BBC’s Lineker solution? Offer Jeff Stelling the job and it’s Gary who?

The week’s most welcome show was an unscheduled broadcast on BBC1’s traditional Football Focus slot on Saturday lunchtime.

A Bargain Hunt episode that saw a very focused Red team looking for something “random, functional and wooden”.

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Well, unlucky girls. Alex Scott has taken some time off, in a fit of empty, self-righteous rage that has become her trademark.

She’s not the only one either. She was joined by the entire Focus team, along with Match Of The Day’s Ian Wright and Alan Shearer and Final Score’s Jason Mohammad, all of whom I’m sure have been struggling with unease day and night, the 2022 World Cup to present from Qatar, where 6,500 migrant workers died to make the tournament possible.

But now they had finally found a hill to die on. And it’s a tweet from Gary Lineker.

A thoughtless tweet comparing our own migrant crisis to Nazi Germany, which I must confess I hoped and assumed would go away.

Not, however, thanks to the BBC, which started spearheading the story on the prime evening news last week and then, in a fit of unfathomable stupidity, ended it by suspending Lineker from his MoTD duties.

Not the route I would have taken, as common sense dictated. BBC boss Tim Davie had a private ‘chat’ with Lineker in which he gave him a history lesson on the Third Reich and his own career, all of which is to the BBC’s loyalty which has made him a decent football presenter for many years.

spasm of stupidity

Had he not realized that the BBC’s sacred concept of impartiality is more important than any presenter’s Twitter feed, Davie would have discreetly approached Jeff Stelling, TV’s top live sports presenter, and paid him a higher salary than Gary for the Moderation of MoTD and Final should offer score.

What if he refused her? He should have made either the brilliant Hazel Irvine or Gabby Logan the first permanent female host and watched all of Lineker’s fair-weather PC friends evaporate.

Instead, the BBC opted for Option C, leading to a mass strike by BBC football staff whose ‘solidarity’ was ridiculously described as ‘brave and heroic’ by fellow travelers despite knowing they would be blown to bits and canceled by Twitter, if that were the case you have failed to uphold the “freedom of speech” line.

For the sake of comedy alone, I would have been tempted to call the Army to present Saturday’s Match Of The Day, with a regimental sergeant major in the lineker role, and ask brusquely, “Was Martinelli in an offside position then? awful little man?”

Luckily, I suppose, for once, smarter minds have prevailed.

The problem with strikes, however, as border guards found recently when troops stood up for them, is that they often highlight the shortcomings of regular staff.

So it turned out this week as MoTD’s audience surged by 500,000 and the only thing I really missed on the downgraded MoTD, sans all of its BS, was the theme song.

The really welcome absence, however, was on Football Focus, where on the February 25 episode, Alex Scott didn’t have a single word to say about the 30th anniversary of Bobby Moore’s death, presumably because of the time it would have eaten up in mental health features of the French women’s captain Wendie Renard and the Football v Homophobia Awards.

Even as a member of the tartan army with ID struggling to bring up a specific event that happened between 1965 and 1967, this struck me as deranged and I can only imagine how the English fans felt about it must.

However, it gets to the very root of the Lineker problem, highlighting how the wake cult has captured the BBC and inundated it with a left-of-centre agenda that is infecting and ruining everything from their panel shows and soap operas to their news stories . dramas and even football blood focus.

Empty ‘victory’

This week’s sad events were an acknowledgment of that problem, but treated so foolishly that they created a martyr, gave Jermain Defoe the moral high ground, and handed Twitter’s “free speech” warriors the most empty “victory” of all time — right the same people Lineker would have forgotten had he ever dared to compare Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitic version of the Labor Party to the Third Reich.

The BBC’s sense of impartiality now seems fatally compromised.
And when that’s gone? Well, just like the blue team did in Saturday’s bargain hunt, you end up with a worthless “basket/suitcase”.

Unexpected idiots in the packaging area

THE PURSUIT, Bradley Walsh: “Hstyles.co.uk is the website of which X Factor pop star?”

George: “Alexandra Burke.”

Bradley Walsh: “What name for a male red deer comes before ‘bug’ in the name of a large insect?”

Helena: “Dung.”

Turning Point, Ben Shephard: “Holly Johnson was the lead singer of which 1980s band from Liverpool that topped the charts?”

Anna: “Steps.”

Ben Schaefer: “Musselburgh, Perth and Kelso are racecourses in which country of the UK?”

Kelly: “Australia.”

