Carol Vorderman is accused of ‘flagrantly breaching’ BBC impartiality rules with anti-Tory rants that ‘make Gary Lineker’s comments seem mild’

• Last month the star accused the government of being ‘gaslighting crooks’ 
• An MP remarked ex-Countdown star ‘makes Gary Lineker’s comments look mild’ 

Carol Vorderman has been accused of ‘flagrantly breaching’ the BBC’s impartiality guidelines in her virulently anti-Tory rants on Twitter and Instagram.

Last month the 62-year-old former Countdown star – now host of a weekly programme on BBC Radio Wales – accused the government of being ‘a lying bunch of greedy, corrupt, destructive, hateful, divisive, gaslighting crooks.’

The outspoken presenter also hosted topical news quiz Have I Got News For You on BBC1 in May this year.

A Tory MP has called for the BBC to investigate into her social media posts adding: ‘She makes Gary Lineker’s comments look quite mild.’

In March, the BBC sparked a sports presenters’ ‘revolt’ by taking the Match of the Day presenter off-air, following his tweet comparing the language framing the government’s Rwanda policy to that used by Nazi Germany.

Other presenters on TV and radio refused to host their programmes and the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie was forced to back down, announcing a review of their social media guidelines.

TV presenter Carol Vorderman has been accused of ‘flagrantly breaching’ the BBC’s impartiality guidelines in her virulently anti-Tory rants on Twitter and Instagram

The BBC Radio Wales presenter accused the Government of being  ‘a lying bunch of greedy, corrupt, destructive, hateful, divisive, gaslighting crooks.’

More recently she been engaged in a bitter Twitter feud with Tory MP and veteran’s affairs minister Johnny Mercer and his wife Felicity

Ms Vorderman also tweeted her support of former England captain Lineker.

More recently she been engaged in a bitter Twitter feud with Tory MP and veteran’s affairs minister Johnny Mercer and his wife Felicity, who branded the maths whizz a ‘celebrity attack dog’ for directing online harassment their way.

Ms Vorderman was accused of being an ‘education snob’ when she tweeted gleefully earlier this month at the prospect of Mr Mercer losing his seat in next year’s general election.

She told her 840,000 followers: ‘Gosh, what are arrogant Johnny Mercer & his wife going to do for a joint income of £160,000+ plus enormous expenses? Not a degree in sight in spite of expensive private education! So who’d employ them?’

The BBC’s social media guidelines apply to anyone who works for the Corporation in any capacity and state: ‘Where individuals identify themselves as being linked with the BBC… their public expressions of opinion have the potential to compromise the BBC’s impartiality and to damage its reputation.’

Along with her anti-Tory tweets, sometimes several times a day, Ms Vorderman – who acted as David Cameron’s ‘maths tsar’ before the 2010 election — also promotes her Radio Wales programme on the twitter feed.

Tory MP for South Thanet Craig Mackinlay told MailOnline: ‘She has certainly been on a strange journey because you don’t find a more rabid anti-Conservative inhabiting Twitter these days.

‘I don’t quite know how she’s got there. I know she’s been having this spat with Johnny Mercer and his wife for some time, but she’s in receipt of the BBC coin.

Ms Vorderman was accused of being an ‘education snob’ when she tweeted gleefully earlier this month at the prospect of Mr Mercer losing his seat in next year’s general election

‘Whichever way you look at it, she is she has flagrantly crossed any boundary of impartiality, fundamental to the BBCs charter, and is indulging in in very anti-Conservative rhetoric

‘She’s using her not insubstantial Twitter following, which will only go up on the back of her BBC programme, to actually promote a political viewpoint.

‘Gary Lineker crossed some boundaries, but they seem almost mild compared to the the new space that Carol Vorderman is occupying and it’s time the BBC reminded her of their own guidelines.’

Ms Vorderman’s views have certainly changed, judging from her public pronouncements. In 2009, when she teamed up with David Cameron to promote maths education in schools, she told the Daily Mail ‘Under Labour, 3.5million children have left school without a GCSE grade C or higher in Maths. It’s because of my own background that I’m so ambitious for the children in our country.’

Last November, however, she tweeted: ‘Good schools & teachers need nurturing.The politics of today doesn’t allow for it.’

On Instagram last month she posted, along with a story about a record number of Freedom of Information blocks by the government: ‘I’ve tried to be on holiday for a few days but the Tory manifestation of a robbing, inept, gaslighting chaotic government keeps raising its head.’

Ironically enough, Ms Vorderman has also been outspoken on the subject of BBC impartiality – but not on her own behalf.

Instead, she called for the former chairman of the BBC governors, Richard Sharp, to resign and even posted instructions for her followers to complain to the BBC about the chairman’s impartiality.

In June 2022, however, she congratulated the Labour candidate in the Wakefield byelection for ‘a huge victory over the Tories’, adding ‘GO NOW BORIS’.

She justified her comments saying: ‘I’m not a politically motivated woman, never have been. I worked with David Blunkett (Labour) on the world’s first online grooming law and with a previous Tory gov on Mathematics policy in schools. Both for the cause, not the politics.’

But by October, she railed: ‘I am absolutely appalled at what our parliament has become THEY HAVE CREATED ANARCHY and they question kids and others glueing themselves close to artwork or on the roads.

‘Please God… can we just reboot with a GENERAL ELECTION’.

The BBC refused to answer when asked whether Ms Vorderman has been – or will be – spoken to about her social media posts, but pointed out that a review is being conducted by an independent expert into how their existing social media guidance applies to ‘on-air freelancers outside of news and current affairs.’

Ms Vorderman’s representative was contacted by MailOnline.

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