Gary Lineker news – live: Match of the Day presenter returns as confidence in Tim Davie ‘at rock bottom’

Ian Wright has said “heads should roll” after executives at the BBC caused a “hot mess” over the weekend by asking Gary Lineker to step away from Match of the day.

During the beginning of the Wrighty’s House podcast, the 59-year-old said the argument was a “perfect distraction from what really matters”.

He added: “For me they made a hot mess. I’m telling you, this is all coming from high up, I can’t blame my husband (the head of BBC TV Sport) Philip Bernie, the BBC Sports team. All this is via a tweet.”

Charlotte McLaughlin has the full report:

Rishi Sunak must “stand up to his snowflake MPs waging war on free speech” after the spat with Gary Lineker, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The Labor leader sought assurances that Conservative MPs or others linked to the party did not lobbied the BBC over the weekend to “effectively cancel” Match of the Day.

The Match of the day Theme tune interrupted a BBC News interview outside parliament earlier this week.

As Tory MP Harriett Baldwin spoke about the budget, she was drowned out by the iconic music from the famous football highlights programme.

It was blown around Westminster following the controversy surrounding the BBC and presenter Gary Lineker, who was told to resign from last weekend’s Match of the Day after tweeting criticism of the government’s asylum policy.

My colleague Oliver Browning has more details:

Confidence in BBC director-general Tim Davie is at an all-time low following the suspension and reinstatement of presenter Gary Lineker, a Union of Journalists official said.

BBC programming was hit by strikes earlier this week, in which around 1,000 journalists were expected to take part.

Former Labor shadow chancellor John McDonnell – who was among those on a picket line outside Broadcasting House on Wednesday – said BBC journalists had been “forced to strike” by proposed cuts to local radio.

Roger Mosey, a former head of BBC television news and director of sport, has said the next BBC chairman should not be a “political appointment” – claiming it would be a “great act of statesmanship” if Rishi Sunak were to win the nomination. depoliticize .

It comes amid a debate over the position of BBC chairman Richard Sharp, who is under constant scrutiny after it emerged he helped former Prime Minister Boris Johnson secure an £800,000 loan.

Speaking on Roger Bolton’s Beeb Watch podcast, Mr Mosey said it would be “a huge win” if the future chairman were “someone who isn’t seen as being in the pocket of one side or the other” .

Questions about Mr Sharp’s position as BBC chairman have risen following the recent impartiality dispute over Gary Lineker’s tweets comparing the government’s language on asylum to that of Germany in the 1930s.

Gary Lineker believed he had a “special arrangement” with the BBC that allowed him to comment on refugees and the small boat crisis, his agent claimed.

Jon Holmes, representing the football presenter, described the argument as a “mess” despite efforts to “calm everyone down”.

He has claimed that his client believed he had an arrangement with Tim Davie, director general of the BBC, that he could make public statements on certain issues.

My colleague Thomas Kingsley has the full report:

Gary Lineker has hit back at a Conservative MP who falsely suggested that the BBC presenter had called so-called “red wall” voters in the North and Midlands “Nazis” and “racist bigots”, our political correspondent Adam Forest reports.

Jonathan Gullis, Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, said Rishi Sunak’s planned small boat appearance had “upset all the right people in the right places”.

Commenting on a snippet of the interview, Twitter user Simon Harris said, “I don’t think Gary Lineker directly called voters on the red wall ‘Nazis’ Mr Gullis.”

Lineker then responded himself by tweeting, “No, he hasn’t and he never would. This is outrageous and dangerously provocative.”