You Gov Poll: Britons say BBC was wrong to suspend Gary Lineker

Headlines over the weekend have been dominated by the row between the government, the BBC, and Gary Lineker over the latter’s public criticism of the former’s asylum policy.

Match of the Day presenter Lineker, with 8.6 million Twitter followers, left a comment on a video shared by the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, on the social media platform.

In the video, Braverman presented the government’s proposals to prevent migrant boats from crossing the Channel.

The BBC said it considered the presenter’s “recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines” and the former England striker was suspended by the corporation.

His comments were widely condemned by Tory politicians, who urged the BBC to take action.

Lineker being forced out of action this weekend prompted a string of regular pundits on the show to confirm that they will not be appearing on Saturday night.

Ian Wright was first to stand in solidarity with Lineker, followed by the likes of Alan Shearer, Alex Scott, Micah Richards and Jermaine Jenas.

Football Focus and Final Score were taken off the air, and it is understood that Match of the Day will be limited to 20 minutes.

Now a new YouGov snap poll shows that Gary Lineker continues to have the public’s backing after the events of this week, with Britons having a favourable view of Gary Lineker by 50% to 30%. Conservative voters tend to have a negative view, by 56% to 32%, while more than seven in ten Labour voters (72%) have a positive view.

A previous YouGov poll showed that Britons tended to think that BBC sports presenters should be allowed to air their political views publicly when not on BBC programmes, and so it is perhaps unsurprising to see that the public also tend to say that the BBC was wrong to suspend Lineker, by 53% to 27%.

**YouGov has corrected the graph that was initially published on its website, which mistakenly showed Labour data in the Conservative column and vice versa.

Conservative voters again tend to feel the opposite, with 51% saying the BBC was right in its actions compared to 36% who think it was wrong. Three quarters of Labour voters (75%) say the BBC made a mistake.

The walkout by other football presenters is similarly welcomed by the public, with 51% saying they thought the likes of Alan Shearer and Ian Wright did the right thing in refusing to appear in their usual shows.

Again, a large majority of Labour voters (75%) back the move, while half of Tories oppose it (51%).

The result can be found here: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/consumer/survey-results/daily/2023/03/11/7af3f/2

[Image – Gary Lineker, You Gov/Getty]