BBC rewrites guidelines allowing Gary Lineker to continue to rant on Twitter 

BBC rewrites its own guidelines about staff’s social media posts, allowing Gary Lineker to continue to rant on Twitter

  • BBC changed guidelines, allowing sports presenters to voice partisan views  
  • Gary Lineker uses social media to rail against the ‘irreparable damage’ of Brexit 
  • Under revised editorial guidelines the corporation still bans news and current affairs presenters from making their political views known on social media

Gary Lineker is the BBC’s highest paid star on £1.75million a year

The BBC is at the centre of another impartiality row after handing Gary Lineker free rein to wade into political rows on Twitter.

The corporation has rewritten its editorial guidelines, creating a loophole that allows sports presenters to make their partisan views public.

Lineker, who is the BBC’s highest paid star on £1.75million a year, regularly uses social media to rail against the ‘irreparable damage’ caused by Brexit. Last year cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew told the 58-year-old: ‘Please observe BBC editorial guidelines and keep your political views, whatever they are and whatever the subject, to yourself. I’d be sacked if I followed your example.’

Under the revised editorial guidelines, published last week, the corporation still bans news and current affairs presenters from making their political views known on social media, or taking a stance on a ‘controversial subject’.

But the rules say the ‘risk is lower’ where the presenter is talking about a subject unrelated to their field, giving as an example ‘a sports or science presenter expressing views on politics or the arts’.

The previous version of the guidelines did not mention politics. Tory MP Bill Cash accused the BBC of abandoning impartiality. He added: ‘This loophole has been deliberately put into the guidelines for the purposes of trying to justify statements that Gary Lineker makes.’

A BBC spokesman said: ¿We¿ve always said that a sports presenter is able to express a political view in a way that a BBC journalist can¿t, and the editorial guidelines make this clear¿

A BBC spokesman said: ‘We’ve always said that a sports presenter is able to express a political view in a way that a BBC journalist can’t, and the editorial guidelines make this clear’

He claimed the exemption for sports stars broke the terms of the BBC’s royal charter with its commitment to ‘provide impartial news and information’.

Lineker has defended his behaviour online, declaring in 2017: ‘I’m freelance and I’ll talk **** about whatever I like on my Twitter feed.’

A BBC spokesman said: ‘We’ve always said that a sports presenter is able to express a political view in a way that a BBC journalist can’t, and the editorial guidelines make this clear.’

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