Well Done Gary!

Well done Gary Lineker! Unlike many who seem to bend to the wind, Gary has stood by his guns. Whether you agree with him or not, it is right to have an opinion and it has been refreshing to see the support from his colleagues. We should be proud that the BBC is not composed entirely of spineless yes-men.

This whole crisis puts an additional spotlight on the BBC. Despite right-wing attempts to portray it as a nest of left-wing radicals, the reality is very different. Independent research has shown that the BBC politically tends to be right of centre. As long as the BBC follows a reasonable line, and challenges extreme views, so be it.

What is in danger of damaging the BBC is a charge of hypocrisy. We have the situation where its Chair, the former Tory donor Richard Sharp, is under investigation over allegations on the lack of transparency for facilitating a loan to the ever-short Boris Johnson when Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Boris had a major say in the BBC's chair selection. Meanwhile the Director General, Tim Davey, who considers himself the editor-in-chief was previously an active Conservative politician. Note that Davie's career before joining the BBC as a senior executive was in marketing and not journalism, although he has acted as a standard bearer of impartiality. In 2020, he publicly castigated the BBC for attacking the Conservative party.

To make matters worse, it has been reported that the BBC has suppressed an episode of David Attenborough's new series on British wildlife because of fears that its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the right-wing press.

It appears that in today's BBC you get a thumbs up if you toe the Conservative party line as it lurches to the right or are sanctioned if you take another view. The freedom of the press and media is a fundamental pillar of our democracy. We dismantle it at our peril. For historians, that was a key lesson of 1930s Germany.