Tale of two halves as both sides roused to fury for different reasons
‘And now on BBC One, a Rightwing double-bill.” A question on HS2 followed by a question on the BBC: Tory backbenchers couldn’t have been angrier if Gary Lineker had crashed through the wall on a high speed train.
In fact, this was one of those afternoons when the House was united in fury, just divided over what it was furious about.
Tories hate HS2 because it’s being built through their gardens; Labour MPS because the Government has delayed it; Plaid Cymru because not one inch of it is in Wales – and if England is going to get disruption and torn-up countryside, then so should we!
But what MPS really wanted to debate was the trial of St Gary Lineker. One of the best things about this surreal episode is that the BBC’S impartiality rules require it to report impartially on accusations that it is partial.
The corporation can be proud that its coverage of the public’s total loss of confidence in the BBC has been fair and balanced.
Lucy Powell, Labour’s shadow secretary for being Shocked and Appalled, asked what does one call it “when a much-loved sports presenter is taken off-air for tweeting something the Government doesn’t like?” She answered: “It sounds more like Putin’s Russia to me.”
Lineker implied the Government spoke like the Nazis; Ms Powell compared it to the Kremlin. What more slurs can the Left throw at the Conservative Party? Fascist?
Scientologist? “Never kissed a Tractarian?”
Not one to take a tongue-lashing lying down, Tory MPS replied with an astonishing demolition of a “muchloved sports presenter” who Sir John Hayes described, less flatteringly, as “self-indulgent, out-of-touch, insensitive, avaricious, smug and arrogant”. The only thing he forgot was “crisp thief ”.
Alan Cairns called the golden-footed wonder “privileged and overpaid”. If Mr Lineker is indeed a super rich elitist, one wonders if under different circumstances the Conservatives wouldn’t be calling for his head, they’d be offering him a membership form. Labour’s Fleur Anderson revealed that many of her “Putney journalist residents” are worried about the undermining of the BBC’S reputation, which goes to the heart of the matter.
This is about intra-elite competition. The Tories are the party of bankers; Labour of the media. Both feel the BBC ought to be theirs.
Labour argued that the real issue isn’t Gary Lineker, it’s Richard Sharp, the chairman of the BBC, ex-goldman Sachs, who has donated to the Conservatives and is accused of helping Boris Johnson secure a loan.
Gary, meanwhile, clearly chastened by the events of the past few days, has retweeted a highly political podcast hosted by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell – a show so elite, so mindnumbingly New Labour, that it leaves one with a subconscious desire to invade Iraq.
All this is a thousand miles removed from the cost of living crisis, which is not made easier by a licence fee that, as Scott Benton pointed out, is “a regressive, decades-old, out of date tax. Isn’t it time we had a grown-up conversation about its future?”
Not on Commons TV, no. Time to turn over: I think there’s darts on the other side.