Gary Lineker branded a ‘desperate’ attention seeker by the Foreign Secretary for ‘Nazi’ taunts of the Canal’s immigration policy, as former culture secretary Nadine Dorries says she ‘has to go’ to preserve the impartiality of BBC.
- James Cleverly punched out former England ace turned BBC sports presenter
- Former minister Dorries said inaction would not look good on the impartiality of the BBC.
Gary Lineker was accused by a senior minister today of being “desperate for attention” as the row over his criticism of the government’s immigration policy showed no signs of abating.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has lashed out at the former England ace turned BBC sports presenter who caused outrage earlier this week with an attack on Suella Braverman.
The Match of the Day presenter is facing calls to resign or be fired after he compared rhetoric about the Interior Minister’s plans for migrants via the canal to that used by the Nazis in 1930s Germany.
But he has refused to resign and the BBC has yet to take action against him for his outburst. It came as Rishi Sunak announced plans to deport anyone who came to Britain on small boats from the mainland and applied for asylum.
Speaking to LBC from Paris, where the prime minister and his senior team will meet their French counterparts today, Cleverly said: “There are some people desperate to draw attention to themselves by using deeply offensive and inappropriate language about this, and I would kindly suggest that you read your history books a little more carefully.
“The simple truth of the matter is that the UK is a welcoming and hospitable country.”
Meanwhile, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries also weighed in. The talk show host and MP said that if Lineker did not fire, it would mean the BBC was only paying attention to her fairness competition.
Gary Lineker, former England ace turned BBC sports presenter, caused outrage earlier this week with an attack on Suella Braverman.
Speaking to LBC from Paris, where the prime minister and his senior team will meet their French counterparts today, James Cleverly said: “There are some people desperate to draw attention to themselves by using deeply offensive and inappropriate language about this, and I would kindly suggest read your history books a little more carefully’
Meanwhile, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries also weighed in. The talk show host and MP said that if Lineker did not fire, it would mean the BBC was only paying attention to her fairness competition.
Yesterday Ms Braverman accused Mr Lineker, 62, of downplaying the tragedy of the Holocaust while ministers engaged in an open row.
Commons leader Penny Mordaunt accused Labor of “borrowing Gary Lineker’s playbook” by being the “goal underdogs’ party” that takes easy shots at the government.
The former England striker responded to his ‘clumsy analogy’, saying he was ‘happy I was better in the six-yard box than you were in the clearance box’.
The sports expert has been at the center of an impartiality row after criticizing the Government’s ‘cruel’ plans to tackle small ship crossings of the Canal.
He also compared the language surrounding immigration plans to 1930s Germany.
Ms Braverman said she found the comments “offensive” because her husband is Jewish.
“My children are therefore the direct descendants of people who were gassed during the Holocaust,” she told the BBC’s Political Thought podcast.
Dismissing those kinds of frivolous analogies diminishes the unspeakable tragedy that millions of people went through and I don’t think anything that’s happening in the UK today can come close to what happened in the Holocaust.
“So it seems like a lazy and useless comparison to make.”
Lineker said he hoped to host Match of the Day this weekend despite the “ridiculously blown story” surrounding his comments.
Criticizing the asylum plan earlier this week, he tweeted: “Not a huge turnout. We accept far fewer refugees than other major European countries.
“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy targeting the most vulnerable people in language not unlike that used by Germany in the 1930s.”
