at the BBC who are in the pockets of this rancid Tory party than it does about Lineker.

 

[Baldseagull]

I truly think they’ll run out of time and Labour with a decent majority (depends if they’re still loathed in Scotland) will undo any damage to safeguards.

I worry that in the time between now and then, they will re open the barely healed divisions of the referendum, using the same tools of immigration fears and border controls, ECHR preventing us from securing the borders, Labour willing to cede sovereignty to ECHR, etc. to get enough support to cling on, and take us out of the ECHR. If they have the support of the papers that usually promote them, it is a real possibility.

 

[rogersix]

dupe

 

[rogersix]

I’m right ..no I’m right …no I am …oh and the thread header but you havnt missed that ….oh and everyone (ok nearly) hates the government ..nothing new really

and some people gave up when they realised that they had no arguement!

 

[Weststander]

I worry that in the time between now and then, they will re open the barely healed divisions of the referendum, using the same tools of immigration fears and border controls, ECHR preventing us from securing the borders, Labour willing to cede sovereignty to ECHR, etc. to get enough support to cling on, and take us out of the ECHR. If they have the support of the papers that usually promote them, it is a real possibility.

An interesting point.

Seldom discussed, I think if the original referendum was held now, it’d be 60:40 Remain. I know Brexiteers who’ve changed their minds for various reasons. I mention that because I don’t think opening up the old chasm (not a reference to Katie Price) would give the desired effect it once did. Imho.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Disputed by HMRC in an ongoing case, Lineker claims that by billing through his limited company, the arrangements do not have the substance of really being employment.

How he writes out the bill is a minor point in the law about whether he is employed or not. If HMRC decides under the law that his contract is substantively that of an employee, they can unwind all the limited company arrangements.

And in any case, whether an employee or not, the BBC can impose as part of his £1.3m annual contract, that he is bound by the same rules as employees vis-a-vis political comment.

But why is Lineker doing this anyway? I thought his general political views were that he was opposed to tax avoidance?

 

[Baldseagull]

Amazing that a thread has reached 700 posts before I opened it.

Anyone able to give me a summary of what I've missed? Thanks.

The pundits are split, a dodgy red card for Lineker, a well deserved red card for Lineker, an understandable reaction from Lineker, but under the rules its at least a yellow, or never a red, not even a yellow it was a fair challenge and he had every right to go for it.

 

[Weststander]

How he writes out the bill is a minor point in the law about whether he is employed or not. If HMRC decides under the law that his contract is substantively that of an employee, they can unwind all the limited company arrangements.

And in any case, whether an employee or not, the BBC can impose as part of his £1.3m annual contract, that he is bound by the same rules as employees vis-a-vis political comment.

But why is Lineker doing this anyway? I thought his general political views were that he was opposed to tax avoidance?

I know, I was being lazily figuritive.

Why does Shearer take a stand on freedom of speech, when he palpably salivates on blood money from a country where freedom of speech leads to a 14 prison term?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/saudi-arabia/report-saudi-arabia/

It’s a strange world. Selective morality when it suits someone.

 

[Whitechapel]

First country they come to (that is ‘safe’)?

So a small handful of bordering 'safe' countries should take all of them in?

Unfortunately as a country we spent hundreds of years trying to take over the world, spreading our empire to every corner of the world. Sine the empire has crumbled we have still wielded a disproportionate amount of soft power across the globe. Our language, music, sport, TV etc gulf the rest of Europe in cultural impact. Even if we ignore the fact that a lot of European countries take it more immigrants than us, it's not hard to see why some people try to make a beeline for a country where they speak the language, potentially already have family, feel some kind of connection with etc etc.

We can't export our culture to the world and then act surprised when people see us as the ideal place to set up a new life.

 

[lasvegan]

On the bright side, in one fell swoop, Match of the Day has just been improved immeasurably by having no pundits spouting their BS. On the downside, no one can watch it in solidarity with their comrades (of course they’ll still watch it).

 

[Hugo Rune]

How he writes out the bill is a minor point in the law about whether he is employed or not. If HMRC decides under the law that his contract is substantively that of an employee, they can unwind all the limited company arrangements.

And in any case, whether an employee or not, the BBC can impose as part of his £1.3m annual contract, that he is bound by the same rules as employees vis-a-vis political comment.

But why is Lineker doing this anyway? I thought his general political views were that he was opposed to tax avoidance?

Just a guess, but you probably can’t be an anchorman for BT Sport as well as presenting MotD if you are employed by the BBC. Better to be a freelancer to maximise your career choices and earning potential.

 

[ShandyH]

The BBC is bias, they removed a documentary by national treasure and all round good guy, David Attenborough, because they were worried about Right Wing backlash and had pressure from right wing MPs. Let’s not forget the Tories appoint the head of the BBC who is a former head of communications for the Tory party. It’s completely hypocritical to criticise Lineker alone.

Didn’t know about the David Attenborough thing. What documentary?

But to generalise the BBC as biased when it is trying to do everything in its power to remain impartial in a world of flippant, polarised bullshit on social media in order to protect its future, is incorrect. The BBC must remain intact. Lineker’s comments undermine that.

I’ve seen the alternative in the USA and it results in the Capitol building being stormed.

 

[Eeyore]

The pundits are split, a dodgy red card for Lineker, a well deserved red card for Lineker, an understandable reaction from Lineker, but under the rules its at least a yellow, or never a red, not even a yellow it was a fair challenge and he had every right to go for it.

Maybe we should ask Peter Walton.

 

[Baldseagull]

An interesting point.

Seldom discussed, I think if the original referendum was held now, it’d be 60:40 Remain. I know Brexiteers who’ve changed their minds for various reasons. I mention that because I don’t think opening up the old chasm (not a reference to Katie Price) would give the desired effect it once did. Imho.

That's about where it was before the Leave campaigning started though. The Tories will have the funds and the press to mount a strong campaign in the run up to the election, I wouldn't write them off yet.

 

[Eeyore]

I'd like to know why Lineker has been suspended while Richard Sharp stays as chairman, who donated £400,000 to the Tory Party, who helped Boris Johnson sort a loan whilst he was leader of the UK, and was appointed chairman by... Boris Johnson.

 

[Weststander]

That's about where it was before the Leave campaigning started though. The Tories will have the funds and the press to mount a strong campaign in the run up to the election, I wouldn't write them off yet.

True.

I was at a client’s a couple of weeks before the second Corbyn GE where we all agreed on a hung Commons with Labour under protocol to be given the first opportunity to form a government. Then the director’s wife popped in, someone never interested in current affairs who said “still along way to go, this is politics”. In 1992 I lived in Kemp Town, on election evening I bumped into the Tory MP on a street corner Andrew Bowden. I said something like commiserations over the Kinnock win, he replied and meant it “our polling shows you’re in for a big surprise”.

Aside from the age old nsc party political battle-lines, I’d simply like to see a change now, governments get stale as in 1997, 2010. New ideas, I have a bit of trust that Starmer and Reeves might do good things. I’m looking for a vision, not the tedious anything but Tory rhetoric said so much.

 

[Weststander]

Just a guess, but you probably can’t be an anchorman for BT Sport as well as presenting MotD if you are employed by the BBC. Better to be a freelancer to maximise your career choices and earning potential.

He could be employed by both, in the same way that anyone can have two or more PAYE jobs.

It’s tax beneficial by both parties to say it isn’t. The public purse loses out.