541. The Truth About Gary Lineker's BBC Exit - Jonathan Sacerdoti

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I think the only thing that's simple here is Gary Lineker. The mass murder of thousands of children is probably something that we should have a little opinion on. I think he's a bit of a moron. The views he shares are often very half-baked. They're often based on things he clearly doesn't have a deep understanding of. And good riddance, Gary. You are now free of the BBC and I am no longer forcibly funding your ill-informed...

nonsensical ramblings. One presumes that he's learned all of his politics from watching two-minute TikToks. There's 1.4 million, I think, that he got paid last year out of the BBC licence fee. A lot of money. It's a lot of money. I mean, it's not a big ask that you should not embarrass your employer. Time to say goodbye. The journalist Nicole Lampert, who is the one who...

confronted Gary Lineker directly. You never talk about hostages. And he just said to her, I'm sorry. Emily Maitlis. She just had Rupert Lowe. Yeah. Well, that was outrageous. I think that you're a racist. Because probably you're... racist. The BBC should have the licence fee stripped completely. Jonathan Sacerdote, welcome back to the show.

Great to be back with you. What has happened in the last few days regarding Gary Lineker? Some people are American. They won't even know what's what. So let us know. Gary Lineker, the... highest paid BBC presenter, sports presenter, former footballer, has now stepped down by agreement, maybe fired, maybe not, pushed anyway. because he's constantly been sharing these very anti-Israel and some would say anti-Semitic things on social media.

which is not only problematic in and of itself, but it goes against the BBC's own guidelines for presenters and staff who aren't meant to share these sorts of controversial things.

The thing that finally got him, because he's really been taunting both the BBC and Jews with this behaviour for a long time, he knows he's sort of invincible as their biggest star, was the last one he shared was... I think a video by a woman who is a former spokesman for the PLO and the Palestinian liberation organization. And it had a, uh,

picture of a rat on the screen next to the title. A rat, of course, being an anti-Semitic symbol from the Nazi era. Jews were often compared to rats. And it seemed very obvious to many people looking at it that that was... why that rat was there. But Gary Lineker claimed that he didn't know about the association and he also hadn't noticed it. And so he did take it down and apologise. But I think that this was the final straw and he had agreed to leave already.

But there'd been a sort of very long tale to his career where he was going to keep going for various bits and pieces and then leave. And so it was all rushed and accelerated. But I would say that through this last...

moment of his posting online and the BBC's reaction to it, neither of them covered themselves in glory because both of them come out of it looking really quite bad. apology and pretense or i would say that he didn't really understand it and the bbc's reaction as well they they barely mentioned the issue of anti-semitism and what he actually did and so i think that the two of them have shown that they've been dragging this on for so long

long that, to use a modern phrase, they're basically gaslighting Jews these days. Every time somebody says, you've done something offensive or this person has done something offensive or racist or wrong. They just turn around and say, no, we haven't. We know better than you. And there's the sort of subtext that the reason Jews are saying this anyway is some sort of nefarious desire to manipulate people's opinions on.

things going on in the Middle East. So in a nutshell, that is what Gary Lineker has done. And I would say that it has been something that reflects really badly on him. It puts him in an awkward position or a difficult position as well, because either... You know, he knew that this rat symbol would be, you know, seen as a hateful thing about a race of people, Jewish people. Or he didn't know.

And he's sort of this self-proclaimer of knowledge of all things relating to the Middle East. He called it simple. He said that he doesn't think the Middle East is a complicated situation. He could just solve it overnight, this footballer who got hit in the head with a ball about a thousand times over the years.

That's not to say they can't have any opinions, but to call it simple when you're this footballer is bonkers. So which is it? Did he not realise, in which case he probably shouldn't be on his BBC pedestal and platform commenting about these things? Or he did realise and he's a bit of a wrong one.

I think the only thing that's simple here is Gary Lineker. I think the guy is clearly not very bright, not very smart. Now, I've had quite a lot of grief for saying that over the last couple of days in columns I've written.

interviews i've done because they say well he's very successful he has a very successful podcasting company um but you of course know that doesn't really require any intelligence so no um no but in in all seriousness he he may well be a successful businessman successful media person who's managing to do that, who even has had a very successful career commentating on football after a very successful career as a footballer.

But that doesn't mean he's got a lot going on in between his ears. And I would say that most of the evidence from his own opinions and the ways in which he shares them, not just on this topic, but on plenty of others, shows that... I think he's a bit of a moron. And I say that carefully because the views he shares are often very half-baked. They're often based on things he clearly doesn't have a deep understanding of. So the idea that you could explain...

All of Zionism in two minutes, for example, with this sort of activist-led, very, very anti-Israel, very negative, very biased video. It doesn't mean you have to agree with Zionism or with Israel's... actions now or in the past. But to discuss Zionism, you know, a decades or centuries old political, religious philosophy and ideology.

And to simply reduce it down to a two minute video is exactly what's wrong with Gary Lineker. One presumes that he's learned all of his politics from watching two minute TikToks and that the extent of his discussion of those topics is that he then presses.

reshare, relike, and just posts them out himself. And then if you point out to him that they're moronic, or they make him look stupid, or they embarrass his employer, the BBC, who we all pay for... um his 1.4 million i think that he got paid last year out of the bbc license fee a lot of money it's a lot of money i mean it's not a big ask that you should not embarrass your employer

And most people with any self-respect would choose not to embarrass themselves by demonstrating their unique level of ignorance on this topic. He might be a brilliant footballer. He might be a brilliant sports broadcaster. But when it comes to Middle East analysis.

Gary needs to stay off the pitch, leave it to the professionals, leave it to people who have a deeper understanding. And I don't say that to be patronising. I don't say it to be condescending. He's demonstrated that he's got really very little. understanding of the issues at play. It might be that maybe he is intelligent. I mean, I think of

People like Neil deGrasse Tyson, for example, the astrophysicist, he's apparently a genius or at least very intelligent in one particular field. And then he starts applying that, I suppose, using that confidence he gets from being so smart and everybody telling him how smart he is to gender. So, oh, look at all this. Everything's on a spectrum in space.

