Hearts & Minds: Learning the lessons of Lineker’s last post

Gary Lineker has left the BBC. The star presenter’s departure has been a long time coming. Much has and can be written about Lineker’s last post, in which he reposted a message about Israel and Gaza adorned with a well-known anti-Jewish trope. He apologised, said he was not aware of the meaning and removed it. Others send similarly offensive material on all manner of issues and keep their jobs. Lineker has lost his.

But then they are not the highest-paid employee. They can retreat behind the claim that what they post on social media is in a personal capacity and does not represent their employer’s views. Lineker, like company chiefs, did not have that option. The media response on seeing his latest missive was to contact the BBC for their reaction. Proof positive that people saw him and the BBC as one. Just as they would if a CEO behaved in the same fashion.

Stepping into the cauldron of public debate is dangerous. Yes, you said this is you speaking, not the brand; yes, the conference or dinner organisers said there would be no recording; yes, the journalist assured you it was off-the-record. You said it. Your stakeholders, perhaps half of them, are outraged. A large body of public opinion is equally upset.

That misses the point about Lineker. As a publicly-funded broadcaster, the BBC has strict regulations concerning impartiality – or at least they were until Linker spouted forth. But the state financing aspect isn’t what this is about. Organisations, companies have codes of conduct that must be obeyed. In recent years, Lineker flouted them. No other worker did that and if they did, they were disciplined. Not Lineker. It’s true he was warned and was once suspended, for comparing British asylum policies to those of 1930s Nazi Germany. None of it stopped him; on he went.

That is why journalists rushed to reach the BBC comms office. Not because they wanted to know if the BBC agreed with him - they knew the answer - but because they wished to hear what the BBC was going to do about him. His colleagues would ask, how does he get away with it? Other places might have moved sooner and arguments are raging about whether his final missive was any worse than his earlier ones, why should this be the clincher. They are hypothetical. He broke the rules. Finally, the BBC acted, but it acted.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.