European News and Poland Thread 2

8 killed.

Hey Brits, what is wrong with Gary Lineker?

There's an ongoing discussion on social media use by presenters on state TV however this is nothing new.

Gary Lineker is a great guy - my utmost respect :)

Yes he is. One who speaks his mind and is both intelligent and measured in his views.

It's worth mentioning that his Twitter feed and his work are separate from his sports commentary which is apolitical. The current interest in the media is simply fuss over nothing; there are figures on state TV who express the opposite view to his on their Twitter feeds and nobody bats an eyelid. If he were a news reader, that would be different. He isn't though; he only talks on TV about football.

It seems the right-wing dislike someone with views they don't share being popular.

BBC suspends Gary Lineker from Match of the Day for impartiality breach. Gary Lineker has been suspended as presenter of Match of the Day after the corporation said his criticism of the government's asylum policies breached its impartiality guidelines.

The USSR 2.0.

Welcome to the hell known as the UK where a critical comment about a gov policy can end your career just like that...poof...gone.

Says someone who'd never heard of Gary Lineker before now and knows zero about the context or the backstory or the issues surrounding neutrality by public broadcasters.

This has been going on since the days of CEM Joad so is not new.

Fortunately, he has a lot of support.

But really.....the Nazis????

Some politician does something you don't like and it's the Nazis again??? Really???

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.

Gary Lineker

Heh:) Had to post this of course!!! :)

Yes, and it's not an unreasonable comparison given some of the rhetoric used in the original proposal. These were his exact words on the matter:

"There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the '30s."

The matter is very much ongoing and I'm surprised anyone outside the UK has picked up on it. The BBC has been (rightly) criticised for pandering to conservative politicians and vocal right-wing commentators (especially given some of the right-wing tweets that have come from people employed by them over the years) and the support for Gary is huge.


Or the French or the Argies.

....he is very popular, also outside of the UK!

Amazing that people still have an opinion on him since he hung his boots up.

He always was different as a player, intelligent, well read and articulate.

The current row is however an ongoing one that isn't helped by the fact that the Tories know they'll lose the next election badly and will be out of office for 10 or 15 years and are ramping up the extreme language to try to rally their core voters in order to lessen their humiliation at the ballot box. there are also several political scandals on the horizon, and they'll do anything to distract from those.


It hasn't 'ended his career' though, has it.

One more case and it will. Woke a-holes tend not to forgive insubordination.

That is absolutely meaningless.

Are you suggesting that the criticism about him is 'woke'?

Had you heard of him before today?

No. Woke are the morons who can't stand anything crirical about foreign invaders and the idiotic policies to assist that invasion.

Because of geography, not a single person coming from France qualifies for asylum. The UK ruling mob knows it but continues playing this sick asylum game anyway. When a British patriot objects, his is the enemy, not the woke ruling mob.

I have no doubt that by now I would be serving time in a British slammer only for my opinions on this subject.

So you got the whole issue wrong. Completely back to front.

You don't need to comment on every thread. Especially since you know nothing about the subject and have never been to the country involved or even heard of the person we're discussing.

Meanwhile, there's an outpouring of support for Gary Lineker. The whole issue has parallels to the Clarkson affair a few months ago and of course (you wouldn't know this either) relates to some issues at the top of the BBC involving a cash loan to a politician which has cast doubt on the person's involvement as well as issues about what key figure in the state broadcaster do and say in work they do other than their BBC role.

Okey, so to sum up, Mr. Lineker would like more migrants in GB and the British government wouldn't want that, or have I missed something?

I don't know where you pulled that one from. He didn't say anything of the sort. He commented solely on the way those who are there may be treated.


Also not a clear cut issue. They admit that there are demographic issues, however they also have to send a message to prospective voters who are concerned about demographic change.

As usual when talking about issues in Europe, it feels like Britain are the only adultrs in the room.

Hard to know why you bothered raising a very minor issue about a sports commentator in a different country.

