O/T:-Gary Lineker

[BigFatPie]

The Spectator today.....



The triumph of Gary Lineker is a disaster for the BBC

The BBC-based sitcom W1A centred on a running joke about how the spinelessness and ineptitude of senior management led them to dig themselves ever-deeper into holes. At one point in the series, the Corporation’s ‘Head of Values’ is wrong-footed by an ex-footballer who wants to be a television pundit. Another episode centres on him closing down an orchestra which turns out to be widely admired by licence-payers.

Well, life imitating art and all that then. Today’s ‘resolution’ of the Gary Lineker furore, which began on the basis of the director general Tim Davie’s determination to defend the Corporation’s impartiality, could hardly have done more to cement its reputation as a redoubt of liberal Left bias and groupthink.

The errant Match of the Day presenter is not only welcomed back having issued no apology about his tweets, but having also forced a review of existing impartiality requirements, especially those applying to freelance presenters. There is only one way this review is headed and that is to a significant dilution of restrictions on the public utterances of sports presenters with big ears who are paid more than £1m a year from the licence fee.

Perhaps there will be a ‘please don’t call people Nazis’ clause Davie will seek to use as a fig leaf, but nobody will be buying that. Because comparing the language used to set out the government’s asylum plan to ‘that used by Germany in the 30s’ is the very thing that has forced the new Lineker Principle upon us: namely that household name presenters not employed in politics or news coverage can pretty much say what they like about political issues on social media and elsewhere.

Theoretically, one supposes that it must also follow that such presenters will be able to advance high octane right-wing views as well. But given that we know broadcast media operatives lean heavily to the liberal left, there are unlikely to be many examples of that.

So the very phenomenon Davie has sought to address as DG – the perception of BBC bias against mainstream ‘provincial’ sensibilities – has today been formally institutionalised. Stand by for a torrent of ‘Brexit is evil/Britain is falling to fascism’ standard London dinner party takes from the Corporation’s talent.

The BBC is going to continue being a key part of the ultra-polarisation of British political culture, rather than the antidote to it that Davie envisaged.

The past week has rendered Davie a broken figure whose credibility lies in tatters. It has also illustrated that BBC chairman Richard Sharp is compromised to the point of being utterly hamstrung when it comes to guiding the Corporation through tricky terrain.

As a former Tory donor widely seen as ‘Boris Johnson’s man’ following his role in facilitating a loan for the ex-PM, Sharp has been able to say and do nothing throughout the Lineker saga. Never mind whether he should resign (and, of course, he should), the point now is that he must resign because he is demonstrably unable to do his basic job.

The cultural Left has won this skirmish hands down. No BBC boss will ever dare to stand in the way of Lineker’s juggernaut brand again. And the two ‘Tories’ at the top of the Corporation (Davie once stood as a Conservative candidate) are so much roadkill under its tyres.

What, though of the licence fee – the idea that TV viewers must, under penalty of the criminal law, pay almost £160 a year to fund an organisation that will not defend its impartiality requirements against a cultural leftist onslaught?

The case for any Conservatively-minded person defending it is now down to one based on the wilful suspension of disbelief required to be able to say that this is a unifying, trusted and impartial institution in British life that merits a quirky, illiberal and old-fashioned funding model. It isn’t. It’s gone.

Lots of words to say ‘The BBC would be much better off if the positions of DG and Chairman weren’t political appointments’.

Interesting as well that the Spectator’s chairman is Andrew Neil who was free to publish his right wing magazine and tweet political opinions whilst also conducting political interviews on the BBC. Hmm.

[Old_pie]

BBC 0 Lineker 1 (og Davie)
BBC 0 Common Sense 1 (og BBC)

[Elite_Pie]

BBC 0 Lineker 1 (og Davie)
BBC 0 Common Sense 1 (og BBC)

I think 'own goal' sums it up pretty well. If the BBC hadn't bowed to pressure it would be a non-story by now, but they have shot themselves in the foot big time. Lineker is the clear winner, and the BBC and Tory party are the losers.

[laddo]

BBC 0 Lineker 1 (og Davie)
BBC 0 CommonSense 1 (og BBC)

I like to r thinking although I think a 1-0 defeat is being rather generous to the legendary organisation.

[OchPie]

Meanwhile back in the "realer" world, the Government's "don't assess refugees, just keep them locked up forever at whatever it costs" bill passed its reading in the HoC last night.

The UK will effectively no longer take in refugees (outside a very narrow set of people following a very difficult process) if this finally passes.