And therefore, that's the same with biological sex, right? And he sounds like an absolute idiot. So I agree with you that it could be Gary's utterly stupid. He's clearly very good at certain aspects of business and football and presenting. And that probably gave him that confidence. Imagine a Messiah complex you get. So you have a few footballers like this. There was, I mean, David Icke was a footballer, I believe. Yeah, I do. I mean...

You know what's weird with David Icke? I've not spoken about David Icke because everyone wants me to get him on the show. And I'm not, I could have anyone on. I don't care. You know, I'd talk to Hitler. That's why I'm talking to you. So he went, no one seems to know. Whenever they mention, we should get David on. I go, you know, he went on.

I think it was Parkinson, and said he was the son of God. And everybody goes, what? I don't understand how no one knows that. He also believes in lizard people. This was a footballer. Matt Letizia has also sort of gone off on a particular...

different to Gary, the other way, I would say. These are guys, firstly, who do, and I'm not being flippant, they get hit in the head with the ball a lot. And there are studies about that now. It is an issue. They're talking about potentially stopping them heading the ball. But that Messiah complex from...

100,000 people, 50,000 people every week bowing down to you, cheering, telling you how wonderful you are. Then you go down the rabbit hole on Twitter, and most people, I probably side with him, I don't know, on Twitter about Palestine, and there's not many Jews for him to sort of...

The thing is, I don't think it's necessarily a Jewish or non-Jewish issue. And this is another thing that I think is important to note. I think there is this sort of football mentality when it comes to discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And that applies to both sides. Often you'll find people who...

especially aren't professionals or analysts of the topic, ordinary everyday people will have a very kind of tribal attitude towards it if they have an opinion. So they might be, you know, team Palestinian or team Israeli. And I think that might... Well...

speak to someone like Gary Lineker, who is steeped in football professionally and through his development as a human being from a young man through to now in his 60s. You and I could be accused of that. Well, of course. And of course, when I've written that, people have said, well, you're very tribal about it. But I think I'll say this.

Whether people believe me or not, that's up to them. But I don't do this tribally. I do have very strong opinions, and they may be, in this case, predominantly on one side of this very long-running conflict. But I think that I have them.

because I have made an effort to interrogate all of my own opinions. So for me, when I think something in a sort of... visceral or emotional way, I actually try as an adult, as a journalist, as a person with some level of intellect, I hope, to interrogate those thoughts even more than if it was...

the other way around. And I think that's really something people have a responsibility to do. And I was speaking to my friend, the journalist Nicole Lampert, actually, who is the one who confronted Gary Lineker directly over these tweets. She managed to because she went to a sort of... event launching some podcast things that his company was doing and she used the opportunity to challenge him about it and from her telling of what happened

And it's actually interesting how little he wants to understand the other side. And that's when I talk about this tribal feeling, what I'm talking about. You're welcome not to agree. We all disagree on all sorts of things. But when it comes to somebody that says, no, I don't want to. She asked him, for example, you know, you're in a position of responsibility, a position of power of some degree. And you tweet all the time about.

the Palestinians who you see suffering, but you never talk about hostages. Remember that the Palestinian terrorists took over 200 hostages from their homes, mostly civilians. And he just said to her, she told me, oh, no, I can't do that. I get a lot of grief. Now, that's somebody that is actually playing to the, you know, I would say he's preaching to the choir because he thinks his audience.

are firmly on one side of this debate. So he thinks he just needs to speak out on that side. And when you do confront him with perhaps the easiest part for somebody on one or the other side to concede, which is those hostages. What do you think about the fact that they are still being kept in what we now know to be horrific conditions? We've seen them when they were released, some of them in the exchanges, coming back nearly starved to death, beaten, branded with hot...

hot metal objects or tortured in other ways, reports and accounts of sexual abuse. So we know that they certainly haven't been treated. uh in in a fair or reasonable way and they're obviously they're being taken was not fair or reasonable Gary Lineker, nothing to say about that. On October the 7th itself, for somebody who is so socially minded, he didn't tweet anything about what was going on on that October the 7th, like this huge, horrific event unfolding before Israel had done anything.

anything as a reaction to it. Nothing about that. Apparently he tweeted something about Tottenham or something that day. And these things just provide clues. And I'm not here to put Gary Lineker on trial at all. He's done that. He withdrew that last thing he posted. He said that he recognised the problem in it, but said that he hadn't realised it when he posted it. So at least he's admitted that he posted something offensive. But it would be nice if he could look back over...

really all of his history online and rethink. And just that would be my message to him would be, Gary, let's not dig in on this. Why don't we sit down quietly, calmly, have a think about it? Don't use this opportunity of freedom from the BBC.

to do even more of what you've been doing because now you're free to do it. Have a think about it. Why do so many people keep saying... that this could be anti-Semitic or could be encouraging anti-Semitism or extremism, or that you could be misguided or wrong, or your understanding might be limited. It's not necessarily because they hate you or because they're tribal. Some of them, that may be the reason.

But it could be because they've got a point. And if enough people keep saying it to him, you would hope that even somebody with a limited intellect would, in a moment of reflection... Think, maybe I should read a bit more. Maybe I should talk to some of them in private. Maybe I should just try to find out what's going on in other people's minds. And then once you've done that and given it a fair hearing, by all means, reject it if you don't agree with it.

Yeah, I think it's a question of empathy. And I don't think we teach kids at school what empathy is. And I think people think empathy is feeling really sorry for... pictures of bad things happening to people within one's tribe.

And real empathy, I mean, we all have that. That's how we evolved as human beings. But true empathy, a real empath will be someone who actually understands the other side of the argument and goes, okay, but why? And shows curiosity as to why the other side might see this in a different way.

