The high-profile political activist Gary Lineker will not present Match of the Day tonight after he likened the rhetoric of the government to 1930s Germany. Several pundits and commentators are boycotting the show, while the BBC has also been forced to pull from air Football Focus, Final Score and Fighting Talk.
Many people are professing themselves baffled that this story about a football presenter and Twitter should dominate the news agenda for several days. But the real story here is about what is often referred to as the culture war and who is winning it.
We are finding out who’s really in charge of the BBC. Is it we, the people who pay the licence fee on threat of imprisonment, and who are told the service is impartial when it is not? Or is it the so-called talent, near uniformly liberal in outlook and typically incredibly rich, who now threaten to strike in support of the former England centre forward?
Perhaps we should see what is happening to Lineker as part of an encouraging wider trend.
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