[drillerpie]

I might have said this before but I'm really past caring about whether people are right or left or whatever. I just want them to be competent in their jobs.

Lineker is an average at best sports presenter, as are most of the pundits. I would imagine all of them can be replaced by better and cheaper people. The whole immigration issue is a complicated one which gets reduced to partisan cheering instead of receiving the in depth analysis it deserves. Having said that it seems there is a clear precedent for BBC contributors outside of the News department giving political opinions, with no disciplinary consequences.

The director of the BBC seems to not be very good at his job at all. It's clear that Lineker is a bogey man for his 'side' in the same way someone like Clarkson is for the other 'side', and the DG couldn't wait to get an 'easy win' and throw a bit of red meat to the people who got him the job. The fact that he couldn't think even one step ahead as to how this might play out, and make the necessary comparisons to past precedents is a huge worry for someone in his position.

That this farce has taken up so much of the national attention span is baffling to me. But the fact it has, and the way it has, is more evidence of a worrying decline in competence masked by mindless partisan cheering. That is how banana republics are made.

[laddo]

Obviously it's all subjective but to me Lineker is an above average sports presenter. With the number of presenting gigs he books and the amount of media companies he has and does currently work for suggests that the industry agree with my amateur assessment or hold him in higher regard.

As for the main BBC pundits, now that's where I agree and I firmly believe 'average at best' comes into play. Alan Shearer for example is stealing a living, he's robbing a bank every week with his performance as an expert pundit.

[upthemaggies]

I listened to every single one of the podcasts Lineker did with Danny Baker and thoroughly enjoyed them, but he's clearly not the brightest button in the box.

His comparing the support he's received on twitter to the feeling he had when scoring for England was very telling I think.

It's a typical trajectory for celebrities coming from less privileged backgrounds, they enjoy all of the fruits the system has to offer and the adulation that goes with it, then as they reach their use-by date at the top of their game, the hero worship fades, they are left contemplating how they came to end up in their huge houses with the expensive toys, the guilt kicks in and they're then desperately seeking approval for being a good kind caring person to fill the void and justify their accumulating wealth.

No celebrity was probably more self-aware than John Lennon who admitted as much shortly before his murder. Decorated as a member of the British Empire only to be rejected three years later by a culture unprepared for his sudden deep dive into the avant-garde with an American-Asian artist, he was busted by a bent cop which resulted in his partner suffering a miscarriage late-term and ridiculed by the media. The only place left for him to run and be taken semi-seriously was the radical left wing publications - the International Times, OZ magazine and Red Mole. In his own words he just wanted Tariq Ali to love him, because the likes of Don Short at the Daily Mirror would no longer give him the validation he so desperately craved.

As Lennon's own song written to himself states "Say you wanna save humanity but it's people that you just can't stand. I don't wanna face it."

Lineker is no left wing radical, he tweeted that Corbyn needed to be removed once he realised his cushy lifestyle may not be so secure had Corbyn got in, but this self appointed Ghandi of the progressive left is not smart enough to disguise his true motives. The left wing equivalent of that Harry Enfield character "Nice but Dim"

[laddo]

Well its certainly an interesting and thought-provoking take. But has Gary Lineker reached his used by date? If he has I certainly hadn't noticed.
If you have lots of financial wealth, I fully understand why people then seek moral wealth, as it has more worth to them.

British Broadcasting Corporation 0 v 1 Tim 'Nice but Dim'

[upthemaggies]

Well its certainly an interesting and thought-provoking take. But has Gary Lineker reached his used by date? If he has I certainly hadn't noticed.

'

Unlike Des Lynam, Brian Moore, Jim Rosenthal etc. He isn't where he is now because he worked his way up studying and gaining the qualifications necessary to land a job on a local newspaper as a journalist, expressing the talent to progress to a job as a reporter for local news, or local radio and so on. He's presenting MOTD because of what he did on the pitch and was semi-articulate and initially inoffensive enough to be fast-tracked into a role that should have been reserved for a professional.

Pop stars are no different wealth-wise, they become richer long after peaking as artists, living off the royalties of past glories whilst convincing themselves that they are still relevant - fuelled by anorak must-have-everything collector types still sending their well below sub-par mid-life crisis junk into the top ten for one week before it disappears and is forgotten for ever, until they return and give yet another interview reflecting on their heyday hoping for the brief opportunity to plug their latest abomination attempting to sound like what was contemporary 18 months agio. When that fails, then it's time for another greatest hits package.