Gary Lineker says BBC should ‘hold its head in shame' for dropping Gaza film
The former Match of the Day presenter said people at 'the very top of the BBC' had been failing over the conflict, following the corporation's controversial decision to drop Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.
It is the first time Lineker has criticised his former employer since he left the broadcaster in May. His departure came after he apologised for amplifying online material with antisemitic connotations. He had reposted a video about Gaza that contained a picture of a rat, imagery used in the Nazi era to attack Jews.
A clearly emotional Lineker was speaking at a private viewing of the Gaza medics documentary in London on Thursday night, where he led a question and answer session with the producers after the showing.
'It needed to be seen, it really did need to be seen – I think everyone would agree with that,' he said. 'I think the BBC should hold its head in shame.
'As someone who's worked for the corporation for 30 years, to see the way it's declined in the last year or two has been devastating really, because I've defended it and defended it against claims that it's partial. It talks about impartiality all the time.
'The truth is at the moment, [there is a problem] at the very top of the BBC. Not [all] the BBC because there are thousands and thousands of people that work at the BBC, that are good people, that understand what is going on here and can see it. We see it on our phones every day. The problem is they're bowing to the pressure from the top. This is a worry and I think time's coming where a lot of people are going to be answerable to this, and complicity is something that will come to many.'
The BBC Radio 5 presenter Nihal Arthanayake responded to a video of Lineker's comments by saying: 'Gary Lineker is a good man. He is spot on about the BBC.'
The BBC has been approached over his comments. It has previously said it had been attempting to find ways to use the documentary material in news coverage, but a final decision was made to drop the film entirely after talks broke down with its producers, Basement Films.
There has been considerable internal unrest over the failure to broadcast the programme, with the director general, Tim Davie, facing questions about it at a recent virtual meeting with staff. More than 100 BBC staff signed a letter criticising the decision to drop the film.
It ends a torrid week for the BBC, which has also been hit with the fallout from its failure to cut the live feed of Bob Vylan's Glastonbury performance. Davie has come under significant pressure from ministers over the broadcast. During the live stream, Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, led chants of 'death, death to the IDF', referring to the Israel Defense Forces, at Glastonbury last Saturday.
While Davie has received a vote of confidence from the BBC board and its chair, Samir Shah, more junior figures appear to be expected to take the blame for the incident. There have been unconfirmed reports that Lorna Clarke, who oversees pop music commissioning at the BBC, has stood back from her duties.
A BBC spokesperson said: 'We would urge people not to speculate, particularly in relation to any individuals.'
BBC insiders have pointed to editorial cuts as fuelling issues around the monitoring of live streams. One said many of the BBC staff who worked on Glastonbury were volunteers from other teams, especially on digital-only streams.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
34 minutes ago
- Sky News
Gaza: The man in the room acting as backchannel for Hamas in negotiations with US
Behind the efforts to secure the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release is the remarkable story of one man's unlikely involvement. His name is Bishara Bahbah, he's a Harvard-educated economics professor from Phoenix, Arizona. In April, his phone rang. It was Hamas. Since that phone call, Dr Bahbah has been living temporarily in Qatar where he is in direct contact with officials from Hamas. He has emerged as an important back-channel American negotiator. But how? An inauguration party I first met Dr Bahbah in January. It was the eve of President Trump's inauguration and a group of Arab-Americans had thrown a party at a swanky restaurant in Washington DC's Wharf district. There was a sense of excitement. Arab-Americans were crediting themselves for having helped Trump over the line in the key swing state of Michigan. Despite traditionally being aligned with the Democrats, Arab-Americans had abandoned Joe Biden in large numbers because of his handling of the Gaza war. I'd reported from Michigan weeks earlier and been struck by the overwhelming support for Trump. The vibe essentially was 'it can't get any worse - we may as well give Trump a shot'. Mingling among diplomats from Middle Eastern countries, wealthy business owners and even the president of FIFA, I was introduced to an unassuming man in his late 60s. We got talking and shared stories of his birthplace and my adopted home for a few years - Jerusalem. He told me that he still has the deed to his family's 68 dunum (16 acre) Palestinian orchard. With nostalgia, he explained how he still had his family's UN food card which shows their allocated monthly rations from their time living in a refugee camp and in the Jerusalem's old city. Dr Bahnah left Jerusalem in 1976. He is now a US citizen but told me Jerusalem would always be home. 1:58 He echoed the views I had heard in Michigan, where he had spent many months campaigning as the president of Arab-Americans for Trump. He dismissed my scepticism that Trump would be any better than Biden for the Palestinians. We exchanged numbers and agreed to meet for lunch a few weeks later. A connection with Trump Dr Bahbah invited two Arab-American friends to our lunch. Over burgers and coke, a block from the White House, we discussed their hopes for Gaza under Trump. The three men repeated what I had heard on the campaign trail - that things couldn't get any worse for the Palestinians than they were under Biden. 