UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said it was wrong of BBC presenter Gary Lineker to comment on government policy, part of a growing furor that forced the public broadcaster to air its flagship football show without commentators.
(Bloomberg) —
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said it was wrong of BBC presenter Gary Lineker to comment on government policy, part of a growing furor that forced the public broadcaster to air its flagship football show without commentators.
Saturday’s Match of the Day — staple viewing in Britain for almost six decades — featured no studio hosts or voice-over comment on highlights of Premier League matches as commentators refused to work in solidarity with Lineker, who was suspended for likening UK migrant proposals to that of Germany in the 1930s.
Interviews with players and managers were also scrapped in a decision made by the Premier League, while the show started without its usual theme tune.
Lineker’s comment on social media last week has electrified the national conversation over the government’s proposal to detain and deport migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, and revived debate over how the BBC is run. Parliament is set to debate the Illegal Migration Bill tomorrow.
“I personally think he was wrong to say what he said,” Hunt told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday. What “people want to know is that there isn’t any political agenda in how the BBC goes about its business.”
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Hunt’s opposition counterpart, accused the Conservatives of double standards and putting pressure on the state-funded BBC to act on Lineker.
“When a football commentator dares to disagree with the government and expresses concerns over one of their policies, they all take to the airwaves,” she told Sky’s Ridge.
That stood in contrast with the Conservatives’ approach when BBC Chairman Richard Sharp was questioned last month for helping to facilitate a £800,000 loan for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Reeves said.
“Tory MPs and Tory ministers said ‘nothing to see here’,” she told Ridge.
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