In the news

You've got to wonder what the back story to how this all played out was.

My understanding is that:

1. Gary tweets
   
2. BBC tells him to remove the tweet as it "breaches the impartiality guidelines"
   
3. Gary says no
   
4. BBC slaps him
   
   

I can understand that in between 1. and 2. there is some reflexive response from someone - person A gets a call from B who says "yo, have you seen Liniker's tweet? Tell him to wind his neck in". So person A asks for the tweet to be removed.

But between 3. and 4. you'd have thought that person A would have checked how strong their position was, right? I mean he's a big name not a budding weather presenter on the One Show trying to climb the slippery stick. You'd want to know what your next couple of moves are surely.

So without getting too 4d chess about it, there must have been a strategy to this. So I wonder what the aim was?

HMRC wants all of your money, all of the time

New IR 35 criteria. ‘Can you call them cunts on the internet. If you can - contractor. If you can’t…

A would have checked how strong their position was, right?

BBC aren't obliged to put Gary in front of a camera, as far as I can tell. They can just pay him and his team to twiddle their thumbs.

Obvs. it looks bad, but the current regime can say 'stupid contract we wouldn't write today' or something.

Bloody hell. I knew this guy was a piece of work but didn't realise it was this bad. From the guy that thinks you can grow concrete. Very NSFW, lots of swearing.
https://twitter.com/Stuzipants/status/1634917095363473413

FWIW I think the current situation is quite comfortable for the right, as it seems to confirm the fears of a lot of right leaning folks in that the BBC is packed with folks who are both hostile to conservative views that they are not afraid to share, and paid too much via silly, insider job contracts. And that the BBC can't control or get shot of them.

Gary might win this battle, but it's going to kick off a war.

Another victory for the liberal metropolitan wokerati etc etc

I think there something missing from your time line, on Thursday the BBC said no action would be taken, at which point pressure has been applied by somebody(s) and on Friday he's suspended.

As I understand it he's got a similar contract to Andrew Neil, which allowed him to air his hard right views outside of BBC time with out any issue.

This isn't just a picture of a podcast app. It's got that daft concrete growing twat talking to some other awful arsehole where they go on about Sadiq Khan being a fucking cunt quite a lot and a spiteful dwarf, saying he's ruined London and they want dirtier air and less stabbings and rape as if it's a choice between those. The swearing is bad because they seem to be able to add a lot of spite to the word "cunt" but pepper in "fucking" like school kids who have just learnt it and are trying to sound cool to their mates but don't want to be overheard by a teacher.

Also notice how there isn't a single bit of actual critisism of Khan other than he's "ruining London" because he's a "dwarf cunt". If people could remember the heady days of Bojo being in charge there was very obvious and legitimate points of contention. Passing building regs for mates to build empty skyscrapers, the garden bridge, hiring women he's slept with etc.

Good point, some allegations at the beginning about how he walked into a ULEZ expansion talk and told the people with legitimate concerns not to get mixed up with the protesters outside who were far right, climate and COVID deniers and Tories. I don't know whether he said that or whether it was true, but it's a passing introduction then lots of childish insults.

You aren't going to get a medal for being the face of ULEZ and ULEZ expansion. Not in the short term, anyway.

Boris is what Boris is, but he was good at providing an additive narrative. Khan has failed on everything additive, and his legacy will be ULEZ.

That's the thing, it is now all about the BBC and not the refugees.

Calling BS on the claim that the BBC only has lefties in it, but culturewars aren't about nuance.

Perhaps the first victim of culture wars is also the truth ;)

As long as Sadiq Khan persists with the Silvertown Tunnel, any claims he has about improving air quality in London are just bullshit anyway.

I think he’s been shit as Mayor, he talks a lot and delivers very little.

he talks a lot and delivers very little.

Just like my postman.

Cheers

Anyone with any broadcasting industry experience or insider knowledge?
I'm wondering if the BBC had to offer up Gary Lineker as the host to win the Saturday highlights package from the EPL rights bid process?

it seems to confirm the fears of a lot of right leaning folks in that the BBC is packed with folks who are both hostile to conservative views that they are not afraid to share, and paid too much via silly, insider job contracts. And that the BBC can't control or get shot of them.

I mean to an extent they're not totally incorrect points.

£ for £ (they cost roughly the same) the 19 professional members of the BBC Singers seem like better value than Lineker.

I mean, the Chairman is a Tory donor who arranged an £800k loan for Boris Johnson and the Director General was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative party and stood unsuccessfully as a Tory councillor. While those on the right might bleat about the eventual result of this debacle, what comes across for most is that the BBC got itself into this mess as a direct result of its management being too close to the Conservative party, not because it's full of pinko lefties.

Any kind of further analysis (yeah, I know, unlikely) would reveal the only issue management had with Lineker's tweet was that it was critical of Conservative policy. He'd previously been quite at liberty to say anything critical of, for example, the previous Labour leader - as had many other BBC 'freelancers' - without any kerfuffle about so-called impartiality.

I've no idea about this specifically but I do a fair bit of contract compliance and that would be unlikely in my view. There might be some undertaking that it would be someone with a commensurate broadcasting profile or similar. Pretty sure Saturday and Sunday's MOTD would be a breach of what was agreed though.

Gary Linekar is probably most likely the presenter because he’s warm, charming, witty, knowledgable, formerly a top level professional and is loved and respected by his peers, colleagues and generations of football fans.

He’s basically good at his job in a way no other current presenter is.

The BBC want that as much as the prem do.

So without getting too 4d chess about it, there must have been a strategy to this. So I wonder what the aim was?

Hanlon's razor applies here

Yes, there is that, but the Tory's end goal is the sell off the BBC and part of that road map will be to damaging it in the eye's of the public so to a degree this has been a win win for them.

like all of us the BBC is a victim of the Tory's.

I had a response:

Dear Mr eskay,
Thank you for contacting the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

We have assessed your complaint against spectator.co.uk (The Spectator) and have decided that this falls within our remit and may raise a breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice. I should however emphasise that we have not reached any decision as to whether the Code has in fact been breached – any decision about this would be made by the Complaints Committee. IPSO will consider the matter in relation to any online and print versions of the article published by spectator.co.uk (The Spectator).

(Extract)