Podcasts Other The Mike Hosking Breakfast Mike's Minute: As the BBC are finding out, you can't kill free speech

Mike's Minute: As the BBC are finding out, you can't kill free speech

Published: March 13, 2023, 12:57 a.m.

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Gary Lineker is on the right side of history and I am immeasurably uplifted by the reaction we are seeing to his suspension from the BBC.

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In too many respects the BBC is everything that is wrong with public broadcasters.

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Once you involve taxpayers funding, and once you write something down about being impartial, that\\u2019s where the drama begins.

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For a start, Lineker isn\'t on staff, he is a contractor. He is like the electrician they hire to fix the wiring. He is his own man and his own business.

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Further, he is not part of news and current events, the areas traditionally that demand a level of neutrality.

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In a normal world he is allowed to say, within the law and boundaries of common decency, whatever he likes.

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And speaking out about a Government policy shouldn\\u2019t even raise eye brows at managerial level.

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What we have lost is the ability to separate out personal from personality, individualism from professionalism.

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He can host Match of the Day while still having opinions and, as we have learned locally, everyone has an opinion and we all know they do. It\'s absurd and you\'re kidding yourself if you think that by not saying things it makes you neutral.

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No one is neutral.

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Britain, probably more than any other Western country, has jumped aboard the cancel train by those who seek to close down any form of individualism, or at least individualism that doesn\\u2019t suit the mood or thinking of the day.

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It\'s been helped by social media, which has essentially morphed into a town hall for the indecisive and thick to give them a guide as to how they should be thinking.

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And armed with their new found group wisdom off they go, hunting out people who think differently so they can round on them and have them cancelled.

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This time, and there is no way of measuring, but this time the comments Lineker made are against the Government of the day, who are of course Tories. And Tories, as far as the group think luvvies are concerned, are to be hated.\\xa0

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So, it is possible Lineker isn\'t getting lynched because he has attacked the right group.

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Let\'s hope not.

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Let\'s hope the support he has is for the right reason - and the right reason is free speech.

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The BBC might not get it but hopefully most of the rest of us do. Kill free speech - and you\'re done for.

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