Liz Kershaw says she was ‘gagged’ and threatened by BBC over tweets
Speaking to GB News in the wake of the row between Gary Lineker and a BBC staffer she said: “There’s a very delicate but serious balance to be determined by the BBC, which is our national public service broadcaster, between people who work there being able to speak out and have the benefits of freedom of speech, which you’re supposed to have in this country and being gagged because the BBC has to be unbiased and impartial.
“But the Gary Lineker thing, it’s always been a bugbear of everybody who works there, including me that he is allowed to voice his opinions in public and especially on Twitter, on various political parties, political subjects.
“And yet everybody else gets sinister calls from management or emails or a rap on the knuckles for doing the same.”
She was speaking in an interview during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Ellie Costello and added: “I always used to say I’d get a phone call to say ‘remove that tweet’ and it was quite threatening.
“And I’d say well ‘I’ll stop tweeting when you stop Gary Lineker doing it’.
“So there’s that aspect to it. How does Gary Lineker get away with it?”
“A senior manager in the BBC News Division has now spoken out…saying, if I did that, under my terms and conditions of employment, I’d be sacked. Why are you?
“It is an anomaly. I’d like to know why.”
Ms Kershaw said: “Since the BBC retired me a few months ago, I’ve loved it, I can say what I want without fear.
“But at the same time, when you work there, and you know something’s wrong, and you want to speak out about it, like I did.
She added: “Jimmy Savile, on the day died, I was told to go on the air and do this big eulogy about him and I refused.
“When the Martin Bashir thing sprung up a few months ago, and I tweeted ‘if anybody wants to know the true story of this, get in touch’, I got an email from BBC management saying ‘this is not helpful to the BBC.’
“There’s that balance between keeping your mouth shut even though you know things are wrong.”
