Very sad day for the UK today re the Gary Lineker BBC saga

It is a truly sad period for the UK. I have always said freedom of speech doesn’t come with freedom of consequence. Society must have zero tolerance for hateful comments that incite hate regardless of whom it targets. But to seek to punish or silence a sportscaster for drawing a parallel between speeches made by the government and that made in 1930s Germany, is stepping into an uncharted territory. We say we want to learn from history, we say we must learn from history, but when a comparison is made, we say “how dare he?”

The steps the UK government are trying to take, in taking control of the border, has nothing to do with pandering to the right. These are very necessary actions – but I still believe there are better tech-based solutions – and it must and will have to be done, sooner or later, unless we get rid of all borders and shift to a “whose land is it?” world, where we level the playing field, scrap currencies (find a global trading medium), mechanise agriculture worldwide and get the entire world working as a single equitable society – but we’re nowhere near that yet, and as such, for the moment, we must enforce our laws and that includes making our borders secure and getting all entrants to go through due processes and routes. BUT what is the need for the accompanying rhetoric? Do we need a government that sounds like illiterates having a rant in online chat rooms? There is absolutely no need to use the choice of words that’s been used to date. There is absolutely no justification for it. It takes so much away from the work the government is doing, in sorting a mess that people want sorted but nobody wants to be the one to sort it! It is a thankless job and you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Nobody in the UK will benefit from an uncontrolled border where people smugglers are exploiting their victims and boating them across. It means the government can’t prepare for them, it means they face a tough, uncertain future here, and their kids will end up growing up filled with hate. Intolerance will continue to brew as poor folk in the country will feel let down – a problem that has already led to several flashpoints this year. If the government can just quietly – without the horrible wording – get on with what they are doing, then criticisms from the likes of Gary Lineker, will focus on the actual context and he will have no reason to compare the words to 1930s Germany. Perhaps politicians deem it easier to move an agenda forward if they get the public behind it and perhaps in this instance, the government felt that borrowing words from what they see as the mainstream, is going to have that effect? But the government must surely try to rise above that. The government should not use words such as ‘invaders’ for instance. There is honestly, no need for those types of words. The government should just get on with doing what needs to be done and leave the colourful wording to others.

Calls for Lineker to be punished and indeed, his removal from his BBC programme tonight, shame us all. It is an action the BBC will regret, because even if they reverse the decision, it is already too late. BBC have lost public support this week. Even the right-wing folk who disagree with Lineker, know that the BBC’s action in punishing him, is not right. The BBC have gone down a slippery slope from which it is clearly impossible to climb back from.

I have always been a staunch supporter of the BBC and even after this saga, I still cannot see any press anywhere around the world that will ever be as decent as the BBC, even with its flaws – the BBC and the ethos behind it, is set up to be a force for good, but I suppose nobody is perfect. This situation with Lineker is a terrible mistake by the BBC.

The government should put an immediate end to the use of horrible words, while just getting on with doing the very necessary work they are doing and leave Lineker and others to comment on the context of the actions and we won’t have this distraction, which was caused by the insistence on descending into the gutter to find phrases that demean migrants who are a mix of folk truly fleeing persecution, some exploiting the system, some exploited by people smugglers and some caught up in it all. They are all still human beings and even if some people see them as invaders, those should never be the choice of words used by our elected officials. Their job should be to sort the mess out. Leave the flowery words to illiterates in online chat rooms

It is just so sad that we have allowed ourselves as a country, to descend into such farce! There is no coming back from this! The BBC have created a precedent that is now going to keep popping up to haunt them..