Red card (rescinded)

I like Gary Lineker.  Not only was he a great goal-scorer for the England men’s football team, but he was also played for my team – Tottenham Hotspur – the last time we won the FA Cup, in the summer of 1991.  Since then, he has reinvented himself as the best presenter for football shows and various other sports programmes on British television.  He is as good in front of a camera as he was in front of goal.   Famously, during his football career, he was never “booked” (nowadays, shown a yellow card) for foul play or dissent, which is an impressive record for someone who played at the top levels of club football in England and Spain, as well as at international tournaments, for many years.   Last week, however, he was shown a red card by the head of the BBC and forced to stand-down from his presentation duties.  Chaos ensued – full documentation widely available on all British media outlets – until his red card was rescinded and we are now assured that he will be back in the television studio next weekend.  All’s well that ends well?   Alas, no. 

I will provide a summary of the brouhaha that erupted at the BBC, for sake of context, but my focus in this text is less Lineker’s right to express his opinions about matters of public interest, and more about what this tells us about the sad decline of traditional conservative thought in England.  Those who know me well will be aware that I have little sympathy for traditional conservative thinking and might therefore be surprised that I mourn its passing.  As I will argue, the problem is what has replaced it.  True conservatives are instinctively suspicious of radical change and, at least in their own case, that suspicion seem justifiable. 

A week or so ago the British government announced new plans to “stop the boats” by which they mean the small sailing vessels full of refugees and asylum seekers that arrive on beaches on the south-east coast of England, having made a perilous journey from France, often organised by criminal gangs.  The Refugee Council estimates that 45,755 people made the crossing in 2022, up from 28,526 the previous year.  Around half of these people come from five countries – Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Eritrea, and Sudan – all of which have experienced civil war and/or widespread civic repression in recent years.  Of the 90% who claimed asylum upon arrival last year, only 340 (fewer than 1%) had their cases settled during the year, and of these 210 were granted refugee status or leave to remain.  It’s hard to know if these figures are representative, but if 60% of applicants are granted leave to stay, that suggests a high level of demonstrable entitlement to support and the provision of safe haven. 

Gary Lineker has a track record of supporting the rights of refugees, including hosting some in his own home.  After the government announcement, he posted a comment on Twitter describing the new government proposals as an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 1930s.   The government minister responsible for the legislation described his comments as “lazy and unhelpful”.  Several Conservative MPs and tabloid newspapers journalists attacked Lineker for what he had said, and there were calls for him to be dismissed from his role at the BBC for breaking their rules on impartiality.

The question of impartiality at the BBC is problematic for several reasons, which are worth rehearsing.  First, Lineker is not an employee of the BBC but works for them on a freelance basis as he does for a number of other organisations including other television stations.  Second, as a sports presenter it seems clear that he should be demonstrably impartial when discussing sports matches, just as presenters on politics should on political matters, but it does not seem at all clear that he should be prevented from expressing his political views on his personal social media accounts.  Third, there have been other sports presenters who have expressed explicitly political views – Geoff Boycott’s comments about Theresa May, in November 2016, for example – who did not suffer a similar penalty.  Fourth, there are a number of BBC employees who opine about political matters on their personal social media accounts, who have not faced similar condemnation or punishment. Fifth, Tim Davie, the Director General of the BBC who forced Lineker to stand-down (temporarily), was formerly chair of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Association.  Sixth, Robbie Gibb, one of Davie’s fellow BBC Board members, was formerly Head of Communications at Downing Street for Theresa May.  Seventh, Richard Sharp, the recently appointed Chair of the BBC Board, is himself under investigation for not disclosing that he arranged for one of his rich friends to lend money to Boris Johnson, who then appointed him to the BBC role.  

All of which suggests that impartiality is not the issue, since the BBC is awash with employees, senior managers, and governors who have well-known, strongly partisan political views.  It is clearly the content of what Lineker wrote about the government’s new policy, rather than the fact that he said anything about it, that led to his (brief) suspension.  It is also germane to note that many of Lineker’s critics in the media are the very same people who routinely complain about the “cancel culture” and allege that their right to freedom of expression has been curtailed by censors at major broadcasters, universities, and social media companies.  To conduct a simple thought experiment, I am sure that if Lineker had posted on Twitter, “well done to the government for bringing forward new legislation to stop the boats arriving in Kent”, he would not have been asked to stand-down from his role.  It is because he criticized the government, rather than praising it, that he was shown the red card.