2:54 Trump, they said, would use his pragmatism and transactional nature to create opportunities. Dr Bahbah displayed to me his own initiative too. He revealed that he got a message to the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to suggest he ought to write a personal letter of congratulations to President Trump. A letter from Ramallah was on the Oval Office desk on 6 November, a day after the election. It's the sort of gesture Trump notices. It was clear to me that the campaigning efforts and continued support of these three wealthy men had been recognised by the Trump administration. They had become close to key figures in Trump's team - connections that would, in time, pay off. There were tensions along the way. When Trump announced he would "own Gaza", Dr Bahbah was disillusioned. And then came the AI video of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunning themselves in a Gazan wonderland. 0:35 "It is provocative and unacceptable," he told me just after the president posted the video in February. Trump must have thought it was funny, so he posted it. He loves anything with his name on it." Then came the Trump plan to resettle Palestinians out of Gaza. To this, he released a public statement titled Urgent Press Release. "Arab-Americans for Trump firmly rejects President Donald J Trump's suggestion to remove - voluntarily or forcibly - Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan," he said. He then changed the name of his alliance, dropping Trump. It became Arab-Americans for Peace. I wondered if the wheels were coming off this unlikely alliance. Was he realising Trump couldn't or wouldn't solve the Palestinian issue? But Dr Bahbah maintained faith in the new president. "I am worried, but at the same time, Trump might be testing the waters to determine what is acceptable…," he told me in late February as the war dragged on. "There is no alternative to the two-state solution." He told me that he expected the president and his team to work on the rebuilding of Gaza and work to launch a process that would culminate in the establishment of a Palestinian state, side by side in peace with Israel. It was, and remains, an expectation at odds with the Trump administration's official policy. The phone call In late April, Dr Bahbah's phone rang. The man at the other end of the line was Dr Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas. Dr Bahbah and Dr Hamad had never met - they did not know each other. But Hamas had identified Dr Bahbah as the Palestinian-American with the most influence in Trump's administration. Dr Hamad suggested that they could work together - to secure the release of all the hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire. Hamas was already using the Qatari government as a conduit to the Americans but Dr Bahbah represented a second channel through which they hoped they could convince President Trump to increase pressure on Israel. There is a thread of history which runs through this story. It was the widow of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who passed Dr Bahbah's number to Dr Hamad. In the 1990s, Dr Bahbah was part of a Palestinian delegation to the multilateral peace talks. He became close to Arafat but he had no experience of a negotiation as delicate and intractable as this. The first step was to build trust. Dr Bahbah contacted Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy. Witkoff and Bahbah had something in common - one a real-estate mogul, the other an academic, neither had any experience in diplomacy. It represented the perfect manifestation of Trump's 'outside the box' methods. But Witkoff was sceptical of Dr Bahbah's proposal at first. Could he really have any success at securing agreement between Israel and Hamas? A gesture to build trust was necessary. Bahbah claims he told his new Hamas contact that they needed to prove to the Trump administration that they were serious about negotiating. Within weeks a remarkable moment more than convinced Dr Bahbah and Witkoff that this new Hamas back-channel could be vitally important. On 12 May, after 584 days in Hamas captivity, Israeli-American Edan Alexander was released. We were told at the time that his release was a result of a direct deal between Hamas and the US. Israel was not involved and the deal was described by Hamas as a "good faith" gesture. Dr Bahbah sees it as his deal. 27:55 Direct talks took place between Dr Bahbah and five Hamas officials in Doha who would then convey messages back to at least 17 other Hamas leadership figures in both Gaza and Cairo. Dr Bahbah in turn conveyed Hamas messages back to Witkoff who was not directly involved in the Hamas talks. A Qatari source told me that Dr Bahbah was "very involved" in the negotiations. But publicly, the White House has sought to downplay his role, with an official telling Axios in May that "he was involved but tangentially". The Israeli government was unaware of his involvement until their own spies discovered the backchannel discussion about the release of Alexander. Since that April phone call, Dr Bahbah has remained in the Qatari capital, with trips to Cairo, trying to help secure a final agreement. He is taking no payment from anyone for his work.
