[LDN]

It inevitably cannot be the correct decision if the standards are not applied across the board which they haven’t in recent years.

The issue isn’t that Gary has tweeted criticism of a government policy, which he and others have done in the past without repercussion. The issue is that he thought it acceptable to compare the policy of a mainstream political party (a policy which a not unsubstantial proportion of the country support) to the behaviour of the nazis.
Unless you can give examples of others who have compared the behaviour of a mainstream political party to the Nazis or other similar groups (Isis, North Korea) and not been reprimanded it is not factual to say the standards are not being applied equally.
It really isn’t unreasonable to have standards that allow people to disagree with things politely but don’t allow such criticism to turn into insults or hyperbole.

Uh. What? You're saying that the issue is that Lineker compared the behaviour of the Conservatives to that of the Nazis. That isn't the issue at all. 

The BBC explicitly stated this evening what its issue was with Lineker's actions: "We have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies." This situation, in the BBC's own words, has nothing whatsoever to do with the specifics of his comments - the BBC has made it plain that it's simply not happy with Lineker expressing opinions with political implications. That is the issue here, and the BBC couldn't have been clearer in explaining that. 

So your insistence that the only equivalence that might count here would be if another BBC personality expressed similar comparisons between how our government is framing its efforts to tackle illegal immigration, and the activities of Nazis in 1930s Germany, is frankly bizarre. 

The BBC has clearly stated that they don't want this particular presenter wading into "party political issues or political controversies". Shouldn't that standard apply equally to other BBC personalities? And if not, why not? Why are some personalities allowed to express overtly political opinions, repeatedly and without consequence, while another is being held to account over his politically-sensitive comments?

That's the issue here. 

And beyond that, of course, there remains the question of why any such policies exist in the first place. Why should a sports personality, or a presenter on The One Show, or a talk show host, who works at the BBC not be allowed to speak up on issues that they feel deserve attention, in a factually correct manner? Presumably, such policies - however slapdash their implementation, in practice - were intended to avoid any unvetted opinions from loose-lipped celebs bringing the BBC into disrepute. 

That's going well.