Who does the BBC serve? Lineker row revives impartiality debate about British broadcaster
- BBC sportscaster likened the UK’s asylum policy to 1930s Germany, resulting in his brief suspension
- Controversy revived debate about how the public-funded British national broadcaster is run
Gary Lineker will be back presenting the BBC’s flagship sports programme on Saturday, a week after the former England footballer was suspended for using Twitter to criticise the UK government’s migration policy.
This week, the BBC’s Director General Tim Davie apologised for “a difficult period” and said that Lineker was a valued part of the BBC. He said impartiality was important to the BBC and that there would be an independent review of its social media policy.
Match of the Day host Lineker said: “Glad that we have found a way forward.”
The statements drew a line under the issue, but the political furore was far from settled. The Lineker-BBC controversy has revived debate about how the public-funded British national broadcaster is run, amid claims from the UK opposition and other observers the BBC was pressured to suspend Lineker.
Some Conservative lawmakers said the BBC should sack him.
“A public service broadcaster is one that scrutinises those in positions of power, without fear or favour,” said Christopher Painter, a professor emeritus at Birmingham City University’s School of Social Science.
“The line with state broadcasting is blurred when it succumbs to political pressure and bullying from those occupying positions of authority.
“There was clearly a strong element of this regarding Gary Lineker’s temporary suspension.”
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The 100-year-old BBC has historically faced accusations of government bias, with both Labour and the Conservatives trying to influence coverage. More recently, BBC leaders have faced scrutiny over links with the ruling Tories.
Among them is BBC Chairman Richard Sharp, a Conservative Party donor who was the former boss of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Goldman Sachs. Sharp also worked as unpaid economic adviser to Sunak when he was chancellor.
Sharp has also faced questions for helping to arrange a loan for then-prime minister Boris Johnson in 2021, weeks before he was appointed as BBC chairman on the advice of the government.
As chairman, Sharp’s responsibilities include overseeing the BBC’s broad strategy, ensuring editorial independence and maintaining public trust.
Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer described Sharp’s position as “increasingly untenable” in the wake of the Lineker controversy. Sunak tried to distance himself from the row - and Sharp - saying he was appointed at the BBC before he became prime minister in October last year.
Other top BBC figures with Tory links include Davie, who vowed to uphold the BBC’s impartiality when he became its director general in 2020. He was once the deputy chairman of a local Conservative association in West London.
Another is BBC board member Robbie Gibb, who used to be director of communications of 10 Downing Street when Theresa May was prime minister.
“This week’s story will keep happening unless the BBC is truly independent of the government of the day,” tweeted Armando Iannucci, the Scottish-Italian writer and director behind the popular BBC political satire The Thick of It.
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“Appointments to its Board, and of its Director General, and determination of its funding, need to be visibly separate from Downing St. Or the public will lose trust in the BBC.”
The British public’s trust in BBC has fallen in the five years since the 2016 Brexit vote, from 75 per cent to 55 per cent, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Its 2022 survey said that trust was low among the political right because of alleged BBC liberal bias, and among people less interested in news altogether.
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The BBC also faces threats to its funding as some Conservative lawmakers want to scrap the “licence fee”, which is currently £159 (US$192) and payable by every UK household with a television set.
“We are all in favour of freedom of speech and people being allowed to say things that we don’t agree with, or we may even find offensive,” Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said this week on GB News, which was founded in 2021 and portends to be a UK version of Fox News.
“The issue is the BBC is the state broadcaster and is funded by a tax on state televisions. It [the BBC licence fee] is past its sell-by date. It needs to go.”
The licence fee pays for news like the BBC World Service, which the UK government sees as useful to “counter disinformation”.
This week, the UK said the BBC World Service would get a £20 million funding boost to protect its dozens of language services over the next two years. This comes after the BBC last September said it would cut 400 World Service jobs to make cost savings.
The Public Media Alliance, which represents public service media organisations internationally, believes the licence fee system, common in many countries, is the best way to preserve the independence of public broadcasters.
Other alternatives would be a progressive household tax relative to income.
“Since even the current set-up hasn’t prevented both Labour and Tory governments from trying to influence the BBC’s output, especially through political appointments to the top, I feel that how the funds are collected is less important than guaranteeing that the corporation has enough funds to remain viable,” said Idrees Ahmad, a senior lecturer and director of journalism at the University of Essex.
The BBC’s mandate is also to offer educational and cultural content. Past productions, ranging from Monty Python’s Flying Circus to Downton Abbey, have promoted the British brand throughout the world.
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BBC cultural productions alone are worth around £1.6 billion (US$1.9 billion) annually to the economy, an important part of British soft power.
“The BBC’s cultural production has been under threat for a very long time as the BBC has lost 30 per cent of its overall funding since David Cameron was elected in 2010,” said Carole Tongue, a former member of the European Parliament and long-time campaigner for public broadcasting.
Tongue, chairperson of the UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity, said the corporation serves as a bedrock for independent as well as public British film and television production.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
