[DavidWhitfield]

Out of interest, I’m assuming everyone would be equally supportive of Lineker if he had come out strongly in favour of the Government’s illegal immigration plan and had then been taken off air?

Great question. It does seem like a lot of people are defending Lineker with comments like "he is right, though", "he's only saying what we're all thinking". You don't get to decide whether someone breaking impartiality rules is okay or not based on whether you personally agree with the 'rule-breaking' comments or not. If you'd be equally supportive of him had he made PRO-government comments and been taken off air, then fine. 

Ultimately, it looks to me like there are so many loopholes and fringe cases and previous examples of action not being taken that it's all very messy. Seems to me that the BBC need to come up with absolutely fool-proof rules on what people can and can't say which must be agreed to when signing contracts so that this sort of thing can't happen in future. You can't have people feeling as though it's one rule for one, one rule for another. They need to get a handle on it going forward.