All eyes have been on Gary Lineker’s Twitter account ever since game of the day The presenter has struck a deal with BBC management to return to work this weekend and he hasn’t disappointed.
Among numerous tweets about football, Lineker has slammed a Conservative MP over “outrageous and dangerously provocative” allegations made against him and retweeted a video showing former Prime Minister Theresa May criticizing the government’s proposed immigration law. Scroll down for both.
Lineker reacted angrily to a Conservative MP, Jonathan Gullis, who claimed during an interview with Channel 4 News that the former England footballer had called the people of the North of England “racist bigots and Nazis”.
The clip and a screenshot were widely circulated on Twitter, and Lineker quoted one of those screenshots as saying, “No, he didn’t and never would. This is outrageous and dangerously provocative.”
Lineker was ousted from the BBC last weekend for comparing the government’s language on its asylum policy to Nazi Germany, and he never accused British citizens of behaving like “racist bigots and Nazis”.
He retweeted May’s anti-politics outburst yesterday – another clip from Channel 4 News – in which she used a parliamentary debate to say that immigrants “will have the door to Britain shut in their face” if the government makes any proposals. May, a former Home Secretary, also described the policy as a “blanket dismissal” of those who are being persecuted.
Lineker’s retweet will raise some eyebrows as he has agreed to adhere to the BBC’s social media guidelines for presenters in the meantime, before the BBC updates those guidelines in the coming weeks, with the terms of an independent review set out in the are in the coming days.
While the retweet of May’s criticism is far more subtle than the “Nazi Germany” tweet, his Twitter timeline will still come under scrutiny pending review. Many will have noticed that he changed his Twitter picture to a picture of himself standing in front of a mural that reads, “If freedom means anything, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
May was speaking in the Houses of Parliament shortly after opposition Labor Party culture secretary Lucy Powell compared the BBC’s suspension of Lineker to “something from Putin’s Russia”.
Conservative culture secretary Julia Lopez tried to take the edge off the matter, chiding Powell for her language and saying the Lineker matter was for the BBC to resolve internally. After initially taking offense at Lineker’s “Nazi Germany” tweet, reports say the Conservatives are now keen to let the BBC handle the situation, which will take criticism of the asylum policy out of the headlines.
Lineker will present game of the day as usual on Saturday and the BBC is hoping to avoid further disruption after a weekend in which presenters, pundits and commentators from a multitude of sports shows cut down tools.
Separately, BBC local news journalists are on strike today – the day of the Chancellor’s first budget – over plans to ax 50 reels and combine local programmes.
With the Fiona Bruce and the BBC singers scandal, it’s not an easy time to be a BBC frontrunner.