Imagine if a British citizen were given an award by a foreign country for supporting criminal activity in the UK. Surely there would be outrage? Well, our resident motor mouth and champion crisp chomper Gary Lineker has pulled it off. Over in Rome, where at one time they had no qualms about throwing Christians to the lions and, not so long ago, marching about in very smart uniforms, he is to receive the Sport and Human Rights award for being a “staunch advocate for the rights of refugees and migrants” by Amnesty International. You can bet your bottom Euro that there won’t be a ripple of criticism on the calm sea of self-righteousness occupied by the educated middle classes, who so favour uninhibited waves of immigrants, legal and illegal, coming to a working-class neighbourhood near you; just not near them.
Gary’s ‘staunch’ advocacy, which many of us wish he would indeed staunch, amounts to an endless series of tweets about all sorts of wokish matters but, especially, diatribes against his countrymen who do not agree with his Euro-remainer views and unlimited immigration. If issuing a series of ill-informed and caustic tweets about the people who—through the daylight robbery of the BBC licence fee—pay his exorbitant salary amounts to staunch advocacy then the bar for this award must be set pretty low.
He manages to skirt round the issue of cancellation based on the technicalities of his contract which mean he is not an actual BBC employee. You can guarantee that the former footballer would be shown an instant red card were he to put out a tweet in favour of gollywogs or safe spaces for biological women. He’d be down the Swanee river before he could say “and what do you think Alan?”
The problem for those at the receiving end of his drivel, and what makes him such a successful driveler in the first place, is that he has a high public profile; that and the fact that he says all the right things. Those expressing anything to the contrary are banished to the undergrowth of social media.
Much is made (by Gary) of his housing a refugee for ‘about a month’; one of the shorter months of the year, the one consisting of only twenty days. Did Gary get on his sowester and fish his refugee, Rasheed Baluch off the beach at Dover? Did he find him wandering along the edge of the M1 having jumped from a lorry? Was this a poverty-stricken chicken farmer from some war-torn region? We don’t know how Gary found, or was allocated, his refugee but we do know that Mr Baluch is a well-educated young man undertaking a PhD in law who comes from Pakistan. Baluch has been effusive about his saviour but, if living in Lineker’s multi-million-pound Surrey mansion was so good, why is he not still there? If Gary loved having him so much, ditto?
Baluch went off to live with the founder of the charity Refugees at Home which teamed him up with Gary in the first place. You can just imagine Gary on the phone asking for a ‘mail order’ refugee saying “no, not that one…no…no…wait, a lawyer? Perfect.” Gary’s generosity knew no bounds and, according to Baruch: “He gave me an Oyster card which contained £100 top-up for my transport to university.” Gary, mate! You could have bought him the bloody bus.
The people who deserve an award are those who live in close proximity to refugees, not knowing whether they are legal or illegal or what potential dangers they present; those whose children miss out on local school places because of them, and whose only discernible benefit is the privilege of paying for it through their taxes. These are mainly people in poorer areas of the country, such as the inner city of Hull, where hotels and other accommodation is given over exclusively to housing refugees.
It is notable that the attempt to house further refugees in the abandoned University of Hull halls of residence, already being used to house them, met with stiff and successful resistance. It is also notable that this took place on the outskirts of Hull in the leafy and prosperous suburb of Cottingham. It barely made the press. If residents in the centre of town had done the same not only would nobody in the city council have listened to them, it would have hit the headlines with derogative descriptions of the protesters.
We can expect a series of syrupy, lachrymose and vomit-inducing tweets from Saint Gary of Lineker in the wake of his award along the lines of: “So proud…”; “Overwhelmed…”; and “Moved greatly…”. I imagine it won’t be long before he gets that call to Buckingham Palace for a well-earned gong. All he needs to do is add the occasional tweet about ‘global warming’ or vie to replace Sir David Attenborough as the harbinger of ‘climate emergency’ doom and he’s sorted. “Arise, Sir Gary.”
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Roger,
You nailed with this:
“Imagine if a British citizen were given an award by a foreign country for supporting criminal activity in the UK
Surely there would be outrage?”
Thanks to you and also Jack for your no nonsence articles
P