He doesn't seem to. I don't think he hates Jews. I don't get an impression at all that he's walking around going, gosh, look at these rats or smelly people or some such thing. But I also don't think that's how hatred... of a race or whatever tends to work. It's more that you get love bombed by a particular ideology.

I don't know if Gary Lineker hates Jews. I don't know what he thinks about Jews. You'd need a lot of evidence to know that he... I'm not here to put Gary Lineker on trial for his views on Jewish people. But what I can say... as a Jewish person, but also as just somebody of consciences, if enough Jewish people are so regularly offended by things you do, it should give you pause for thought. And I would say that...

Nobody thinks they're an anti-Semite. And the Italian journalist Fiamma Nirenstein said this. She said, not even the children who asked me where my horns are when I was at school thought they were anti-Semitic.

You can have opinions which are prejudice or discriminatory against a group who you maybe don't understand. I would say that the reason for me there's room for doubt over whether or not... he has negative opinions or feelings towards Jewish people, whether he knows it or not, is because it's been pointed out so many times and there seems to have been no attempt to... understand or engage with those things. So that's what suggests to me that there's at least a great degree of...

A lack of confidence on his part in those opinions, because if he were more confident about them, why wouldn't he put himself out there? You know, I'd be more than happy to sit across the table with Gary Lineker and discuss Israel, Jews. his behaviour online, explain one side. And, you know, if I'm known for anything, it's that I keep pretty calm in debates and arguments.

Nearly 13 million people watched a video of me at the Oxford Union managing to keep my cool when I was being abused by a mob of students who didn't want me to speak on this topic. I would be more than happy to sit down with Gary Lineker or anyone else and have these conversations. And the other side of that that I must add is if they can make points to me that are persuasive and convincing.

I will change my mind. That, I think, is the difference between the two kinds of people who like to talk about this topic in particular. Some of them will never change their mind on anything and any detail. And I must tell you that I have and will change my mind at times on even things that are very close to my heart. And I will ask difficult questions. The fact that I have arrived more often than not on one side of this debate.

I really hope is not influenced more by tribal feeling, but by reasoned thought and discussion. Every time I shop online, I feel like I'm probably missing out on a better deal. And it turns out I was. That's why I started using Coupere. It's a free browser extension that automatically saves you money while you shop. When you reach the checkout page...

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I just want to dig deeper into that when you say, if so many people come to you and say, hey, you've offended us. I wonder, I mean, you share my views on gender, for example. A lot of trans ideologues might come to us and say, hey, you know, Jonathan, Andrew, you know, we're upset. Isn't that evidence that you've done wrong?

Would you accept that? I would say that that's happened to me quite a lot, actually. Not necessarily... trans people who've come directly to me but plenty of people who disagree with me on that issue and and just for reference my opinion is that there are two sexes, two genders, and that's male and female, and that if you are transsexual or transgender, as it's more commonly called today, I believe that it's more likely that you have a dis...

connection in your thinking from the biological reality of your body. And that that to me seems likely to be more of a psychological issue than an actual biological. one um but let's park that aside just for reference if those people who have that condition come and say to me well we're very offended by what you think I, of course, will be sympathetic and empathetic in those conversations, and I will and have listened. I have never been convinced that I'm wrong in my overriding opinion on this.

But again, that's not tribal. Why would I have a tribal urge to be like that? In fact, as somebody that is gay, I could be assumed to have a tribal urge, in fact, to agree with the LGBTQ plus movement, because that is... presumed to be the position of gay people. I don't feel that way tribally. I have thought about the issue and I have spoken with people who are expert in it, from surgeons to...

patience, and I have come down with this opinion. But I am always open to talking with people. And I'll give you one example, actually, which does work out, which is drag. I've never been a big fan of drag.

In fact, I consider it to be like woman face. We don't do blackface as an entertainment anymore. And I'm not sure that drag is that different because it is a sort of crude misrepresentation of a very weird... version of femininity for the purposes of often being very funny but also repulsive and grotesque but when i've had this conversation the people who've convinced me most are women

Because most women I talk to about this will say, well, we don't find it in the least bit offensive. And isn't that what matters? So on an ideological level, an intellectual level, no, it's not what matters. My opinion stands. But on a practical level... I suppose that's reasonable. If women don't find this offensive, I can find it intellectually offensive, but it seems a moot point what I think in that case. So I think that's...

one area in which I can see that I have softened my opinion in the light of somebody coming and telling me that. But just because someone's offended and somebody thinks that you have offended them... with your prejudice doesn't mean they're right. And so that could be true of me and Gary Lineker. That is reasonable for people to ask.

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slash heretics. What did Peter Blexley, the YouTuber ex-police officer, say about his experience with Gary Lineker? Yeah, so I read the piece that he wrote in the mail where he talked about having filmed with Gary Lineker for a commercial of some sort. And he just said that actually Lineker was not a nice man to work with. Now, I think that that's a different conversation.

We maybe should separate that because, again, I don't know Gary Lineker. I've never met him. And it's not really my place to say whether he should or shouldn't be nice. And if he had a good day or a bad day, you know. Everyone who has a high profile job like that works hard, has long hours, often doesn't maybe want to be doing every commercial activity they're doing. So the fact that he said that he had a really horrible experience with him is...

Yeah, it may be interesting, but I don't think it's directly relevant to this issue, except to say that I have also heard from people who've met Gary Lineker that on this topic as well, he seems... let's say, somewhat surly in discussion of it. And maybe that is a personality trait that doesn't help one to reach a more nuanced understanding of a complex issue. Yeah, I think he got...

got by on this kind of nice guy personality for many years in football punditry. And I think we're all starting to feel very suspicious of a lot of the nice guys we saw at the BBC for many decades.

