Gary Lineker has exposed the truth about television

The Gary Lineker debacle has exposed the breathtaking historical and political ignorance of the supposedly educated. Lineker’s suspension – and subsequent return – has also demonstrated (as if we didn’t know it) the power of the managerial class establishment. But the transmission of Match of the Day last Saturday sans Gary and his co-mutineers revealed something else. The truth about much modern television is that the percentage of actual content is dwarfed by the amount of waffle.

As the row rumbled on, the BBC was contractually obliged to run the day’s football highlights package. Without the banter, chat and flimflam Lineker is paid £1.3 million a year for, this clocked in at a mere 20 minutes. For some reason, there was no title sequence or ‘iconic’ theme tune either, which was a relief for me as I can’t hear it without getting an earworm of the lyrics of the hymn version we sang at school.