Gary Lineker suspension: Match of the Day 2 and Women’s Super League coverage to be ‘much reduced’ – as it happened

Meanwhile, Home Office officials altered a Twitter post about the illegal migration bill to remove an image of the newsreader Huw Edwards after complaints from the BBC.

The tweet, which contains a video explainer for the legislation, was posted on Tuesday by the Home Office from its official account and initially the accompanying image seen on Twitter feeds was of Edwards, the veteran broadcaster.

The Guardian understands the department did not ask permission to use the clip of Edwards and the broadcaster personally objected to the juxtaposition.

On Wednesday, the BBC asked the Home Office to remove the footage. Rather than delete it, the department amended the clip so Edwards no longer appeared in the first frame, although he does remain in the video.

A BBC spokesperson said:

We contacted the Home Office last week to object to their use of BBC footage and asked them to remove it.

When Tim Davie was briefly catapulted into the BBC director general role 10 years ago, amid the fallout from the Jimmy Savile scandal, he remarked to the corporation’s official historian: “Can you survive being DG?”

It is a question he may be asking again, after his decision to suspend Gary Lineker over a tweet about the government’s asylum policy triggered an extraordinary walkout by BBC stars and a deepening crisis on the very issue he had vowed to resolve: impartiality.

The furore, which forced the BBC to axe most of the weekend’s football coverage, is easily the biggest test to face Davie, 55, since he was appointed director general in June 2020.

The former Pepsi marketeer made no secret in his first days in the job that he intended to restore “trust and confidence” in the BBC by reflecting all sides of the political divide.

Allies told Tory-supporting newspapers that this in part meant tackling a “perceived leftwing bias” in the BBC’s comedy output. A fortnight later it axed the satirical show The Mash Report, a first shot in what some called Davie’s “war on woke”.

His decision to suspend Lineker, the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, has stunned corporation insiders and given fresh ammunition to those who believe its leadership is too close to the party of government.

A box of chocolates and a card have been left on Gary Lineker’s doorstep, thanking him for his stance on refugees.

Chris Haydon, 42, who lives nearby, arrived with his partner and son and left raspberry and champagne truffles and a card for the former England footballer.

He told the PA news agency:

The letter says: ‘Thank you for showing such leadership on a really important issue.’

We live locally and don’t know him at all, but we really like him and I am a really passionate believer in refugee rights and the rights of asylum seekers.

My dad used to work for the BBC and I really believe in the BBC, but it is ridiculous as it has no effect on impartiality.

There have been plenty of examples of people in the BBC who have been clear about their politics.

If he had come out in favour of government policy he would not have been monstered like this. Of course he wouldn’t have; it is ridiculous.

It was a sort of ChatGPT version of the BBC’s Match of the Day. It was a highlights package consisting of lowlights. No title credits, theme music, manager or player interviews.

No commentary, no sober analysis from Alan Shearer, no hearty cackle from Ian Wright, and, of course, missing in action, the bonhomie and seamless-links-to-VT of Gary Lineker, which brings us to the hero of this tale.

When he tweeted last Thursday that the “ridiculously out of proportion” row over his critical comments on Suella Braverman’s immigration policy was “abating”, he could not have been more wrong.

Since the Beeb announced that he’d “taken a step back”, the Lineker debacle has been continuous front-page news.

If Lineker is correct when he calls the row out of proportion, then we can consider two reasons. The first is that proportion is no longer a thing that really exists in the UK, thanks to an endlessly hysterical 24-hour news cycle.

The second reason would be that, far from the “controversial” topics the BBC’s social media guidelines specify to avoid, Lineker’s political tweets are mostly along the innocuous lines of, say, looking after the environment is good, and – as in this case – detaining and removing people seeking asylum is cruel.

Frankly, arguments about VAR are more contentious.

The former Tory chancellor George Osborne has backed Gary Lineker, criticising the rhetoric around asylum policy by some in his party.

“Personally I think some of the language used on immigration by some Conservatives – not all – is not acceptable,” he told Channel 4’s Andrew Neil show.

