[Adsales]

So what do the new rules mean, in plain easy to understand form?

For example, if Graham Norton chose to do a really tough joke on the Prime Minister in his monologue, will Graham get hammered, or will he be given a pass?

For me, the rules could be so easily fixed as this - ANYONE who works in BBC News and BBC Current Affairs, on television, on radio or on streaming, has to abide by the strict rules on being impartial and what they can say publicly - all the rest, can say what they want, as they have nothing to do with news and current affairs.

There, how hard is that?

Well by doing that basically none of the presenters who are caught by the new rules would be covered as none of them do news or current affairs.

That aside, as I said during the Lineker saga months ago, the new rules aren’t restricting anything at all because they can’t be. That is for the simple reason that the BBC cannot restrict what a supplier (and that’s what all of them are; they’re not employees) does outside the times where they’re supplying their services to it.

So under the new rules, what Lineker said back then, is in fact explicitly allowed whereas back then some believed he is not allowed to share his opinion because he presents programmes on the BBC.