HENRY DEEDES: Should Lineker face a red card for latest transgression?

HENRY DEEDES: Barely a week passes without Gary Lineker taking to his sanctimony-soaked Twitter account to pour scorn on government policy… so should he face a red card for his latest transgression?

When Gary Lineker was banging in the goals for England, the phrase ‘the boy Lineker done good’ entered the national lexicon.

Back then everyone loved Gary – even Tories, believe it or not.

For a Thatcher government battling hooliganism, fresh-faced Gary was their poster boy for the game. Mr Squeaky Clean. A footballing Cliff Richard, if you will.

These days Downing Street would sooner use his image on a dartboard than a campaign poster. Barely a week passes without him taking to his sanctimony-soaked Twitter account to pour scorn on government policy – his latest salvo comparing its new Illegal Immigration Bill to Nazi Germany.

Why anyone would accept the political opinings of an individual who once extolled the virtues of John Bercow, with anything other than a large pinch of sodium chloride is anyone’s guess. Yet turmeric-latte-sipping metropolitan types swoon at Lineker’s every halo-enhancing pronouncement.

Barely a week passes without Gary Lineker taking to his sanctimony-soaked Twitter account to pour scorn on government policy

When Gary Lineker was banging in the goals for England, the phrase ‘the boy Lineker done good’ entered the national lexicon

And yes, you heard that right. When a blubbering Bercow announced he was finally vacating Speaker’s House in 2019, old Jug Ears declared the fatuous booby a ‘principled man and a difficult act to follow’. Pass the sick bag!

The question now is whether Lineker should face a red card from Broadcasting House for his latest Twitter transgression.

Some Tory MPs certainly seem to think so. The matter was broached during Culture, Media and Sport questions yesterday by the former secretary of state John Whittingdale.

Whitto and Lineker, I should point out, have what you might call ‘form’.

Lineker once branded him a ‘chump’ for making a joke about abolishing the BBC. ‘We should be proud of the BBC,’ howled Gary at the time. Quite right! Especially since it’s paying him a princely £1.3 million a year.

Mr Whittingdale’s point was that since Mr Lineker is technically a freelancer, he’s not bound by the BBC’s editorial guidelines on impartiality. Whitto wanted this changed so that the rules applied to all the Beeb’s talent.

Making her debut at the despatch box as the Secretary for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was the sleek Lucy Frazer. She described Lineker’s Nazi comparison as ‘disappointing and inappropriate’ – for which read ‘foul and offensive’. Ms Frazer’s grandmother, we discovered, had fled Germany during the 1930s.

She said she was ‘glad’ the BBC suits had decided to meet with Lineker yesterday. Judging by her chilly tone, my guess is she was rather hoping they might tell him the game was up.

The question now is whether Lineker should face a red card from Broadcasting House for his latest Twitter transgression

Lineker once branded former secretary of state John Whittingdale a ‘chump’ for making a joke about abolishing the BBC

There came an angrier intervention from Gregory Campbell (DUP, E Londonderry) who announced that ‘Lefty Lineker’ should be ‘paid £1.3 million less than he currently is’. Zilch, in other words.

This prompted a sneering heckle from the SNP’s Stuart McDonald (Cumbernauld) who growled something about Lineker deserving a pay rise – presumably because McDonald agreed with the Nazi analogy. McDonald left the chamber shortly afterwards, possibly to go and lie down with a cold flannel on his forehead. Cheering for English footballers does nae come naturally to the Scots.

Later, we had Business Questions and Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt was having a tiresome time with her shadow counterpart Thangam Debbonaire over immigration.

Ms Mordaunt accused Labour of ‘borrowing from the Gary Lineker playbook’. She added: ‘They are a party of goal-hangers, poised to seize any opportunities and to take an easy shot. This country doesn’t need goal-hangers – it needs people who put in the hard work.’

Penny doesn’t always look happy in her role as Leader of the House. One senses she’d far rather be in charge of her own department. But she always puts in what the tracksuited managers would say is a decent shift. She’s a tidy operator. Efficient. You might even say she done good.

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