I think that's what people hate. People hate seeing Hugh Edwards delivering a speech about the Queen and then what's he actually doing behind closed doors. I have to say on that, you know, I get that. But I think the more you meet people, you must have met a lot of people doing these interviews.

who aren't quite what their public persona is. Most are quite nice. Yeah. I rarely come across someone, I could count them on one hand, less than that, I think. Most people are quite nice. And I think if someone did come along like Gary Lineker is said to have done, that would really stand out. If someone's unbearable to you between, you know, walking through that door and coming sitting at the desk when you start recording, do you mention it in the interview or do you, you know, also...

put on your best behavior and get on with the interview and they might be all sweetness. And I mean, not everyone is Katie Hopkins when they sit in the seat. She seems to have given you what she maybe gives. The rest of the time, I think lots of famous people have an on version and an off version, an innie and an outie, to use a severance reference. But absolutely, the BBC seems to be a...

breeding centre for massive egos and fakes. So you can look at Hugh Edwards and what he was found to have done is completely at odds with the reputation that he had as... the trusted voice of the nation on the BBC. And then we find out that he's actually a... And when we had... Jimmy Savile. And we find out that Jimmy Savile has been trusted by so many across the nation from royalty to politicians down to the average man in the street. And he was trusted on children's programs.

made people's wishes come true, and then he also turned out to have been a paedophile. And I think that often what's most sinister about these instances is that...

They have used their position of power and respect at the BBC, which we have to pay for, in order to carry out these evil acts. So if you have become very well known, and in your head... untouchable because you're so well paid you're so well respected if they ditch you from the program the ratings will go down you know you can do whatever you like and I think that's what Gary Lineker did here because I think that he was well aware that these

tweets were getting him in trouble. In fact, he shifted at one point from doing them on X to doing them on Instagram, where the stories only last 24 hours. And so there was a higher chance he could sneak them through. And some of them were outrageous. It's not just this rat one. There have been plenty.

of them. He searched out very, very niche Jewish cults like the Natura Kata to try and imply that there's a mainstream religious Jewish objection to Zionism. They're tiny. They are tiny and insignificant. And they're significant only in their visibility and prominence at anti-Semitic rallies. My point is that Lineker has become this massive star as a result of his skill at football, but then 26 years at the BBC, at the top.

And he kept pushing these things out. And every time he got in trouble, you could almost feel the wry smile. Well, what are they going to do about it? And the answer is nothing. Even now, he's leaving a bit earlier than they'd agreed. And that's it. That's it. I wonder if in today's age of social media, we're almost asking these people at the BBC, and I get the point. In fact, I push the same point as you. You know, we're paying for this bloody channel. But it's almost unrealistic to expect...

some of these high-profile people, now that we have Twitter and Instagram, and now that everybody has to have an opinion, to just shut up and do their jobs? And at the same time, say, oh, look at you. I'm saying this. You guys are all fake. You're all phonies. And yet, when they're authentic... and we don't like what they have to say and i don't like what gary had to say we complain it's a bit it may be untenable

Well, first off, I don't think it's essential or a human right to be on X. If you are being really well paid to be a newsreader or a sports presenter, you could choose not to regularly share your own personal... political opinions in public. It's not a really massive ask. Lots of people don't bring their political opinions to work, whether they're doctors or teachers. I think actually we live in an age today where too many people do bring those opinions to work.

If I'm being treated by a doctor, I don't care what he thinks about Israel. I don't even really care what he thinks about Jews, as long as he can keep that out of his practice and make sure that he treats all patients well. and properly, of course. The slight disclaimer is if you hate a particular group, the chances are even if you don't say it at work, but their health is in your hands, you may behave differently towards them. So doctors are a special case. But teachers have young minds.

within their control they shape the next generation's thinking and even a sports presenter has influence over millions of people yes millions of followers online And he only really has that position of power and influence because of the BBC. So I do think that it's not unreasonable. On the other hand, I do think also...

that yes, we all have opinions and lots of us want to share them and lots of us feel we can be influential to each other in persuading one another. So I understand where it comes from. I just go back to the fact that I think that he demonstrates every time. He shares his opinions on political issues that he doesn't really understand them very well. And I don't just think that because I disagree with him. I think that because he looks like a simpleton who puts across simplistic...

reactionary thoughts, which are not particularly clever, unique or unusual. They're just opinions that he's probably picked up himself online and is spewing out again online to his followers. And that's not really contributing to national debate or thought. It's a complicated one because I guess the other TV channels, they can just have whatever views they want. If Gary Dinnock had made his career on Sky Sports only...

Well, they may not have the same rules, but I think if you say things that are anti-Semitic, let's say, if a presenter makes anti-Semitic comments online and they work at Sky Sports, they'll probably get in some hot water as well and may find that they actually...

have some consequences. And I'll say that the BBC is particularly spectacularly bad at dealing with complaints of any sort. They have this sort of bunker mentality, even if you complain about their actual news coverage.

they tend to dig in. They've got this protracted complaint system where you have to complain and they reject it and you complain to a higher level and they reject that and you complain to a higher level and they eventually get you to this thing called the BBC Trust or the editorial standards. or something like that. And they're meant to be independent from the BBC, but they're staffed by former BBC veterans.

It's basically a BBC body and they might judge against the BBC, but they'll try very hard not to. Now, again, I would say if you constantly get told you're making mistakes and errors and then they're proven and the BBC has made so many on Israel that it's actually had to correct and apologise for. you ought to start to look at the reason and be a little more humble when people point them out to you. You know, there's that old story about if a man owes the bank.

£100,000 is in trouble. If a man owes the bank £100 million, the bank's in trouble. So the BBC needs to look at the fact that it keeps having a recurring problem on the same topic, which it keeps having to apologise for. And Gary Lineker's just one... Very small, actually, element of the BBC's bias when it comes to news about Israel in the Middle East.

Their Arabic language output, which many people have no idea about, but is being made not just with license fee money, but also tax money from the foreign office in part, is... outrageous in its abuse about Israel. Presenters and guests have been shown to be massively compromised people who shouldn't be presented as independent or fair voices.

There was just one report in The Times after it was highlighted by Camera Arabic, a watchdog body, that showed they had interviewed regularly a commentator who they merely billed as a journalist or an analyst. And he was in fact running, I think it was a Hamas-affiliated news station.