There certainly is. Looks like the BBC will be without any football presenters or commentators this weekend as the entire team has stood down in support of their colleague.

What are they fleeing from in France?

Most people like him and his work and of course his comments are as always entirely reasonable.

The Tories were of course trying to make this into a thing to draw attention away from the Hancock Scandal, the issues of cash loans to a serving Prime Minister, their poor handling of migration in general, their caving in to the striking transport workers, their utterly miserable showing in the polls and a couple of other things on the horizon however it simply hasn't worked.

The point that you are all missing is that the BBC is a tax funded institution that is supposed to be unbiased.
They have been under attack for many years now because,like our civil service, they show quite clearly that they are left wing.
This has to stop or their licence fee has to be revoked.
Lineker has over stepped the mark with his arrogance and needs to be made a very high profile example, to show that this is not acceptable and to save the BBC.

This hasn't been compromised at all. He's never mentioned politics on any of the sports programmes he's been on.

He's a freelance commentator not a BBC staffer, rather like Jeremy Clarkson when he said that striking workers should be shot in froint of their families (and continued presenting Top Gear for 5 years after that) and is entitled to express private views on Twitter and elsewhere.

Not to mention Andrew Neill, presenting BBC news programmes while making, sometimes extreme (unlike Mr Lineker) political comments elsewhere and editing a highly partisan political magazine..

The huge outpouring of support for Gary shows that people do not like cancel culture, especially when politicians try to impose their will on the BBC.

Would you be objecting if he'd declared his support for Sunak's new policy?

@jon357

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but enough is enough.
The pressure on the BBC to be unbiased,as it was when I was growing up, is so strong now, that if they don't act, they could lose their licence fee and have to go commercial.

If that happens, they won't last ten years.

Yes!
That is the whole point!
Anyone who works for the BBC, in whatever capacity, should not show ANY political bias!

In a "democracy", "unbiased" should mean being open to all opinions, not suppressing unpopular opinions that might hurt feelings.
Wokism is fascism.

The left say they're biased to the right, the right say they're biased to the left so they must be doing something right.

There have been problems, notably their political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg openly supporting the Tories and the audience booker for Question Time being a UKIP activist however they are fortunately both long gone.


He's never mentioned politics on his sports show.

So now that a liberal is targeted you believe that cancel culture exists... I remember reading how it was a figment of the imagination when it was happening to non-liberals....

It usually is a figment of rightists' imagination. That or the simple fact that they habitually squeal with outrage when people get sick of their noise.

This is a classic PR dead cat stunt to distract from the fact that the chair of the BBC made a 400000 quid donation to the ruling party and an 800000 loan to the serving prime minister while being interviewed for the job.

Plus of course the Hancock scandal and a few other Tory scandals they'll do anything to distract from.

Plus of course, to the current proposals are viewed cynically as pretty well everything this lame duck government does.

Odd that people here on PF are even discussing issues about sport commentators. It shows how easy it is to sucker people in to getting worked up over the trivial while missing the main points. And meanwhile 'investors' are making more money from your job than you are.

I understand joun that sports aren't your cup of tea so let's try a topic that is more up your ally.

British minister faces new charges under counter terrorism laws for criticizing a trans woman

jonathanturley.org/2023/03/09/british-minister-faces-new-charges-under-counter-terrorism-laws-for-criticizing-a-trans-woman/

That is all that it takes now in the UK and most of Europe today: "an extreme point of view."
So now he is akin to a terrorist for exercising free speech.
You can't make this stuff up......

Had you heard of Gary Lineker or the scandal of the BBC chief giving money to the same right-wing politicians who appointed him.

No Jim, you hadn't.


Your extremist source certainly can, since:
A. The guy isn't a 'minister', he's a mentally ill person who shouts abuse at strangers in the street, and
B. He isn't 'facing prosecution' since he isn't mentally competent.

Stick to things you know about.