Iron Bru › Forums › Non Football › The BBC Just Cancelled Itself › Reply To: The BBC Just Cancelled Itself
Whatalot of whataboutery, Siderite. Unlike you, however, I have no problem with it. The points about Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo and Alan Sugar are perfectly valid, even though Neil was a ferocious interviewer of Tory politicians as much as Labour, Sugar was a Labour peer — and donor — for many years and Portillo was actually paid to give his political opinion. Along with Diane Abbott and Alan Johnson it should be said.
Those things aside, however, all that the above comments actually do is support the point I was making, which is that Lineker has holed the BBC below the water line. Whatever happens now Tim Davie has effectively given carte blanche to any BBC person outside news and current affairs to say what they like. That would be fine if the BBC wasn’t funded by the taxpayer.
As for BBC staff being very unhappy, I know quite a few senior people at the BBC, including one journalist currently on a flagship news programme. It’s an open secret that many of the staff believe Lineker’s given special treatment even though he’s not even a BBC employee. It’s hardly surprising that those on a fraction of his income will feel aggrieved.
Regarding hypocrisy, the only real hypocrite in all of this is Lineker himself. His morals surprisingly failed to stop him attending a World Cup in stadia built on the back of thousands of dead labourers in a country with an appalling human rights record. I watched no more than an hour of the whole tournament, which I felt should never have been played. That doesn’t make me any better than anyone else but it does make me wonder how Lineker could work on the tournament when staying at home would have made a much stronger statement than the pathetic monologue at the start of the competition.