But they'd never pointed that out. And that was on the same day this story broke in the Times that Nick Robinson was on the Today programme giving a hard time to David Mensah, the Israeli government spokesman. And he told him, I think the BBC... can tell the difference between Hamas and real journalists. Obviously, they can't because they keep giving Hamas-linked journalists.

an unchecked voice. Even that film they did, the Gaza documentary, was led by the son of a senior Gazan Hamas figure, and they withdrew it. They've admitted it. So when they constantly have to admit these things... You do want to ask yourself, why do you keep making these mistakes about the world's only Jewish states? Yeah. Well, you know what? It's not just about Israel. It's also about Brexit, climate change and sexual abuse.

sexual abuse, trans. Rosie Millard just came on the former chair of BBT Children in Need. And she was the chair, and she came to realise they were supporting LGBTYS, Youth Scotland. who were run by, you know, I try not to say the word too often in case YouTube gets angry, but a PDF file, as we call it. And when she alerted everybody at the top, they all tried to quiet...

quietening her down. So she had to quit and become a whistleblower was the only way to get it out. They have this, as you say, they sort of hunker down. And that's it. It's a sort of institutional blindness and it's understandable. But when it keeps happening, and as you said, they've got the problem with presenters. They've now been two major star presenters.

who have had a predilection for underage intercourse. And they have had now... this children in need scandal they have the issues that were well documented about their massive massive promotion of the remain side during the brexit debate and failure to show the more mainstream Leave side, which of course won despite their months of propaganda against it. So when it came to climate change, they said they don't need to represent both sides of the debate because there is now a consensus.

The point is that on all these issues, there is an inbuilt left wing bias in the BBC. There was once a... Freedom of Information requests, I remember some years back, about the number of newspaper subscriptions across the whole BBC and what papers they were all for. Well, I think you can probably guess which was the most common paper.

Well, that leads me on to my next question about Owen Jones, who was sort of made on the BBC to an extent and then was sort of synonymous for some time with that newspaper, The Guardian. Is it sort of a breeding factory for deranged lefties? I don't know if you can blame the BBC for Owen Jones. Got to blame someone. Yes. Look, I'm not a fan of Owen Jones's work.

don't want to be unduly personal um but i'll say this some of the stuff that he puts out forget israel that that uh tweet he did that post on x just now about joe biden after he announced that he has prostate cancer quite advanced prostate cancer was just really horrible and Very small minded, I felt that he should be treated for it in jail and he's complicit in or guilty of genocide and what have you. Again, I don't know.

I don't want to dismiss the opinions of people who disagree with me, especially on something so emotive and important. I really don't actually. I do think it's a lack of empathy, though, from him. I think it's a lack of trying to understand the other side. trying to go, okay, well, because I don't like Biden either, right? And I imagine from your politics, you might not either. But what a thing.

No matter how much you hate his family, his whatever, what a thing to come down with. And I don't think there's really any way out of it. And I think more than that, because I agree with that, all of that, absolutely. I think more than that, the idea that... He is such a dreadful man who needs to be seeing his final days out in jail because of what he did in relation to Israel and Gaza.

is in itself a very stubborn and nasty opinion, because it assumes that Joe Biden acted in the way that Owen Jones thinks he did, purely because he's an evil facilitator of a supposed genocide, rather than he disagrees with me on this really... complicated geopolitical issue that's been going on for over 100 years. I think the assumption of bad faith in everyone else is often something that holds us back. And I do try to...

control that myself. That's why I say I don't know what's in Gary Lineker's mind. I don't know what's in Owen Jones's mind. I don't know if there is a hatred of Jews or some kind of prejudice against Jews. So if I have said that at times, I qualify it with, I don't know. But this assumption...

that there is a right side of history and that my side knows everything and the other side is not just in disagreement, but is evil. This is such a weird feature of modern thinking, I think. And I think that in large part, the internet has pushed it. And actually, one of the things that I think does a great job of pushing back against that is this kind of long form conversation, because you allow people to have longer conversations about their opinions and their thoughts and viewers.

Sure, they may all come from one side that agrees with the people that are on your show, might be the audience that YouTube pushes it to. But on the other hand... I watch loads of podcasts of people I don't agree with. I mean, I've watched lots of Owen Jones conversations because I want to hear what he has to say. I watch Mehdi Hassan. I watch all sorts of people because I think it's each of our responsibilities to find this stuff. And we can these days.

We don't have to rely on the gatekeeping of biased legacy institutions like the BBC. And you didn't ask, but I'll say the BBC should have the licence fee stripped completely, in my opinion. In today's... age. We just don't need it. It's this weird anachronistic thing of the past. The idea that there is a presenter on the BBC who's been there for 26 years and earns that much money to me shows that it's completely lost its purpose. If you have a channel which is funded not from commercial means...

It should be looking for new talent constantly. And at the point at which its presenters, who it's found and nurtured, reach a level where they're poached and taken by a commercial channel, I think the BBC should be proud of that and pleased for it and find the next good one. no commercial pressure to perform with ratings. It doesn't have to satisfy advertisers. Instead, it could concentrate on doing the things that those commercial outlets just don't do and can't do for commercial reasons.

It could be finding new talent. There must be thousands of football fans who can speak cogently and intelligently about the football. Can I just say, I mean, if I was going to say this, I mean...

I've never heard anybody say, oh, I better tune into PBC for that Gary Lineker show. People want to watch the highlights of the football. Gary is good. There's something calming about him. He's got a cheeky, wry smile. He's a good presenter, but there's loads of them. You tune in to watch the highlights.

that another point you made there i'm pleased you made that point because when i was selling my exorcism film to the bbc i was told all the time the bbc is looking for young fresh new talents blah blah all this stuff firstly With a friend, we made the entire documentary ourselves. So usually there'd be 40, 50 people making that. We made it ourselves. So we thought, wow, we should get paid quite a bit here. This was a time I had no money. You know, I thought...