“I have a lot of sympathy for Tim Davie, the director general, who’s trying to maintain impartiality for the BBC in a partisan age. But it’s all ended up in a bit of a mess.”

Before BBC Radio 5 Live’s match commentary began for its two scheduled Premier League games this afternoon, a sports presenter said it had been a “very difficult decision” to come on air.

The commentator Alistair Bruce-Ball told listeners:

I want to reiterate what we said ahead of our football coverage yesterday.

I know you’ll all appreciate this is a difficult time for BBC Sport and for all those who work in the department, and we hope it all gets resolved as soon as possible.

It’s been a very difficult decision to make personally, I can assure you it’s not been taken lightly, but I’m a BBC staff member, I’m a radio commentator for this station and, just like yesterday, we are here to provide our football service to you, our audience.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People has said the BBC’s decision not to include commentary on Match of the Day was “unacceptable” and the corporation “needs to do better”.

The football highlights show aired for only 20 minutes on Saturday without accompanying commentary or analysis from pundits after a boycott in solidarity with the presenter Gary Lineker.

In a tweet, the charity said:

The BBC should be upholding basic accessibility standards so that everyone can enjoy their output.

What is the BBC’s social media policy and what does it mean for stars like Gary Lineker?

The former England striker’s post on Twitter criticising the government’s proposed asylum legislation has triggered a debate over the BBC’s impartiality rules – what they say and to whom they should apply.

Here is a brief explainer.

The BBC is expected to severely reduce a second day of sports programming amid a deepening row over the suspension of Gary Lineker.

The corporation is poised to cut back Match of the Day 2 and coverage of the Women’s Super League match between Manchester United and Chelsea after a mass walkout by BBC stars.

The broadcaster is facing its most serious crisis in years after a series of high-profile presenters, commentators and pundits refused to appear on air because of Lineker’s suspension for criticising the government’s immigration policy.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, called for the BBC’s chair, Richard Sharp, to resign to restore the perception of independence at the corporation.

On Gary Lineker’s attack on the government’s “stop the boats” policy, he said during an interview with BBC Breakfast that there were “criticisms to be levelled at the Conservatives”.

The BBC’s analysis editor Ros Atkins has tweeted a video of Gary Lineker being interviewed in 2021 about his views on the refugee crisis and BBC impartiality.

A former BBC executive has described Gary Lineker as a “brilliant” broadcaster but questioned if he has outgrown his role at the BBC.

Peter Salmon, who among his many roles was previously the controller of BBC One and director of sport, said the fallout from the impartiality row surrounding the former England footballer was a “mess” and he felt that the director general, Tim Davie, needs to get a grip of the situation.

Discussing Lineker’s role while on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Salmon said:

It’s complex and he’s a major figure. Twenty-five years in Match of the Day – he’s more than just a TV presenter, he’s a national figure.

He’s got views, he’s got passions, he’s been involved in looking after Ukrainian refugees. It may be that Gary’s outgrown the job and the role in the BBC.

Twenty-five years in, before that Des Lynam, Gary took over, he’s been brilliant. Sometimes there’s a point at which you cross the line.

Reflecting on the disruption to the BBC’s sports schedule this weekend due to pundits walking out in solidarity with Lineker, he added:

It’s a mess, isn’t it? They must be wishing they could reel back 72 hours and start all over again. It’s Oscars day but there’s no awards for how this has been managed.

I think they’ve got to take action pretty quickly. It doesn’t help the chairman of the BBC himself is slacked to one side in this process and there’s a bit of an issue. Tim Davie is isolated in some ways, he needs to come home and grip this now. We need him back running the ship.

The BBC wants to “pick and choose” when its presenters can be impartial, the former England footballer John Barnes has said.

Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Barnes said: “I don’t know when the BBC has ever been impartial but BBC reporting on the World Cup was anything but impartial.”

He added:

So, it seems that they want to pick and choose when they want to be partial, criticising others or criticising other countries or other political parties or other religions seems to be OK.

But, of course, if you then criticise what goes on in this country, then it seems that they will then come up with the impartiality rule.

The BBC “by and large” gets impartiality “mostly right”, Philip Hammond has said.

