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I thought he was being chased for £5m and the daily hotel bill was £7m? So the tax he has allegedly not paid would only cover 17 hours worth.
It will be interesting to see how this ends because I think the tax case has more to do with this than it first appeared - seems to be about proving a point to the BBC.
The BBC needs him back on, but if Lineker agrees to stop posting tweets he knows breaks his 'employers' charter, it may cost him a try £5m in tax?
Earlier on a post TOBW wrote
"it's telling that James Wales had to go all the way back to John Cole (who retired from the BBC thirty one years ago!) in his attempt to try and balance the current over use of Conservative party donors, employees or consultants in senior positions at the Corporation with its use of those with a different political opinion.."
It was in fact me who mentioned John Cole in a response to Eric who had said that BBC political editors were generally Tories. I was just pointing out that I didn't believe that John Simpson, John Cole and Andrew Marr weren't. I am sure about Cole and Marr, but I haven't been able to find anything specific about Simpson political loyalties, so perhaps I should have left him out on reflection,although in all the years of his work as political editor and then Foreign Correspondent I have never been able to discern any party bias.
My response though was never intended to be a defence about the overuse of Tories in senior roles with the Tories and nothing in my post remotely mentioned this..
Indeed I think Richard Sharp should stand down over his links with Boris Johnson.
If you want to know my views Bob please ask me. It is not the first time you have done this with my posts.
I look forward to your apology in due course.
We'll see what the courts decide? Lineker is using the Lorraine Kelly defence with the case with the HMRC. She won on appeal insisting she was a freelancer.
Who knows what the outcome will be?
I'm coming across as a St. Gary fanboy here and I honestly don't care, its just interesting to see some of the shiit spewed out about people of the 'woke'.
Good to see your nuance is back in full working order, some may call it "jumping to conclusions", "clutching at straws" or "piissing in the wind."
Didn't the Beeb suspend him Lineker? He's played a blinder here asking Shearer etc al to support him over his tax bill?
I'm surprised some of the media hasn't hammered Lineker before. His alleged extra maritals/rumours would be food and drink for some.
I apologised to James in a later post where I said it must have been you, but I'm not going to apologise now because my point still stands, you were looking for what you understood to be non Conservative correspondents at the BBC (or at least I think you were because your explanation above is not clear on that as it contains a double negative)and you had so few candidates that you had to include someone who retired in 1992 among your three examples - for what it's worth, John Simpson has always struck me as a bit of a lefty, but, like you, I have nothing "official" to back that feeling up with.
I've been listening to the News Agents podcast in recent weeks and the three presenters on it are all ex BBC employees who are often critical of the Government on it - Emily Maitlis got her knuckles rapped for anti Government editorialising when she was presenting Newsnight during the Covid crisis, Lewis Goodall is a former Labour activist who has made reference to his past proving somewhat problematic during his time at the BBC and Jon Sopel I'm not sure about, but he was most definitely anti Donald Trump.
In the message I referred to earlier, I also said that I preferred the approach which has applied during the large majority of my life whereby you often knew of a correspondent's personal political views, but it didn't matter because they didn't let it effect their "day job". I used Andrew Neil as a recent example of this who certainly didn't take things easier when interviewing Conservative politicians.
However, this has changed in recent years - I think it's significant that the three News Agents are now former BBC employees and I'm sorry, but I cannot accept that Laura Kuenssberg is scrupulously unbiased while carrying out her duties at the BBC.
Andrew Neil is a clear example of a BBC political journalist putting his personal opinions out there on Twitter and no one batting an eyelid among the BBC management at this. As I mentioned, this never particularly bothered me, but now it reeks of double standards when you compare it to how the sports presenter Gary Lineker has been treated and begs the obvious question, would any action have been taken against Lineker if he had tweeted in favour of the Government's "stop the boats" approach?
I agree with you that Sharpe should have resigned over his links with Boris Johnson, but he is part of a Conservative hierarchy which has been installed at the BBC at a time when they are more anti the Corporation than ever. For most of my life, Id say the BBC were given a degree of latitude by the public when it came to views about its neutrality and no one got too worked up about a certain presenter being a Tory and another Labour or Lib Dem, but that's changed now and at a time when I believe the BBC's future depends on them being able to somehow restore their former reputation for neutrality, it is making decisions which appear to be politically motivated.
I will respond to this later today for two reasons
Firstly I am typing on my smartphone and doing a post of any length is a pain in the proverbial
Secondly I am too angry by your effectively calling me a liar in your first paragraph so I may say something I later regret.
The only point I will make is that there was an incorrect double negative which I corrected as soon as I realized.
There was also a glaring error in your response which I shall go into later
I still get very tired after my health scare and COVID
In the last few months so it won't be for awhile today
If I can be bothered because I really feel that this board has become a pretty intolerable and petty place over the past few years and I'm not sure I need that.
Look Elwood, I was very pleased to hear you were over your health scare and I said as much at the time - I wish you continued good health, but why get so angry about what is said on a messageboard? I was trying to be conciliatory in my reply and the fact that I apologised to James Wales shows that I'm prepared to say sorry when I think it's appropriate, but I don't understand why I should to you in this case. Nevertheless, I'll apologise if you want me to - sorry if I gave the impression that I thought you were lying even though I didn't mean to do that.
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There's no doubting the fact there has been Tory influence in the management of the BBC and IMO has a major bearing on this current debacle.
However, I believe what changed everything for the BBC was the ending of the mandatory licence fee for just owning a TV set. Although I think the decision to be right it has had the effect of enervating the Corporation, depleting it's funding and weakening it's authority.
Unfortunately I think what we see now is a shadow of the BBC's confident former self and in its place is an enfeebled common broadcaster cow towing to it's political masters to eke out it's survival
The problem with the 'woke' is they're deemed as individuals and a group to be intolerant of any other opinions that differ to their own. They've created a 'cancel culture' for example?
Yet here we are with the current pin up boy of the woke being condemned for having an opinion.
It's strange that 'free speech' is OK until its not the desired speech for some?
Sounds a bit like a regime once doing the rounds in Europe in the 1930s doesn't it? Who knows?
You can't make it up, or perhaps some are and currently do?
You are obsessed with me and Guido Fawkes, although no reference has been made to that interesting website. Have you been reading it on the sly? You dirty boy!
Hey, whatever you are into is fine with me.
Yes, I think the general interest with celebrities tweets is a generally negative thing about today's news cycle and values.
But it is what it is, if it is the news (and it is) that doesn't mean you have to opt out of it.
There's loads of spin offs from the culture war / wokeism / twitter / faux outrage that I think are enormous distractions from real issues, but alas that is the reality.
Is it not the case that because he is 'woke' it affords him all the moral protection he needs for some. This is a very wealthy straight male who has had to repay tax before after not paying and is under investigation again. But because he says bad things about the govt and condemns things as racists, the 'woke' will leap to his support?
It's an interesting one. We shall see in the coming months no doubt whether others are afforded the same solidarity.