DAN WOOTTON: By capitulating to Gary Lineker and a left-wing cabal of multi-millionaire celebrity virtue signallers, toothless boss Tim Davie has just signed the BBC’s death warrant. It’s time to defund this biased joke

They might be celebrating by popping expensive bottles of champagne in mansions across North London today, but I believe Gary Lineker has just killed off the BBC as we know it.

That’s the consequence of tough talk by the gutless Director General Tim Davie, fearing his own job after a weekend of strikes by his sporting autocuties, proving to be just that.

His pathetic capitulation to Lineker and the millionaire mob today – including a gormless apology ­and fudged independent review with an assured outcome – shows it’s now a left-wing cabal of celebrity virtue signaller presenters, backed up by the vast majority of producers and backroom staff at the Beeb’s W1A headquarters, who call the shots.

Indeed, it is clear impartiality at the British Bashing Corporation will soon be officially dead altogether.

On Lineker’s Beeb, taking the knee before every football match must only be seen as a good thing because the discredited BLM organisation says so; anyone who believes an open borders policy would be ruinous for the British people must immediately be derided as a racist bigot; Brexit should be treated as being behind every problem; and JK Rowling is even more evil than her Harry Potter creation Lord Voldemort.

They might be celebrating by popping expensive bottles of champagne in mansions across North London today, but I believe Gary Lineker (pictured) has just killed off the BBC as we know it

BBC director-general Tim Davie, pictured today

Forcing Davie, clearly a weak man, into such a monumental U-turn over the BBC’s impartiality rules introduced in 2020, it seems to me that Lineker and his ilk want to morph the public service broadcaster into an openly activist organisation.

Anyone with even the slightest insight into the BBC this past decade of Brexit hatred, lockdown fanaticism, Rule Britannia banning and Boris loathing knows they’re already there behind-the-scenes.

But the veneer of impartiality had continued, with Davie insisting restoring credibility to the wayward organisation would be at the heart of his mission as DG.

Until today that is.

What comes next is a world where BBC presenters gain massive social media followings on the back of their taxpayer-funded work for the Corporation, only to use said following to campaign for a Labour government using the Lineker playbook.

Representing ALL of the British public, even those who – shock horror ­­– vote for the Tories or want to stop the boats, is no longer the priority.

Ironic given the latest BBC advertising campaign declares: ‘The BBC is something that belongs to all of us. #ThisIsOurBBC’

Not anymore, it’s not.

Lineker made that clear as he put the boot into most of the country on his beloved Twitter when announcing he’d got his own way and would be back on air by the weekend.

He wrote: ‘A final thought: however difficult the last few days have been, it simply doesn’t compare to having to flee your home from persecution or war to seek refuge in a land far away. It’s heartwarming to have seen the empathy towards their plight from so many of you. We remain a country of predominantly tolerant, welcoming and generous people. Thank you.’

That’s the consequence of tough talk by the gutless Director General Tim Davie, fearing his own job after a weekend of strikes by his sporting autocuties, proving to be just that

 I am now convinced the Lineker affair will end up being a landmark moment in the destruction of the BBC as it continues to be run today

Translation: If you don’t agree with Lineker’s hard left open borders policy you are an intolerant, unwelcoming and selfish person.

Given the popularity of the government’s stop the boats policy, he’s describing the majority of the country in that derisive manner.

Besides, much like Lineker’s original tweet comparing the announcement of Suella Braverman’s plan to language used in 1930s Germany, such an argument is intellectually dishonest.

Stopping illegal migration via small boats on the Channel and crushing the despicable people smuggling gangs trading in misery IS the compassionate thing to do, saving lives and ensuring only genuine refugees end up in the UK, not criminals and economic migrants ‘fleeing’ the NATO state of Albania.

Dan Wootton

But that sort of shapeshifting has run rampant the past week amongst the MSM, political establishment and Labour party openly campaigning to restore Lineker to his job.

What infuriated me most was the fig leaf argument that preserving the former footballer at the BBC was somehow now a matter of protecting freedom of speech.

Lineker absolutely has a right to that, but he chose to sign it away when he agreed to the BBC’s crystal clear social media guidelines in exchange for a vulgar £1.3 million annual salary, shelled out by struggling licence fee payers in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

The bloke has no shortage of offers from the woke media world, where he could earn far more in the commercial sector and then tweet hard left talking points comparing the Tories to the Nazis every hour of the day if he wanted.

And I have no problem with that; Lineker can absolutely spout whatever uneducated nonsense he wants.

And, trust me, it is nonsense from the bloke who tried to defend working at the Qatar World Cup, whose stadia were built on the metaphorical graves of dead migrant workers, by claiming that the next host the USA is ‘extraordinarily racist’ too.

My only issue is that we are forced to pay his BBC salary in order to watch TV or face going to jail.

That is insanity in 2023, where we choose which content we want to consume via streaming services and big tech platforms like Netflix and YouTube.

I am now convinced the Lineker affair will end up being a landmark moment in the destruction of the BBC as it continues to be run today.

By admitting that star power means more than impartiality, Davey has smashed the last argument that the Beeb is impartial and can provide a balanced view on the news not allowed elsewhere in the media.

That’s not true. We can prove it. And, with the leftie hosts now ruling the roost and presenting a monolithic view of culture war issues, the output is about to get a whole lot more biased.

So why on earth should a hardworking Brit who believes migration to the UK, both legal and illegal, must be cut in order to protect our country be forced to pay £159 a year to be told that we are despicable?

We shouldn’t – and forcing us to do so or face a custodial sentence is morally repugnant.

Davie might think he’s come up with an artful solution to a PR crisis, but what he’s actually done is speed up the inevitable and necessary process of decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee.

In the modern world of the media, you should only pay for the BBC if you want to.

Defund this joke of an organisation via a poll tax and allow it to appeal to those Lineker fanatics who, unlike me, believe it provides a service worth paying for.

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