Gary Lineker is a brilliant presenter, and by all accounts a good man who cares deeply about the underdog. He is not on the BBC staff and not a news journalist, and so is not bound by that part of the BBC’s impartiality guidelines that says:
BBC staff and regular presenters or reporters associated with news or public policy-related output may offer professional judgements rooted in evidence. However, it is not normally appropriate for them to present or write personal view content on public policy, matters of political or industrial controversy, or “controversial subjects” in any area.
I doubt that Lineker’s contract specifies that he should not tweet, and, as it happens, I share his views about the language used by members of the government over refugees and asylum seekers (though references to Germany in the 1930s are, in my opinion, over the top.)
So why do I think he should phone the BBC director general to say that he should delete the tweet and agree not to tweet in future about such controversial issues? Bluntly, because the future of the BBC is at stake, and that is more important in the long term than his undoubted right to tweet.
Setting technicalities aside, Lineker is the highest paid and most recognised on-air presenter at the BBC. He is one of its crown jewels and most public faces. As such, he has a personal responsibility not to do anything that may bring the BBC into disrepute, and one of the BBC’s most precious characteristics is its impartiality. The corporation can and should be trusted to report the facts in as an unbiased way as possible. If it loses the public’s trust it is finished.
Three things are clear about the latest row over asylum seekers and refugees. First that the country is deeply divided, second that the present government is determined to make this a key election issue and third that in the short term at least the numbers will not drop significantly. The issue will keep rumbling on and I assume Lineker will therefore keep on tweeting.
What the public needs to know is that the BBC will keep on resisting external pressure, report the facts and ask the difficult questions, in an impartial manner. When its journalists point out, for example, that last year there were nearly 75,000 UK asylum applications, and that France had 180,000, and that the total asylum applications last year to the EU, Norway and Switzerland totalled 960,000, they need to be believed, as they should be when they report that there are no refugee return agreements in place between the UK and other countries. There are plenty of politicians and papers who will ignore the facts or claim the corporation is guilty of biased reporting, and they may, almost certainly will, point to Lineker’s tweets as evidence of this.
The best way forward would be for Lineker to voluntarily relinquish his undoubted right to tweet on politically controversial issues. We could then turn our attention back to the question of why the Conservative party donor Richard Sharp has not yet resigned as BBC chair in the light of the clear conflicts of interest the revelations about Boris Johnson’s finances have revealed. At the least, Sharp should announce he will not seek a second term. Then we could all get back to watching the best sports presenter in the country doing what he does best, with increasing admiration for the way he has put the future of public service broadcasting ahead of his own undoubted right to say what he thinks about issues he cares passionately about.
Roger Bolton is a former BBC editor and executive, and presenter of Radio 4’s Feedback. He presents the podcast Roger Bolton’s Beeb Watch
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