BBC impartiality is now just an illusion

WHAT hope now for BBC impartiality? If it’s acceptable for a celebrity presenter to equate government policy with the rise of 1930s Nazism, then no political smear is off-limits.

Gary Lineker and a small band of entitled, overpaid sports presenters have held the BBC to ransom. And they have won.

After rightly suspending the Match Of The Day anchorman for his offensive slur on those who oppose illegal migration, director-general Tim Davie performed a humiliating climbdown yesterday.

As a result, Lineker will be back on air without so much as a slap on the wrist, raising serious questions about Mr Davie’s position and the future direction of the corporation. The decision is an insult to millions of decent licence-fee payers who believe illegal cross-Channel migration should be stopped. They have effectively been branded bigots.

The Left is naturally cock-a-hoop. Alastair Campbell congratulated Saint Gary for standing up to ‘Right-wing authoritarianism’. Coming from Labour’s leading loudmouthed bully boy, this was pretty rich.

As were Lineker’s own patronising outpourings. Britain remains ‘a country of predominantly tolerant, welcoming and generous people’, he said. Thanks Gary, but we don’t need a cosseted multimillionaire to tell us that.

All along, Lineker’s allies presented this saga as a battle for free speech. But it was far bigger than that. It was about whether the corporation still has any pretensions to political neutrality, or has simply succumbed to the metropolitan anti-Tory Left. Yesterday, we had our answer. At Broadcasting House, diversity of opinion is dead.