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      BBC Suspends Host Gary Lineker Over Immigration Comments

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      Mr. Lineker, one of England’s best-known sports personalities, had accused the British home secretary of using language reminiscent of Nazi Germany to promote a plan to stop asylum seekers.One of the premier soccer programs on British television was thrown into turmoil on Friday after the BBC suspended its host, the former English soccer star Gary Lineker, over comments he made criticizing the Conservative government’s plan to stop asylum seekers who arrive on boats across the English Channel.Mr. Lineker, a former captain of England’s national soccer team and the top goal scorer at the 1986 World Cup, ignited a firestorm on the political right after he suggested on Tuesday that the British home secretary, Suella Braverman, was using language reminiscent of Nazi Germany to promote the plan.After several days of debate played out on social media, in the pages of British newspapers and in the halls of Parliament, the BBC said on Friday that Mr. Lineker’s social media activity was “a breach of our guidelines,” and that he had been suspended from hosting “Match of the Day,” a mainstay of the BBC’s schedule since 1964.“The BBC has decided that he will step back from presenting ‘Match of the Day’ until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media,” the British Broadcasting Corporation said in a statement.“When it comes to leading our football and sports coverage, Gary is second to none,” the statement said. “We have never said that Gary should be an opinion-free zone, or that he can’t have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies.”Soon after the BBC issued the statement, two others who host “Match of the Day” with Mr. Lineker, Ian Wright and Alan Shearer, said that they would not appear on the show on Saturday.“Everybody knows what Match of the Day means to me, but I’ve told the BBC I won’t be doing it tomorrow,” Mr. Wright wrote on Twitter. “Solidarity.”Mr. Shearer wrote, “I have informed the BBC that I won’t be appearing on MOTD tomorrow night.”The BBC reported that the program would still be broadcast on Saturday, without hosts. Saturday’s “Match of the Day” will “focus on match action without studio presentation or punditry,” a BBC spokesman was quoted as saying by the BBC.The program, which features highlights from Saturday’s Premier League games, usually draws millions of viewers, according to the BBC.Mr. Lineker, who first appeared on “Match of the Day” as a presenter in 1999, signed a five-year contract in 2020 to remain with the BBC until 2025.After parlaying his hugely successful soccer career into a career as one of Britain’s best-known sports personalities, Mr. Lineker has frequently engaged in debates on social media, most prominently when he supported the campaign for Britain to remain inside the European Union.His comments have sometimes led to criticism from the right and accusations that he is violating the BBC’s guidelines on impartiality.Such was the case with his comments on the government’s plan to stop asylum seekers.Mr. Lineker had responded on Twitter to a video that the Home Office had posted in which Ms. Braverman promoted legislation that would give the office a “duty” to remove nearly all asylum seekers who arrive on boats across the English Channel, even though many are fleeing war and persecution.“Enough is enough,” Ms. Braverman declares. “We must stop the boats.”Mr. Lineker responded with sharp criticism.“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?” he wrote.The comments were roundly rejected by Ms. Braverman and others on the right, and they set off a debate about the BBC’s impartiality and the comparison to Nazi Germany.“It diminishes the unspeakable tragedy that millions of people went through, and I don’t think anything that is happening in the U.K. today can come close to what happened in the Holocaust,” Ms. Braverman said in an interview this week with the BBC. “So I find it a lazy and unhelpful comparison to make.”In The Daily Telegraph, the journalist Charles Moore accused Mr. Lineker of being “the most famous exemplar of the power of the BBC’s ‘talent’ to trash its impartiality.”“He expresses not the voice of the concerned citizen, but the arrogance of a man of power,” Mr. Moore wrote. “He is the big player who thinks he can defy the ref. The reputation of the entire BBC and its director-general depends on telling him he cannot.”On the political left, others defended Mr. Lineker and expressed dismay that the BBC had pulled him from “Match of the Day.”“This feels like an over reaction brought on by a right-wing media frenzy obsessed with undermining the BBC,” Lucy Powell, a member of Parliament from the Labour and Cooperative Party, wrote on Twitter. More

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      Your Thursday Briefing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Latest Vaccine InformationU.S. Deaths Surpass 300,000F.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYour Thursday BriefingCronyism and waste in Britain’s pandemic spending.Dec. 17, 2020Updated 1:08 a.m. ET(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)Good morning.We’re covering a new analysis of Britain’s slipshod pandemic spending, a move to the right for Emmanuel Macron and an upside to the climate crisis for Russia.[embedded content]Medical staff wearing personal protective equipment, or P.P.E., at a hospital in Cambridge, England, in May. Officials shelled out billions in contracts for Covid-19 tests, vaccines and P.P.E.Credit…Pool photo by Neil HallCronyism and waste in Britain’s pandemic spendingAs Britain scrambled for protective gear and other equipment, select companies — many of which had close connections to the governing Conservative Party or no previous experience — reaped billions, according to a New York Times analysis of more than 2,500 contracts.In some cases, more qualified companies lost out to those with better political connections, which were granted access to a secretive V.I.P. lane that made them about 10 times more likely to be approved for a contract.Conclusions: While there is no evidence of illegal conduct, there is ample evidence of cronyism, waste and poor due diligence, with officials ignoring or missing red flags, including histories of fraud, human rights abuses, tax evasion and other serious controversies.Christmas restrictions: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has stuck by a pledge to lift limits on gatherings from Dec. 23 to 27 despite growing calls to abandon the plan as coronavirus cases surge.Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.In other developments:The U.S. is negotiating a deal with Pfizer to produce tens of millions of additional doses of its coronavirus vaccine. Vaccinations began in the U.S. on Monday.The number of severe Covid-19 cases in the Gaza Strip sharply increased, raising concerns that hospitals could soon be overwhelmed.In the first week of Britain’s vaccination program, more than 137,000 people have received shots.An international team of 10 scientists working with the World Health Organization will travel next year to China to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.President Emmanuel Macron of France has moved to the right, alienating some former supporters and current members of his own party.Credit…Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMacron’s pre-election slide to the rightWith an eye on France’s next presidential election in 2022, President Emmanuel Macron has tacked to the right, alienating former liberal supporters and current members of his own party.After recent terrorist attacks, Mr. Macron pushed forward bills on security and Islamist extremism that raised alarms among some French, the United Nations and human rights groups, but won favor among right-leaning voters. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally, is expected to be his main challenger.Analysis: Despite his center-left origins, Mr. Macron has always been known as a shape-shifter. His slide to the right is regarded by some as a clean break from the first three years of his presidency.Related: A French court found 14 people guilty of aiding the 2015 attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo, supplying the attackers with cash, weapons and vehicles.Gender equality: The mayor of Paris was fined nearly $110,000 for hiring too many women, under a 2012 law intended to address gender imbalance at senior levels of the country’s Civil Service.A landmark ruling on air pollutionA 9-year-old girl who died of an asthma attack in 2013 became the first person in Britain to officially have air pollution listed as a cause of death, after she was exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter beyond World Health Organization guidelines.The death of the girl, Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who was Black, shed a harsh light on how pollution disproportionately affects minorities and deprived families in Britain.Legal experts said it could open a new door to lawsuits by pollution victims or their families. The girl lived near a major road in southeast London. Her mother said that if she had been told air pollution was contributing to her daughter’s ill health, she would have moved.The Coronavirus Outbreak More