Will BBC chairman Richard Sharp resign over Gary Lineker row?

BBC chairman Richard Sharp is under growing pressure to resign over the Gary Lineker row. The BBC on Monday backtracked on the suspension of the football legend for a tweet taking the UK government’s new migrant policy to task. That reversal came after the national broadcaster faced days of chaos and criticism over its dealings with arguably its most high-profile host. “Gary is a valued part of the BBC and I know how much the BBC means to Gary, and I look forward to him presenting our coverage this coming weekend,” BBC director-general Tim Davie said. Lineker, meanwhile, said he was “glad that we have found a way forward.” But that hasn’t eased the pressure from Sharp. Let’s take a closer look: Although the immediate crisis was resolved on Monday, with Lineker returning for Saturday’s show, the row over impartiality only looks set to deepen. Given its funding through a compulsory licence fee on households with a television set, public trust in BBC impartiality is a key factor in its ongoing survival, which is also threatened by the increasing popularity of streaming among younger media consumers.

Sharp, the top boss of the BBC, has been accused of a right-wing bias.

Critics point to the fact that Sharp facilitated a loan guarantee for former prime minister Boris Johnson. Sharp helped Johnson get a £800,000 loan just weeks before being appointed to the post in February 2021. “The BBC chairman now needs to resign,” ex-BBC executive Roger Bolton told GB News. “The very fact that he can’t speak out on the subject and defend the BBC and define impartiality, as the chairman of the BBC, means he can’t do his job. So, I’m afraid he should go.” The Independent quoted ex-BBC Trust chairman Lord Chris Patten as saying he was “surprised” by Sharp’s silence during the furore. Queried by the Sunday Times if Sharp should resign, Lord Patton said: “Is the correct phrase, ‘I’m sure he’s considering his position’?” Veteran BBC broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby told BBC Newsnight: “What Sharp should do honourably is fall on his sword.” “I have no doubt that he was appointed on merit on the basis of the available facts,” he said. “The issue is simply about transparency and accountability.” “The BBC needs this like it needs a hole in the head,” Dimbleby added. Baroness Wheatcroft told the BBC it was “impossible” not to agree with Dimbleby. “Even if Mr Sharp behaved absolutely correctly, it doesn’t look right, it doesn’t smell right, and it doesn’t feel right for the BBC to have a chairman who is now being questioned about his judgment,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “It may be the sort of thing that happens all the time in the circles that Mr Sharp moves in, and it may be that £800,000 is just chicken feed as far as he is concerned, but to most people who love the BBC £800,000 is a massive sum,” she added. “He did a favour for a prime minister who was in need at a time when the prime minister was being asked to do Mr Sharp a massive favour and grant him one of the plum jobs in British broadcasting.” Speaking to ITV News, Opposition leader Keir Starmer called Sharp’s position ‘increasingly untenable’. “I think most people watching the complete mess of the last few days would say how on earth is he still in position and Gary Lineker has been taken off air? This is a mess of the BBC’s own making. They need to sort it out and sort it out fast.”

Liberal Democrat Sir Ed Davey also said Sharp’s position is “totally untenable”.

“This saga has shown failure at the very top of the BBC and the dire need to urgently protect their independence. We need leadership at the BBC that upholds our proud British values and can withstand today’s consistently turbulent politics and Conservative bullying tactics.” “Sadly, under Richard Sharp’s leadership, this has not been the case: his appointment and position are now totally untenable and he must resign.” According to AOL UK, Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell have also raised questions about the tenability of Sharp’s position. “The Tories obviously put a huge amount of pressure on the government to get rid of Gary Lineker, I don’t remember those same Tory MPs crying about impartiality when those revelations about Richard Sharp came out,” Reeves said. Meanwhile, Powell wrote to the Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer demanding his position be “urgently clarified.” Pointing to the £800,000 loan, Powell claimed Sharp had “profoundly damaged the perception of the BBC’s impartiality and independence from government”. “As the ultimate arbiter of these matters, Richard Sharp’s position, which was already increasingly untenable, needs to be urgently clarified.” “He is the one who should be giving staff, viewers and complainants the confidence that the organisation has acted proportionately and fairly. He is totally unable to perform this function.” Sharp’s situation has again highlighted the political nature of the appointment process to become BBC chairman – the person responsible for overseeing its broad strategy and leading the process for appointing the director-general, who is its editor-in-chief. Critics also question Davie’s own past links to the Tory party – he is a former Conservative local-government candidate –  as well as the presence on the BBC board of Robbie Gibb, who was a former Downing Street communications director in Theresa May’s government. Complaints over cronyism not new But controversy over “cronyism” in appointing the chairman is nothing new. Conservatives complained about the 2001 appointment of Gavyn Davies, a Labour Party donor whose wife was private secretary of then finance minister Gordon Brown. However, the row was largely confined to the corridors of Westminster until the UK’s seminal 2016 vote to leave the European Union. While presenters outside the news team are not bound by the same strict rules on social media use, Brexit supporters also pointed to frequent anti-Brexit tweets by presenters to suggest bias within the organisation. More recently, BBC News presenter Martine Croxall was taken off air over her coverage of former prime minister Boris Johnson’s withdrawal from October’s Conservative leadership race, in which she said: “Am I allowed to be this gleeful? Well I am.” On the other side, Labour supporters claimed that the organisation was biased against its far-left former leader Jeremy Corbyn, with Lineker himself tweeting “Bin Corbyn” in 2017. Anti-Brexit supporters also claim that it did not do enough to challenge misinformation in the “leave” campaign in the run up to the vote.With the UK’s divisions only appearing to deepen, and social media becoming ever-more influential, the challenge of threading the needle for one of the world’s best-respected broadcasters remains a daunting one. The row was sparked by Lineker’s response to a video in which Home Secretary Suella Braverman unveiled plans to stop migrants crossing the Channel on small boats. [caption id=“attachment_12279952” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Former British football player and BBC presenter Gary Lineker leaves his home in London. Lineker hasn’t reacted to his suspension publicly. Reuters[/caption] Lineker, the BBC’s highest-paid star with an annual salary of $1.65 million according to the figures released last year, wrote on Twitter: “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s.” The former England football star was forced to “step back” from his duties presenting flagship Premier League highlights show Match of the Day after using Twitter to accuse the UK government of using Nazi-era rhetoric in announcing its policy to tackle illegal immigration. Former England players Ian Wright and Alan Shearer then refused to appear as pundits, followed by the programme’s commentators and a slew of other presenters, decimating the broadcaster’s sports coverage over the weekend.

Davie stressed that “impartiality is important to the BBC” in statements announcing Lineker’s return.

“The potential confusion caused by the grey areas of the BBC’s social media guidance that was introduced in 2020 is recognised,” he added. The BBC is particularly exposed to the emerging world of social media, with previously clear boundaries between the broadcaster’s many roles, and the personal and professional lives of its staff, becoming ever-more blurred. The Conservative government intends to outlaw asylum claims by all illegal arrivals and transfer them to other countries, such as Rwanda, in a bid to stop the crossings, which totalled more than 45,000 last year. A YouGov poll published on Monday showed 50 percent backing the measures, with 36 percent opposed. But another of its polls published Saturday showed that 53 percent opposed Lineker’s removal, compared to 27 percent who backed it. With inputs from agencies

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