The former Tory MP and chancellor under Theresa May told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday:

There’s two things struck me really in this debate. We’re in danger of confusing two separate issues. There’s the impartiality of the BBC, which is a very important principle, of course, for a public service broadcaster, and I think probably, by and large, the BBC usually gets it mostly right.

I know that because people in my party feel that the BBC is institutionally biased against it, and I know that people in the Labour party equally feel that the BBC is institutionally biased against it, so it’s probably doing something about right.

Then there’s a separate issue about whether individuals who are closely associated with large corporations can publicly express views which are highly controversial and are not the views of that corporation. I think, generally speaking, that is not acceptable.

It’s even more important when the corporation is a public body, like the BBC, or indeed the civil service. The same would be true of a senior civil servant tweeting out something that was highly controversial.

The Labour MP Nadia Whittome said Gary Lineker was right to criticise the illegal migration bill.

Whittome told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme:

I think, firstly, Gary Lineker was right to call out the government’s bill and I think, yes, he works for the BBC and it’s important that the BBC is impartial, but as you say he’s a sports presenter not a news presenter, and if we’re going to talk about impartiality let’s talk about the fact that the BBC chairman donated £400,000 to the Conservative party and arranged an £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson.

What I think we mustn’t be distracted by is from the bill itself, which is what Gary Lineker was drawing attention to because the government is trying to play divide and rule, pure and simple, by criminalising asylum seekers and, in the process, risking breaking international law.

Pressed on what she thought about Lineker’s comparison with 1930s Germany, the MP said:

I think the point that he was making was about the cruelty of this bill.

When you think about the kind of wider picture with the government, you would have thought, wouldn’t you, that they’d have learned not to have picked fights with footballers after Marcus Rashford forced them to U-turn on free school meals, and now this with Gary Lineker, and now we’re all talking about the government’s cruel asylum policy.

The Conservative MP Simon Clarke said he disagrees “very profoundly” with what Gary Lineker said in the tweet that sparked the row.

Speaking on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Clarke said: “I disagree very profoundly with what Gary Lineker said. I think the comparisons to 1930s as he’s made are deeply inappropriate and actually very tasteless.”

Asked why it matters what a sports presenter says, the MP replied:

Mr Lineker has a huge reach and the reality is that he is obviously operating on a publicly funded broadcaster, he is someone whose platform largely derives from his role at the BBC, he’s saying things which are partisan and I think which are also deeply unfair.

He called the situation a “mess” and said the BBC needed to resolve “ambiguity” in its guidelines.

Clarke continued:

I don’t like cancel culture of any kind, I don’t like to see people being taken off air.

I think there is a slight irony here and a slight hypocrisy because obviously I wonder how many of the same people calling for Gary Lineker to be restored were calling for Jeremy Clarkson a few weeks ago to be removed.

Mark Thompson, the former director general of the BBC, has called for “calm” and said Gary Lineker technically breached the BBC’s impartiality guidelines.

Speaking to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, he said he hoped Lineker and the BBC could block out the “crazy noise in the papers” and find “common ground” to resolve the deepening row.

He said:

I would say on the face of it Gary Lineker’s tweet looks like a technical breach of [the] guideline but I think we’ve also got our old friend the grey area here.

In other words, no one thinks this is the same as you or Huw Edwards doing it. This is not like a news presenter basically tearing up the impartiality principles inside the kind of news machine.

The debate, and one of the reasons I think Tim Davie and others at the BBC will want to have a look at that guideline, is in social media public expectation and practice is changing all the time now.

What I would hope is both Gary, who is an outstanding broadcaster, and the BBC will both, despite the kind of crazy noise in the papers and all the rest of it, calmly take the time to look at whether there is common ground and a way forward.

Thompson was director general at the BBC between 2004 and 2012 and dealt with his own share of controversies at the network, including prank phone calls made by comedians Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

Asked if he thinks Richard Sharp should “decide to step aside for a while” until his links to Boris Johnson are fully investigated, he added:

The chairman of the BBC is not an operational executive … Richard Sharp is part of a governing body which doesn’t take decisions in real time.