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Inside Iran's Evin Prison - as Tehran says damage shows Israel targeted civilians
It is one of the most notorious and secret places in Iran. Somewhere foreign journalists are never allowed to visit or film. The prison where dissidents and critics of Iran's government disappear - some never to be seen again. But we went there today, invited by Iranian authorities eager to show the damage done there by Israel. Evin Prison was hit by Israeli airstrikes the day before a ceasefire ended a 12-day war with Iran. The damage is much greater than thought at the time. We walked through what's left of its gates, now a mass of rubble and twisted metal, among just a handful of foreign news media allowed in. A few hundred yards in, we were shown a building Iranians say was the prison's hospital. Behind iron bars, every one of the building's windows had been blown in. Medical equipment and hospital beds had been ripped apart and shredded. It felt eerie being somewhere normally shut off to the outside world. On the hill above us, untouched by the airstrikes, the buildings where inmates are incarcerated in reportedly horrific conditions, ominous watch towers silhouetted against the sky. Evin felt rundown and neglected. There was something ineffably sad and oppressive about the atmosphere as we wandered through the compound. The Iranians had their reasons to bring us here. The authorities say at least 71 people were killed in the air strikes, some of them inmates, but also visiting family members. Iran says this is evidence that Israel was not just targeting military or nuclear sites but civilian locations too. But the press visit highlighted the prison's notoriety too. Iran's critics and human rights groups say Evin is synonymous with the brutal oppression of political prisoners and opponents, and its practice of hostage diplomacy too. British dual nationals, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe were held here for years before being released in 2022 in exchange for concessions from the UK. Interviewed about the Israeli airstrikes at the time, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe showed only characteristic empathy with her former fellow inmates. Trapped in their cells, she said they must have been terrified. The Israelis have not fully explained why they put Evin on their target list, but on the same day, the Israeli military said it was "attacking regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran". The locus of their strikes were the prison's two entrances. If they were trying to enable a jailbreak, they failed. No one is reported to have escaped, several inmates are thought to have died. The breaches the Israeli missiles made in the jail's perimeter are being closed again quickly. We filmed as a team of masons worked to shut off the outside world again, brick by brick.
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Palestine Action loses appeal hours before terror ban due to start
Palestine Action has lost a late-night Court of Appeal challenge to temporarily stop it being banned as a terror group, less than two hours before it was due to come into force. Earlier on Friday Huda Ammori, the group's co-founder, unsuccessfully asked the High Court to temporarily block the Government from designating the group as a terrorist organisation, before a potential legal challenge against the decision to proscribe it under the Terrorism Act 2000. The move is due to come into force at midnight after judge Mr Justice Chamberlain refused the bid for a temporary block. Lawyers for Ms Ammori took her case to the Court of Appeal on Friday evening, and in a decision given at around 10.30pm, judges refused to grant the temporary block. The Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said: 'The judge was entitled to take the view that the harm identified… would be the product of an individual's decision not to comply with the order.' She added that there was 'no real prospect of a successful appeal'. Raza Husain KC, for Ms Ammori, made a bid to have the case certified as a 'point of general public importance' to allow a Supreme Court bid. Baroness Carr, sitting with Lord Justice Lewis and Lord Justice Edis, added: 'You are not going to get to the Supreme Court before midnight.' The judge said that any application should be made before 4pm on Monday and refused a bid to pause the ban coming into effect pending any Supreme Court bid. In their 11-page written judgment, the judges said: 'The role of the court is simply to interpret and apply the law. 'The merits of the underlying decision to proscribe a particular group is not a matter for the court…Similarly, it is not a matter for this court to express any views on whether or not the allegations or claims made by Palestine Action are right or wrong.' In his decision refusing the temporary block, High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said: 'I have concluded that the harm which would ensue if interim relief is refused but the claim later succeeds is insufficient to outweigh the strong public interest in maintaining the order in force.' Blinne Ni Ghralaigh KC, for Ms Ammori, told the Court of Appeal that the judge wrongly decided the balance between the interests of her client and the Home Office when deciding whether to make the temporary block. She said: 'The balance of convenience on the evidence before him, in our respectful submission, fell in favour of the claimant having regard to all of the evidence, including the chilling effect on free speech, the fact that people would be criminalised and criminalised as terrorists for engaging in protest that was not violent, for the simple fact that they were associated with Palestine Action.' She also told the Court of Appeal that Mr Justice Chamberlain 'failed properly to consider' that banning the group 'would cause irreparable harm'. Ms Ni Ghralaigh said: 'There was significant evidence before him to demonstrate the chilling effect of the order because it was insufficiently clear.' She continued that the ban would mean 'a vast number of individuals who wished to continue protesting would fall foul of the proscription regime due to its lack of clarity'. Ben Watson KC, for the Home Office, told appeal judges that Mr Justice Chamberlain gave a 'detailed and careful judgment' which was 'all the more impressive given the time constraints'. He added that the judge 'was entitled to reach the conclusion that he did'. The barrister said: 'The judge conducted a very careful analysis of all the matters he relied upon.' Mr Watson also said that the judge was 'alive' to the possible impacts of the ban, including the potential 'chilling effect' on free speech. 'There was no error by the judge in concluding that there was a serious question to be tried while at the same time acknowledging that he couldn't, on the material in front of him, say that it had strong prospects of success,' he added.
