[Keith]

But he clearly hasn't breached the policy, the example of a sports presenter commenting on politics being low risk to the BBC reputation and impartiality is explicitly given in the Editorial guidelines.

Any controversy should have been met with a statement from the BBC saying “Lineker’s views are his own and not that of the corporation, as a freelancer who presents non-news programming, he’s entitled to publish his own views on other platforms, his views aren’t representative of the BBC which is politically neutral”. It wouldn’t have shut people up, but it would have avoided this much bigger mess.

The standard needs to be the same whether it’s Jeremy Clarkson a few years ago or Lord Sugar. And depend on whether elements of the press choose to make an issue out of it.

This would probably have been a better solution to have avoided today's programming problems. They could have even thrown in a "we'll be reviewing our social media guidelines for non-BBC News staff" to try and appease the government. Then when Lineker's contract next comes up for renewal either force him to sign a specific clause regarding social media or simply replace him.

It is slightly amusing to have a BBC News reporter essentially grilling their boss. According to Nomia a few minutes ago the DG hadn't seen her questions in advance.