I've given no opinion of my own on the legislation around asylum seekers.
My comment almost solely discusses the BBC and the supposed issue of employees remaining 'impartial' and how they only want to trot it out when the impartial comments they make are ones criticising the government and their policies.
Could you give an example of an employee of the Beeb making political statements in support of the government and their policies, and not being criticised? I am genuinely interested as they may well exist. People cite Andrew Neil so I guess that is an example, although I’m not sure of the exact context and didn’t he end up leaving anyway?
I do agree that the BBC has not enforced this policy consistently and now they’re in deep doo-doo because of that. One example of that is Lineker himself who has been doing this kind of stuff for years. If the government has really been putting pressure on the BBC about Lineker they’ve been pretty laid back about it over the years, and other than a slap on the wrist he’s not really got into trouble over it. And it’s now blown up in their faces.
I also think there seems to be a general confusion in the BBC of what it means to be a freelancer. I would think that if a freelancer is representing your organisation, they abide by the rules of the organisation. That’s certainly how it works in most companies! They just don’t seem to be clear on this.
I was not offended by Lineker’s tweet (I am more offended by the arrogance of a man who doesn’t care that his salary is paid for by the general public many of whom don’t agree with his viewpoints) but many people including some members of the Jewish population were. It cannot be defended on the grounds of “not really being about the holocaust”: it was deliberately inflammatory because anything that evokes the rise of Nazi Germany is. It was also grossly inappropriate: Germany in the 30s was not trying to prevent a large influx of refugees; the policies actually created large numbers of refugees. Lineker could have made a comparison with Australian policies, which would have been more appropriate and relevant and much less controversial but he chose not to do that.
Regarding MOTD it’s a big mess and the BBC now can’t back down and I can’t imagine what sort of compromise could possibly satisfy that massive ego! In freedom of speech terms, he has the right to say what he wants, but he should probably walk away from the BBC if that’s his priority as this clearly isn’t going to work. Or the BBC can let their commentators say what they want if they choose, but then they need to walk away from the license fee.