Oh, here's 50, 100 grand coming in. They offered us, I think it was three or four grand for the worldwide rights. They insisted on worldwide, even though they weren't going to put it out everywhere. They wanted to try it out on their YouTube channel. They didn't care about that, though. It was on iPlayer. They insisted... on that when

If they had just taken it for free and only taken the UK rights, we then would have been able to say this is a BBC product and sold it around the world and made 50 grand from it. And they know this. But despite knowing that me and my friend were basically on minimum wage, couldn't really make things, we made the whole document.

They gave us a pitiful amount and then asked us to make the edits on our own dime, edits and lawyer fees and things like that. So we actually then lost two or three grand. And I'm sitting there going, you know, you're telling me you want new, fresh,

talent. I've come to you with a thing I've done in Spanish in a different city, you know, and it's ended up being their best of 2018 list and all those things. And all I was thinking was, and Gary Lineker, because even back then, this was 2018, Gary Lineker's on over a million. Yeah, and they didn't have 50 grand.

to give us for this thing. And they knew we needed to take it. And that's what they should be doing. They should be nurturing new talent, young talent, unheard of people, people who we haven't seen and other channels might not find or put out there.

exactly in my opinion what they should be doing even this gaza film if they wanted to show a film of Gaza through the eyes of children during this war, they could have made an absolutely fascinating film about how Hamas manipulates children, using them as a PR vehicle for putting out their own propaganda, which is in fact what the BBC ended up doing. So if I were them, I would have said, OK, we're doing our inquiry into that documentary, which has anyone heard from?

We're going to actually go through all the rushes. We're going to take all that footage and we're going to make a new documentary about how we were duped, about exactly how this happens. Because we've, you know, hold your hands up. It's happened already. You've admitted it. So why not? Oh, not a million years. Well, of course not. But again, who else could do it except a channel that doesn't have any fear about losing its funding, whatever happens?

With subscription services, Netflix and places have to fight for every dollar they get. They have to be good. They have to provide a good service. The BBC infuriates so many people that people are stopping to pay the licence fee, even though it's actually... illegal to do so. Just think, if it was voluntary, they would have to get us to pay because they were good, not because they had a big truncheon. I still watch the BBC because I like The Apprentice and I like...

Well, I'm not going to start advertising their stuff, but I still watch a lot of it. But those could all be on commercial channels. There's nothing, there is nothing public service. I'd probably pay. About, right. I'd pay. I think it's ridiculous forcing people to pay who don't even watch the BBC. It's absurd in today's age. While on Owen Jones, what was this? It wasn't a Zionist party, was it? It was a sort of a gay party. Is there a word for Jewish gay? Is it J? Um...

I don't know if there is. We always put a J in front of stuff, don't we? Like J dates. There's always like a J, but there isn't a thing. J-gay? J-gay. Maybe. We went to a J-gay party. A J-gay party. That's going to be the new words. Apparently he went to this... which is a sort of, you know, it's like a club night with a Jewish theme once a year, I think. I don't know. I didn't go myself.

And he was there and I understand there were quite a lot of people who were upset about it after his tweets and work on... and videos on YouTube on the the conflict. And again, I suppose he has every right to go to party if he wants to. But the people there have every right to say if they don't feel.

very comfortable with him being there. Because he would say, I've got no problem with, I like Jews as much as anybody else. Obviously, if he goes to the party, he doesn't like Zionism. Well, I've met plenty of Israelis who have said that... you know they they know him and that he does mix with israelis and um so i i don't know what that says about him psychologically but i mean there's no reason why there's no reason why he shouldn't

have Israeli friends or Jewish friends. Look, there are Jews and Israelis who might agree with Owen Jones. I think they are probably in a minority, especially some of the more furious things that he writes and says. Look, Iron Jones can go to a gay Jewish party if he wants to, but I think he ought to expect the heat from some people when he does so. I'm not the party police. I'm not even for J-gay parties. Do you remember that...

Larry David Kirby Enthusiasm episode where he has sex with a Palestinian woman. The Palestinian Chicken Shop, right? One of the best episodes of TV ever. If anyone's not watched that, go and look that up. But they sort of get off on the fact that they hate one another kind of thing. And it was quite funny. And I wonder if Owen Jones has that going on.

I don't know him. Why don't you know? What about, I mean, on the other side of the spectrum, it's funny to see sort of Gary Lineker lording this view he has, Owen Jones tweeting ferociously. And of the very few...

big celebrities who are not Jewish, so don't necessarily have a whatever the thing is in this race. What is it? Dog in this race. is jimmy carr who i keep seeing sort of almost tail between his legs sort of walking off while people follow him with cameras going like jimmy are you a genocide supporter it's so crazy to me that anyone on this side has to be so quiet about it what what is jimmy carr

doing at the moment? So there was a bit of controversy because Jimmy Carr was apparently at the Israeli embassy's annual reception that they hold. This year they held it in the British Museum. So of course, once the Israeli embassy does something, there's a protest outside it. And I think they followed him around and filmed him when he came out. I didn't know Jimmy Carr was in any way involved with Israel or had any particular opinion one way or the other.

He appears to be getting some level of grief from some people for it. But, you know, I think he's an intelligent man as far as one can tell. He seems unashamed to have... opinions which might be unpopular. In fact, a lot of his comedy is deeply offensive. So that's the point in him. I think, you know, so what? Jimmy Carr was at the Israeli embassy reception. And?

What to say about it? I think anyone would have walked away and ignored the loons filming him, you know, chasing him down the street. What does he owe them? Nothing. He doesn't need to explain himself to them. And actually, I'm pleased that Jimmy Carr...

I won't say spoken out because he hasn't said anything as far as I know, but that he just went to something that he obviously felt supportive of and went home. And that's really, I think, a little less heat on a lot of these discussions will help. A great deal. And of course, you know, everyone will come back and say, genocide and apartheid and starvation. But I think the whole point is that the discussions, even on those difficult topics, are completely compromised.

by people's inability to actually intellectually look at what those words mean and whether that is what's happening and to accept, you know, that there is... It's possible that there can be a level of shortage of food or hunger that isn't starvation or famine, and that it's possible that there can be a level of separation within...

