Gary Lineker isn’t that bad

It’s a crying shame that we will no longer hear the insightful and original opinions of Gary Lineker. No more comprehensive and judicious appraisals. No more balanced verdicts delivered in an authoritative yet amiable manner. No longer will we witness Lineker draw from his deep well of experience and knowledge to deliver his considered conclusions. Saturday evenings will never be the same again.

Yes, I am of course talking about Gary Lineker the popular television football pundit, not Gary Lineker the unpopular political thinker. While the first version can lay claim to be – or once could have claimed to be – a national treasure, the newer, other iteration has become a figure of wide derision and even loathing.

It’s pity that Lineker’s simple-minded salvos on social media, where he vented so unwisely, yet so predictably, on matters related to Palestine, immigration and the Tories, ultimately may have cost him as job as Match of the Day presenter and the BBC’s trusty World Cup helmsman.