And things only seem to be getting worse
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How is that worse? The less chat the better. Working out pretty well for viewers.
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Maybe someone will realise he might not be worth the £1.1m salary 
But joke aside, this is now blowing out of proportion. A millionaire has been told not to come into work one day and other millionaires are protesting with a large organisation of said millionaires agreeing to pay any minute fines that come from it. Cry me a river.
Good for him for standing up for his beliefs. That should be the headline if any, and we’re done with it. It’s an internal matter for the BBC.
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Destroy the point of the show, and you might as well watch the highlights on the Sky Sports app at 5:15
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What a massive oversimplification of the events to brush away what this is really about. It’s more than someone being told not to work and it’s more than someone standing up for their beliefs.
The situation that the BBC has got itself into is way more complex than that. Why are so many people with power in the BBC allowed to have clear connections to the Tories? Why was Lineker allowed to talk about human rights abuses in Qatar, but not his own country? What is the knock-on impact of this decision? Is no one with a connection to the BBC allowed to have any political opinions about anything?
I do also believe that certain people are using this as a distraction. This all started with comparisons to the language used in 1930s Germany, yet people are focusing on Lineker rather than the Tories.
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Why does it bother you so much? Just don’t watch the BBC.
To be clear: I think he is right. I defend his right to his opinion. That’s where it should end for most people. I don’t understand the outrage here.
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So won’t have any player/manager interviews, who will probably shit on the BBC on Sky/BT
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You already know that they can. It is the method in which it is expressed publicly that is the issue. You love making things more dramatic than they are.
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Or, to put it another way:
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But he hasn’t. If anything this is getting more traction on BBC News than anything. The national broadcaster is not shutting down this reporting.
Again, I agree with him. I agree that we need to be on the look out for the smaller, less obvious, signs that we historically haven’t. I don’t care that he is on the BBC and don’t think that really this is something that he should be asked not to present a sports programme for. But ultimately that’s it: he has been asked not to, and this is an internal matter for the BBC. Much like “right wing” cancellations this isn’t the outrage matter that it seems on this thread.
I absolutely do not think that this would be the same had he expressed a “right wing” opinion. You wouldn’t have the Greens and Lib Dems and the likes defending his right. They’d be applauding the BBC for maintaining neutral stance in that case.
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Remember the massive uproar every time Jeremy Clarkson expressed a right wing opinion while he was a presenter on top gear? Oh wait no there wasn’t one 
I think it’s a silly limitation anyway. Linekar isn’t a news reporter he’s a football presenter. I can’t see why it matters what he posts on Twitter about politics.
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I agree totally.
I just don’t get the anger that he ain’t presenting it.
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I don’t follow football but my general impression is that football fans always find something somewhere to be quite angry about on Twitter & in the press, just like everything else in life I guess. It’ll blow over to the next thing soon.
Isn’t there a new super league thing coming or something?
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They have successfully* shut down reporting on the outrageous illegal migrants bill by making the story about Gary Lineker’s reaction to the bill instead.
On top of which, having Lineker taken off Match of the Day is de facto state censorship.
I appreciate you agree with Lineker, and that you understand that right wing opinions aren’t subject to the same scrutiny (say hello to Jeremy Clarkson, Alan Sugar, and Andrew Neil here). However, I disagree that it is an internal matter for the BBC, given that the BBC is the national public service broadcaster. It’s deeply concerning that they’re bowing to government pressure instead of being neutral.
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I perhaps should be clearer there, I’m not saying that the BBC don’t do anything about these opinions (I don’t think they should their either given none of those really have a news role, Neil possibly excepted), what I meant is that if Clarkson had, say, been asked not to go onto Top Gear if he had expressed support for the immigration bill, I don’t believe the Greens, the Lib Dems, the general outraged (left) on Twitter would be outraged at said ‘cancellation’ had occurred. They would either be silent or applaud the neutral stance the BBC had taken.
Fair play if you, or anyone passionate on here, would have criticised the BBC in those instances but I just don’t believe it would be the case broadly.
The BBC should absolutely be neutral - but in the news arena really only. There is little reason to expect their presenters of anything outside that scope to be neutral (providing it’s within the law). If there is enough outrage at an opinion of a presenter then people can tune out and it can be dealt with that way.
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You either liked it and watched or hated it and didn’t. Your choice. I’ll not say which camp I’m in at this point.
There’s a ‘persona’ involved. The BBC has (quite rightly) no control over what an employee does while operating outside of their employment contract - but a ‘persona’ can be directly/indirectly linked to both in-contract and ex-contract behaviour. And it can result in a conflict of interest between the parties involved. It’s down to the black-and-white between them, unfortunately.
But put simply, GL is talking about history, which can’t be changed. And opinions on that history will never align - nor change anything about what happened.
From a personal, cynical, view - there’s another VERY highly paid ‘presenter’ who is currently, in real-time (like: NOW), destroying people’s lives with the acquisition & realignment of one particular online service while pushing their own agenda there, and elsewhere. Without any governance or regulatory controls in place. Parallels? (not to GL, but to history) - alarming. And I used to be a fan. This will likely be one of the biggest backfired moments in recent history. Unfortunately.
I mean, this happened, and Clarkson wasn’t stopped from doing anything despite the strongly political nature of his comments:
I can’t speak for all the left, only myself. But to take Clarkson (the example above, for instance), I would both support him being extensively criticised for his comments, but would’ve also been deeply uncomfortable if Top Gear had been pulled because of it; the public already have a remedy they can apply if they are that excited, they can choose to not watch - boycott - the programme.
So in this case, simple thing would’ve been to let Lineker do his job. Those that bothered? Could just not watch him. But taking Lineker off air, as I said previous, is de facto state censorship. And that is incredibly worrying (and I don’t think a Labour government would have applied similar pressure to take Clarkson off air).
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This is literally what I think should have happened
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My point wasn’t really so much about whether I agreed or not with him. But more that he wasn’t exactly a politically ‘neutral’ character, he wrote a column for the Sunday Times regularly expounding his right wing views, while being one of the BBCs highest paid stars.
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But it hasnt ended there. He gave is opinion and has been punished for it, despite other opinions not being pinished. That is part of the outrage.
You might mot understand it, but that doesnt mean people shouldnt be outraged.
In cases like this, it isnt enough to just not watch the BBC.