Israeli controlled areas that isn't motivated simply by racism, but could be motivated by security needs. And really, Israel, for me, is this petri dish of many really... difficult social and political and security issues that we all deal with in this world. But there's so much more volatile there. And it is trying to balance the different sides of those.

And I'll say it doesn't always get it right. Of course, it doesn't. Nowhere gets everything right. But to simply slap on a label apartheid, genocide, when they're really not true. I think just tries to shut down the conversation and the conversation could be really interesting and could involve some criticism and some praise and something in between. And that's what.

We're all missing because of the fury and anger of those people who'd rather chase Jimmy Carr down the street or shout me down in a debate or get a million... likes on Twitter because they said something really fierce and outrageous that they can then write on the internet destroyed someone else. It's so sad to see that the climax of human...

intelligence has got us to this point where it's about who can shout loudest and people like Piers Morgan end up with a show where they'd rather get on four guests who scream at each other than one or two who could have a polite conversation. There's a quiet dignity. I think about Jimmy Carr, for example, or those who are just sort of quietly going about what they think is right. And we don't know the full ins and outs of Jimmy, but I get the impression with him that he's...

for lack of a better word, based. You know, he's been on a few of the podcasts and things like that. I think some, I mean, the example you give of people not being able to understand a different side, another sort of BBC product is Emily Maitlis. She's got her news agents. podcast. She just had Rupert Lowe on. Well, that was outrageous, if you ask me. What happened there? She basically said to him that...

I'm not quoting absolutely, but pretty close. I think that you're a racist, if I remember correctly. We're talking about the so-called grooming gangs, which there is a better word for. She said that he concentrated only on Pakistani Muslim gangs because he was a racist, when there were more gangs which were not Pakistani and Muslim.

doing this in the UK. And now he didn't push back with a very good answer, but that can happen to anyone in an interview where they're under heat. The real reason, I suppose, is that proportionately as a... percentage of the Muslim Pakistani population in the UK. There are far more of those gangs than there are as a percentage in the non-Muslim Pakistani portion of.

our society either way I think she gave this impression again that she's she came from the BBC she was this veteran figurehead this you know leading presenter at the BBC And now she's sort of free to do what she likes on her podcast, where all these ex-BBC voices, actually, all three of them are basically just without any pretense. massively left-wing about every conversation and debate they have. Nothing wrong with being left-wing. Well, maybe there is. But I would say that

It just shows that while they were at the BBC, they held it in. John Sopel actually said it in an interview with her now about Gary Lineker, that his social media, he would try and hold things in or put a question mark at the end of his more... outrageous tweets to try and get himself off the hook. Emily Matliss has done some amazing work. I mean, that Prince Andrew interview was amazing. I take my hat off to her. She is somebody that has the capability of being an excellent interviewer.

An excellent journalist. That will go down in history as one of the greatest interviews done by a journalist. I mean, you just have to sort of sit there. I'm not having a go, but I've done it on this side. That's all I do. I mean...

I didn't get the opportunity to go and speak to Prince Andrew because I didn't have the license fee paid for state-sponsored channel popping me in a chair next to bloody Prince Andrew. You didn't get that opportunity either. Once you were there, he just dug his own grave. I'll say I think she did a good job. I think she...

Pushed back where she needed. She probed and tested. But compare that to what she does now on that podcast, which is just sort of reactionary left-wing stuff. And again, it's not that I object to her having those opinions. It's that I don't really care what her opinion is.

she's meant to be the interviewer or the presenter. She's meant to be drawing out from the person she's talking to what they've got to say and kind of exploring it, not accusing them of being a racist when there really wasn't the evidence, I think. So I do think that that is... maybe learnt at the BBC, maybe she's a product of the BBC, but certainly since she's left the BBC and she's there, we're seeing it more. I guess that's a concerted decision.

And she's like all of us. I think you and I are no different. We are making our own product online. You with this podcast, I have my own podcast. I think that when we do that, we often choose to say exactly what we think. I'm not totally against someone like Emily Maitler saying exactly what she thinks. But where we say things that seem wrong or unhelpful or unfair, we all get grief for it. And that's part of the new landscape of online media.

You know what's completely mad, though? To call someone racist like that. Now, if I'm sat with someone who I completely disagree with, as has happened not too often because they don't often come on the podcast, but some of them have. And let's say I thought somebody was a racist and I was maybe upset by that because I don't want to I don't like I don't associate with a racist. I think I would say, are you?

a racist are you motivated is your logic just your polite man i i i would do the same do you think some people might think that's racist or could you understand if somebody thought that was a racist opinion? Or have you ever considered that maybe the reason you're interested in the Muslim Pakistani gangs could be influenced by some kind of... unknown bias on your part. There are many ways to ask that question, but I think that the sneering tone that Emily Maitlis took...

reflects the intention of that show. Which is why I'm so quick to... I am half... I'm being facetious, but I am quite quick to denigrate her Prince Andrew thing, because I just think... No, you have shown that you clearly don't have the subtlety, the empathy, the understanding of both sides to be a good interviewer. You had every advantage by getting boosted by the BBC. You got given all of these contacts.

all of these things, and yet still you're unable to sit there and go, this is a person who a lot of people are following right now. Not just 1% of the... Because maybe there is 1% of the country's racist, right? But... a much higher percentage than that support Rupert Lowe and even more for Farage and reform. Maybe I should try and understand that. Nothing. Well, and that is the BBC all over. When there's an opinion they don't like, I say they, the overall...

tendency of the broadcaster seems not to like. They don't really, in my opinion, seem to want to interrogate it and understand it, whether it's Brexit or migration or... um climate change or or anything or israel i i think there is a real resistance and i've spoken with insiders at the bbc and especially especially jewish insiders who have told me what it's like to work there on this issue and

And, you know, the Jewish issue, even Israel, may not be something that everybody cares about, but it's a useful indicator of something that is institutionally rotten inside the BBC. Because there are Jews there who say that they... feel they cannot give their opinions even in private conversations with colleagues because it will mark them out somehow as being wrong, evil, bad people. Now, I think that...

