Gary Lineker has hit out at BBC bosses after newsreader Clive Myrie was pulled from BBC Ten O'Clock News due to a timing schedule after making a number of jibes about Boris Johnson on Have I Got News For You.
Myrie, 58, was pulled from BBC Ten O'Clock News last Friday after he made a number of jokes about the disgraced former Prime Minister while hosting the comedy show.
The newsreader was removed from the programme at the last minute when content chief Charlotte Moore became concerned about accusations of anti-Tory bias arising from his role as presenter of Have I Got News For You earlier that evening.
The BBC presenter made several jibes about the former PM throughout the programme, including opening the show by referencing Johnson's resignation.
"After being found by the House of Commons committee to have lied repeatedly, Boris Johnson takes the opportunity to deny that he’s ever been jogging or has a dog," Myrie quipped over footage of Johnson out jogging with his dog Dilyn.
The concern is understood to have been related to Myrie's back-to-back appearances on Have I Got News for You and straight on to the late news bulletin.
Speaking to The Times, an insider said: "There wasn’t a specific joke which triggered the request.
“It was more to do with concerns that Clive was doing two very different types of programme within an hour of each other. There was possibly a bit of over-caution, which felt a bit over the top to most people in news.”
Following the news about Myrie, Gary Lineker has now hit out at BBC bosses.
Taking to Twitter after learning that Myrie had been pulled from the show, he fumed: "Oh for crying out loud! If the BBC ask Clive to present Have I Got New For You he'll make political jokes."
Speaking to The Mirror, a BBC spokesperson said that Clive will be back to present the show tomorrow night.
It comes after a BBC executive said of the situation: “It didn’t feel right for Clive to go almost straight to the news when he’d just been making jokes.
"It was a tonal thing rather than due to anyone being overly anxious."
Gary, 62, was taken off air for criticising the language used by ministers when discussing the government’s asylum policy in March.
The sports reporter was axed from his role as host of Match of the Day after he became embroiled in a debate over impartiality when he compared the language used to launch a new UK Government asylum policy to Germany in the 1930s.
Lineker said in a post on Twitter in March: "There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. 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."
After several of Gary's co-hosts, fellow sports presenters, and famous friends stood in solidarity with him amid the crisis, the BBC reinstated Gary as Match of The Day host.
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