What interests me about this case is what it tells us about modern conservative thought.  In England, conservative thought has traditionally been implicit and understated.  It comprised the shared assumptions of the ruling class, who had no need to articulate their views and values in detail because they were widely held and respected, including by most of those outside of that class.  Conservative thought was common sense.  The royal family, the established church, the old universities, the civil service, the armed and police forces, and all the other venerable institutions – including the National Trust, the BBC, the NHS, and the major arts organisations and museums – jointly presented a traditional, hierarchical, patriarchal, and residually imperialist outlook on life.  People who wanted to get on, learned to fit in.  People who dissented – republicans, non-conformists, polytechnic lecturers, pacifists, pop stars, protesters, and Commonwealth immigrants – were treated with gentle disdain.  The conservatives were confident and in control, so they had no need to assert their values overtly.  They believed that eventually most of the dissenters – and especially the ambitious ones – would tire of demonstrating, cut their hair, bow the knee, accept an Empire medal, and show up at a royal weddings and jubilee street parties.  And they were right. 

Recently however, English society has been changing.  Deference, which underpins the class system in an electoral democracy, is in a state of terminal decline.  Large numbers of people have lost faith in the church, the old universities, the civil service, the armed and police forces, and their like.  The royal family has recently lost their best and most durable asset and has rapidly reverted to the status of posh soap-opera.  There are lower levels of trust in elites and a marked reduction in confidence in the competence of traditional institutions.  Rather bizarrely, the Conservative Party, which was once the political wing of the English establishment, has decided to reinvent itself as the tribune of this new insurgency.  Rather than defending tradition, the slowly accumulated wisdom of previous generations that has created and maintained the long-lasting institutions that give character to the nation – a theme that dominates conservative political philosophy in England from Edmund Burke in the 1790s to Michael Oakeshott in the 1950s – today’s Conservative Party wants to disrupt and overturn common sense, to abandon respect for law, agreement, and convention, and to subvert traditional institutions in favour of the mobilisation of shrill, partisan opinion. 

To return to Gary Lineker, his point about “language not dissimilar to Germany in the 1930s” resonates for the following reason: Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 1930s, and the Soviet Union in the 1930s, ‘40s and early ‘50s were each characterised by systems of one-party government, which sought to convert all public institutions and civic spaces into vehicles for the voice of the government, that is the voice of the party in power.  Orthodoxy was imposed by political appointments to senior positions across social institutions – the law, the universities, the press, the galleries and museums, publishers, the armed forces, and so forth – and forcing out of public life those who refused to support the party line.  Public figures were placed under enormous pressure to cheer for the government or, at the very least, to remain silent and uncritical.   This strategy was not about maintaining the impartiality, but the destruction of a public sphere that was independent of the governing party.  It is a political strategy beloved by those with weak ideas and thin skin. 

The same government minister who described Lineker’s comments as “lazy and unhelpful” also allowed her name to be put to an email sent to Conservative Party members that denounced opponents of her new policy, including civil servants and left-wing lawyers.  One might have thought that a senior government minister would know that it is the role of civil servants to point out weaknesses in government policy proposals, and to draw attention to international treaties that might be broken if these policies were to be implemented; and likewise, it is the role of lawyers to represent their client’s interests and to seek protection for them in the courts through cases brought before judges.  Attacking professionals for the competent discharge of their duties is a strikingly unconservative approach to politics. 

 However much I disliked traditional English conservatism, it was decidedly less ugly than contemporary conservatism.  The superior swagger of the traditionalists has been replaced by the anxious insecurity of the contemporaries.  Traditionalists thought that institutions should behave impartially because they believed they were inherently conservative.  Contemporaries believe that institutions should be silenced because they fear their critical voice.  In recent years, Conservative Prime Ministers have gifted public appointments to friends, donors, and allies, irrespective of whether they have the skills or values appropriate for the roles they have been given.  They have made loyalty to the conservative cause the explicit ground for appointment.  In short, contemporary conservatives have lost confidence in their entitlement to govern and are left only with the loud assertion that they are right, and the demand that no-one in public life should be free to say otherwise. 

Thankfully, public opinion sometimes operates as the political equivalent of the video-assisted-referee.  Gary’s red-card has been rescinded and next weekend he will be back presenting the BBC’s flagship football show.  He has had a tough week, but as he said, it simply doesn’t compare to having to flee your home from persecution or war to seek refuge in a land far away.  Lineker was and remains deadly in front of goal.