Here’s another great analysis of what’s coming to be known as GaryGate, or LinekerGate:

The big take-out from this one is the passage from Gary Lineker’s BBC contract – on personal opinions.

It states, “The Conflicts of Interest Guidelines on Public Expressions of Opinion set out the position for all BBC staff:

“Public expressions of opinion have the potential to compromise the BBC’s impartiality and to damage its reputation. This includes the use of social media and writing letters to the press. Opinions expressed on social media are put into the public domain, can be shared and are searchable.

“The risk is greater where the public expressions of opinion overlap with the area of the individual’s work. The risk is lower where an individual is expressing views publicly on an unrelated area, for example, a sports or science presenter expressing views on politics or the arts.”

So Gary Lineker was well within his rights to express an opinion on politics, from his position as a sports presenter, it seems.

The revelation of these guidelines also highlights a glaring double-standard at the BBC, where hard right-winger Andrew Neil – for many years the Corporation’s most high-profile political presenter – was allowed to tweet his highly-partisan opinions willy-nilly for years without ever being called into question under these guidelines.

It seems the BBC cannot be trusted to apply its own guidelines.

Perhaps an independent body should be assigned to oversee it?

Ah, but that would require bureaucracy and red tape – and Tories are against that.

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