News that the police are considering whether to prosecute Gary Lineker — outgoing Match of the Day presenter and prolific online left-wing commentator — because of an Instagram post should be a moment of inter-ideological accord.
Can we all agree that things have grown ridiculous?
Lineker made a bad error of judgement. A passionate opponent of Israel’s war in Palestine, he reposted a video that included an emoji of a rat, associating it with “Zionism”. Jewish people have long been portrayed as rats in antisemitic propaganda. It’s a classic dehumanising trope. No one should promote or enable it.
Still, it seems likelier that a man who has spent his adult life kicking a ball about and saying things along the lines of “it’s a game of two halves” (a) didn’t know this, (b) didn’t notice the emoji in the first place or (c) didn’t know this and didn’t notice the emoji in the first place. Lineker deleted the post and apologised — and he wasn’t doing this to save his job because he promptly stepped down.
The extent to which BBC presenters should be allowed to express their political opinions is a complicated subject that I’m going to side-step. I’m going to side-step it because it is irrelevant if people are actually going to be prosecuted.
Some of Lineker’s aggrieved critics apparently complained to the Metropolitan Police. Scotland Yard detectives have reportedly visited one complainant, who suffered “significant distress”. Why being “distressed” by someone’s posts online is reason enough to get the cops involved is anyone’s guess.
Why the cops got involved is even more of a baffling and infuriating reflection on the state of British society. Famously, the Metropolitan Police are grossly inadequate when it comes to investigating crime. Countless thefts, for example, are not investigated at all. Why do the police have time to look into an ex-football player’s Instagram post? Your phone has been snatched out of your hand? Sorry. Not our problem. You’ve seen a bad post online? We’re on our way, madam!
Why should the police investigate bad posts? There is no suggestion that Mr Lineker was threatening or harassing people. Quite apart from that, he acknowledged his mistake and deleted his post. He deserved criticism, yes, but there is, or should be, a big difference between criticising someone and treating them as a potential criminal.
Granted, I can understand the temptation to find it satisfying that the police are investigating a rich and famous luvvie instead of a retired Brexiteer, a mild-mannered evangelist or an angry veteran. Countless people have been pushed around by the authorities for expressing unfashionable opinions when it comes to immigration or sex and gender, so a celebrity being investigated over their right-on views might seem faintly amusing.
But it shouldn’t. It’s outrageous and disturbing that the police are causing trouble and wasting resources over someone being “distressed” by content on the internet that was not even aimed at them.
As Fred de Fossard wrote in his Critic article “How to end the free speech crisis”, the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 were targeted at “much more direct, intentional, and personal methods of communication than we see in today’s online, and social media-driven world”. This kind of legislation, he continued, has played an essential role “in the incremental reduction of free speech in this country, and … must be reformed or … repealed if Britain is to see free speech revived and protected”.
Amen. Tribalism being what it is, it might be impossible for right-wingers and left-wingers to come together in unified opposition to the growth of censorship. But we should oppose it nonetheless. It’s time to stop the referee from butting in where he isn’t needed.
