Gary Lineker does not speak for the nation – and self-righteous Labour who assume he does are heading for electoral ruin
THE case against Gary Lineker is crystal clear . . . not that he has sabotaged Rishi Sunak’s crackdown on illegal migrants, but that he has dealt a killer blow to his own beloved BBC.
The Beeb, the soundtrack to our lives for 100 years, was already tottering over claims of bias.
Now Lineker has cut it off at the knees.
If there were already questions over Auntie as the impartial voice of the nation, Lineker has put them beyond doubt.
Like the civil service, the corporation has been colonised by the Guardian-reading liberal elite for whom the trigger word “Tory” sends them groping for the garlic and crucifix.
Equating Rishi’s battle against people smugglers with Hitler’s hatred of Jews was crass, cruel and an insult to the Jewish people.
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Clod-hopping Labour hatchet man Alastair Campbell added to the furore, comparing the scrapping of the BBC Singers choir to Nazi Germany’s “assault on culture”.
Lineker must know he is out of order.
He reportedly confessed to ex-tennis star Andrew Castle, that he had “gone too far”.
If so, he should have had the guts and integrity to say so immediately and saved the BBC from slitting its own throat by suspending him.
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If the BBC is to survive, Lineker needs to show humility and apologise for smashing its explicit rules against “taking sides on party political issues or political controversies”.
Otherwise, with dozens of fellow presenters now on strike, Director-General Tim Davie will be the next victim of this multi-millionaire Messiah.
Indeed, Tim Davie’s own job is already on the line — along with chairman Richard Sharp, over a separate, controversial cash guarantee for Boris Johnson.
The Beeb is a headless chicken.
Mood is turning
For Lineker is no longer just the highest paid BBC personality.
He is bigger than the entire £5BILLION-a-year publicly funded radio, TV and digital broadcasting monster itself.
Judging by the “I am Spartacus” response by other on-screen stars, he is one of the Beeb’s many out-and-proud Labour Party voices — more powerful than dreary leader Sir Keir Starmer’s.
Labour is cock-a-hoop about this furore, assuming Lineker speaks for the nation.
He does not.
Cautious shadow ministers already fear this will backfire.
Branding the Tories as “nazis” over immigration might make headlines but it tars a majority of decent, fair-minded voters with the same brush.
Labour loves to spray abuse at anyone with opposing views as “fascist” or “racist”.
Loud-mouth deputy leader Angela Rayner had to be told to stop calling Tories “scum”.
The party is still paying the price today for the Jeremy Corbyn years, when Jewish MPs needed security at Labour conferences.
What Labour fails to understand is that they are simultaneously smearing millions of voters who gave this Tory Government an 80-seat majority.
Around seven out of ten — especially in Red Wall seats — fervently support Rishi Sunak’s attempt to curb illegal immigration.
The mood is already turning against Labour.
A shock poll this weekend halved Starmer’s lead from 21 per cent to 11 per cent, just a snapshot but still a hammer blow to his dream of outright victory in 2024.
Rishi Sunak has proved it pays to be underestimated.
In just weeks, he has seen off Nicola Sturgeon, neutered calls for Scottish independence, reached a Brexit deal with the EU and won cooperation with France on people smugglers.
He also comes out smelling of roses from the torrent of Covid revelations and Matt Hancock’s lockdown police state.
Starmer, by contrast, emerges increasingly as a shifty chancer who hailed last week’s International Women’s Day but still couldn’t say what makes a woman.
He parades self-righteously as an ex-state prosecutor who locked up criminals.
Devastating blast
Yet his record as a human rights lawyer fighting immigration laws, and his firebrand speeches branding critics as “racist”, suggest otherwise.
He also blundered by picking Labour-voting Cabinet Office mandarin Sue Gray, a close pal, as his Downing Street chief of staff.
In doing so, Starmer exposed himself as Leader of the infamous “Blob” — the nameless, faceless civil service majority who block or derail Conservative government policy.
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Voters seem to share Rishi Sunak’s devastating blast at the Labour leader in the Commons last week.
“He is just another leftie lawyer getting in our way,” stormed the PM.