Gary Lineker is back in the news following another of his political interventions – and the BBC’s less than convincing response that he’s to be “reminded of his responsibilities on social media”. Guido thinks it’s worth considering the other occasions he’s been supposedly taken to task by the corporation. Co-conspirators won’t need reminding that, despite all of this, Gary still enjoys his £1,350,000 licence-payer funded salary funding his partisan platform:

• In response to Gary’s tweet yesterday comparing the government’s immigration policy to Nazi Germany, the BBC have said they will speak to him so he’s “reminded of his responsibilities on social media”.
• In October 2022, just a month after Davie insisted Gary “understands the guidelines”, the BBC found Lineker in breach of impartiality guidelines for a tweet attacking the Tories and their “Russian donors”. Gary has not deleted the tweet.
• In August 2022, BBC Journalist Neil Henderson criticised Lineker’s tweets, saying he’d “be sacked” for the same offences. He added “The BBC lives or dies by its impartiality. If you can’t abide it, get off it.”
• In September 2020, Tim Davie told the DCMS Select Committee, in response to a question about Gary, that he could take BBC stars “Off Twitter”, adding he knew people wanted to see “hard action”. This was 30 months ago.
• On the 2020 announcement of the BBC’s annual report, Tim Davie pledged new impartiality guidelines, and singled out Lineker. Saying Gary “knows he has a responsibility to the BBC in terms of social media”.
• In December 2018, BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew criticised Lineker. He said “I’d be sacked if I followed your example”.

Following this latest furore Lineker has just tweeted “I’ll continue to try and speak up for those poor souls that have no voice. Cheers all.” BBC figures criticising Lineker time-after-time have made no difference, leftie-Lineker just carries on tweeting his rule breaking, partisan talking points and Tim Davie meekly lets it pass…