Random Irritations

EMMA, Oti and Rylan wail up a steep cliff for Comic Relief.

Channel 4 made a two-hour documentary on Paula Yates’ relationship with the press, without mentioning the fact that she was a Sun columnist.

Win Every Argument writer Mehdi Hasan lost the entire GMB audience when he said, “Winston Churchill wasn’t the best speaker.”

All those horrific, over-emotional, ego-driven speeches at the Oscars.

And Best Costume Designer Ruth E Carter thanks the Academy “for recognizing the superhero who is a black woman.” Because Ruth, dear, you make clothes. You’re not Rosa Parks.

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STARSTRUCK, Team Justin Bieber: “Is it too late to say I’m sorry now?”

Way too late.

IT’S GLOWER GIRL IN SEMI

GENERATION Snowflake is probably still stamping her little feet in anger at the treatment given to the five female semi-finalists at last night’s Apprentice.

“So much for the sorority and blah blah blah,” they’ll nag.

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Personally, though, I think it’s thanks to BBC1 and the show that they keep the last four people busy on TV, Linda Plant, Claude Littner, Mike Soutar and Karren Brady, who understand the cold hard truth is plenty for these flamboyant contestants will serve better in the long run than indulge their wild fantasies and overblown egos with empty, bright aphorisms like, “Be whoever you want to be.”

Karren, or “Baroness Brady” as she suddenly wanted to be known, was the “trusted advisor” who drew the most blood, including both former Emirates trolley doll Victoria Goulbourne and Dani Donovan, the Piella Bakewell look-alike. brought to tears.

However, my personal favorite and the woman who can save even the dumbest series remains Linda Plant, who doesn’t just tell you the interview is over.

She shuffles her notes theatrically, smiles sweetly as if she’s about to deliver the best news ever, and then tells Victoria, “Airlines will always need good stewardesses.”

Then she tells you that the interview is over.

Very great.

CELEBRITY MASTERMIND, Clive Myrie: “Dear viewer, tonight’s celebs are used to the limelight, the trappings of fame, the admiration, but the black chair won’t ask for an autograph, the ticking clock won’t slow down because you do.” you’re famous.”

Dear Clive, This is Jayne Middlemiss, Neil Delamere, Harpreet Kaur and Amar Latif.

Great sporting insights

GLENN HODDLE: “The Spurs don’t have anyone that gets past their man. There’s no one out there who can. son is the only one.”

Stuart Pearce: “Well, it’s a $24,000 question.”

Michael Owen: “Salah makes it look easy, but it’s actually very easy.”

(Compiled by Graham Wray)

TV gold

THE annual apprentice bloodbath during the job interview phase.

Brilliant The Gold writer Neil Forsyth inserts a retro Dundee United top and the names of club legends ‘(Ralph) Milne and (Paul) Sturrock’ into one of the BBC1 drama’s prison scenes.

Sky Nature’s Hidden Gem Dehesa: Forest Of The Iberian Lynx.

And BBC2’s understated masterpiece Parole, which might come along with a depressing twinge every week, but it’s insightful, brilliantly edited and has dialogue too good to be written by slobs like Mark Elwood, who had the perfect excuse for everything a board member has accused him of, except: “You were convicted of possession of a counterfeit firearm in 2009?”

“Yes, I hold my hands up for this one.” It’s the best show on TV right now.

• BY THE WAY, at the end of every Parole episode, the BBC asks, “Could you make a decision on a person’s right to parole?” Yes. None of them get out.

Great TV lies and delusions of the week

AWESOME TV lies and delusions of the week.

Starstruck, Shania Twain: “I think Stevie Nicks would have been really flattered by what you did tonight.”

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Love Island, Maya Jama: “After the break we will choose the winners. You don’t want to miss that.”

And actually Sex, Fat Fetish Week, Alice Levine: “Ivy’s goal is to get the world to love and accept ‘Feedism,’ and she won’t stop at anything.” Except probably a heart attack.

CLARIFICATION

Sky Planner: “Live At The Apollo: The inimitable Tom Allen introduces the amazing Rosie Jones and the wonderful Kae Kurd.”

Because I think it meant this: “The poor man’s Alan Carr introduces the inevitable Rosie Jones and a bit of rhyming slang to form the numbers.”

I’m happy to break the record.

Doppelganger of the week

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THIS week’s winner is Karl as “Robbie Williams” in Starstruck and Vinnie Jones on Saturday.

Sent in by Paul Burkett of Millwall, South London.