When a lot of Jewish people have a different opinion on Israel, it's not, as I said, just tribal. I think often Jewish people who... Many of us have family or friends in Israel. Many of us have connections to Israel that mean that we've probably seen and read more about what's going on from the ground there, whether it's in their own media or what have you. So I don't think you should just dismiss what those people...

Have to say, I don't think that BBC colleagues or executives should make them feel uncomfortable saying that stuff. And yet that's what they've told me they feel. And I definitely think even even some who are very middle of the road. moderate people feel inhibited in private conversation, never mind in their actual work. And, you know, if they can spot tons and tons of mistakes, small mistakes in BBC material, they will...

not be able to say so and even do their job well because they're afraid of being called out as something that they're not. I mean, I remember one instance I went on this programme the BBC used to do where they got four...

journalists external journalists together around that big news desk you know in the main studio and they would discuss the world's news together and we were talking about covid and they said that

Back then, the news about Israel was that Israel was doing really well at vaccinating and beating the spike and whatever. And as we talked about that, they said to me, of course, Israel isn't giving vaccines to... the Palestinians and they're meant to do that under the Oslo Accords and to which I actually just said that's just wrong actually the Oslo Accords give health autonomy to the Palestinian Authority it's one of the things that was actually

really the sort of precursors of trying to create the early version of a state for the Palestinians. So actually, it's literally factually incorrect. And the presenter sort of ummed and ahed and said, well, let's not... get bogged down in the oslo accords which he had brought up so it's this old you know don't confuse us with facts um discussion

I think it's staggering. They later apologized, by the way. A viewer, not me, someone I don't know at all, complained and they admitted that they were wrong. Not on air, not... to me, but on some weird web page tucked away somewhere, which nobody would see. But I think it's just all of these things. It just shows that probably there were people who had briefed that presenter who could have told him that's not true. But if they'd spoken out... It was like you're a Jew. Mm-mm.

That's true. That's true. Emily Maitlis, I think, is. She is Jewish, I think. She is Jewish, yeah. I wrote an article that sort of inadvertently called her a capo, which people, you know, it's one of the sort of worst things. Maybe like an Uncle Tom for Jew, you know, the concentration camps, the Jews who turned on the Jews.

kind of thing um and a senior sort of jewish journalist actually sort of tweeted me and said messaged privately and said you should probably move those two lines away from one another so as not to do that because that is sort of a horrible thing to do Well, again, I'll say it's not to have a go at you, but I avoid that word because, I mean, aside from it being quite a horrific allegation, I understand what one might use it for in that context.

The capos were also quite complex. You know, some of them were motivated by trying to save themselves or just do whatever they had to, which maybe is what one might think a Jewish journalist is doing when they are.

overly critical. But I think, again, like I'm saying, I'm not a psychologist at the best of times. I may be interested in what makes people tick, but especially people I don't know or don't meet, I can't possibly analyse whether Emily Maitlis thinks she's saving herself as a Jew by being critical.

of israel it seems no she's an ideologue well i mean i imagine that she's the product of having worked all those years in the bbc as we're all the product of where we come from the people that really impress me in life and and that's why i like your podcast are what you're calling heretics, people who do come from a certain place, but they allow themselves to think outside it and sometimes even to leave it. Now, people...

accuse me of not doing that because I'm Jewish and I have these opinions on Israel. But I don't think that that's why I have these opinions on Israel. It's probably why I know a lot about Israel in the first place and why I got involved in this niche.

In plenty of other areas, I hope I'm not guilty of that, which might mean I'm not guilty of it here either. I think people that are the product of a certain kind of education, a certain kind of early... career history, who managed to move outside it, are the most impressive people because they really indicate their interest in free thinking and coming up with something that feels true to them. I've got one more question for you, but first, where can people follow your show?

So I'm on YouTube and you can find all my socials on my website at jonathansatcherdotty.com. You can look up the spelling. I think I'm the only Jonathan Sacherdotty. on the planet. If there's another one, maybe they'll... Get in touch if you're another Jonathan Saturati. And you can find everything there. But on YouTube, I have a channel with interviews. And yeah, I'd love it if people watch that. We'll put the links down below. Who's another...

Heretic, you admire. Yeah, you know, I racked my brains over this because it was a tough enough one last time. I'll tell you who it is. It's somebody who I got to know a little bit and had admired for a long time before, which is Mossab Hassan Yusuf, the Green Prince or the son of Hamas, as he's often called. He was... is the son of a Hamas founder and spiritual leader who grew up with all the views that you would imagine are associated with that.

And he did exactly what I just said. He examined internally and externally what he really felt and thought. And over the course of his life so far, he left Islam, having studied it very deeply. He became a Christian. I don't know if he's still as practicing a Christian as he was. He's explored many different forms of...

faith and spirituality, as well as geopolitics, and is one of the fiercest defenders of the state of Israel. Because after he left Hamas, he actually worked as an informant for the Israeli intelligence services. for, I think, ten years, saving probably thousands of people's lives by informing on suicide bombings. And the thing that's particularly amazing about Mossab as a human being when you meet him...

is that he really does seem to be utterly dedicated to truth and integrity. And I mean that because he made a rule relatively early on that he's written about in his book that he wasn't going to help them kill. Palestinian leaders, he was going to help them stop the Palestinian terrorists from killing others. So his emphasis throughout was on saving lives. And that is what he focused on, to the extent that...

He protected his own father and what have you. So I think he's a fascinating, wonderful human being. And he really does stand for all of the things that I think you might mean by. being a heretic a wonderful heretic people please go and check out jonathan saturday's youtube channel i have a link down below i have his website there as well he's one of the best out there what a wonderful speaker so go follow him hit the like button and keep watching this channel as well