Gary Lineker is of course right in everything he says about the government's asylum policy. There are two issues. First, should a regular presenter be restricted from political comment outside the confines of their role, in the interests of public broadcast impartiality? The answer is obvious, and you would have thought that the BBC had learnt its lesson when it ended up apologizing for censuring Naga Munchetty for heartfelt comments on Donald Trump's blatant racism, following a public and internal outcry over her treatment. Munchetty's comments were made on a live BBC broadcast. Lineker's comments were off-air on his private social media account. Nobody is in any doubt that the comments are Lineker's rather than the BBC's. Second, how circumspect should anyone be about comparing right wing nationalism with the political ideology of the Nazis? The answer is very. But Lineker has indeed been cautious in his language. I pointed out myself in the lead-up to the
When I was a teenager, our class were caught gambling and the head decided to cane us. He lined us up to ask each child if they were involved. Nobody lied; the idea of dishonesty was much worse than the fear of corporal punishment. Boris Johnson is the exact opposite: a pathological liar; a delinquent who derives psychological satisfaction from the slightest deceit; from getting one over on people. And he covers up any exposed mendacity with further fabrications. He was unanimously found guilty of lying to the Head of State by eleven Supreme Court judges. He was fired from his job as a journalist for a campaign of systematic lies about the EU over a prolonged period and after multiple warnings. He conspired to deceive the nation before the Brexit vote with deliberately misleading financial propaganda, when the Treasury's own forecast for leaving was for significant long-term financial disadvantage. He knowingly lied about the difficulty of getting a Brexit settlement with the EU. W