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BBC stars face the sack or their Twitter accounts taken away if they air party political views

Tim Davie, the new director-general of the BBC - Andrew Milligan/PA 
Tim Davie, the new director-general of the BBC - Andrew Milligan/PA

BBC stars face the sack or having their Twitter accounts taken away if they air party political views, the new director-general has said.

Tim Davie said guidelines to be published in the coming weeks will make clear that staff must appear strictly impartial - even if, like Gary Lineker, they do not work in news or current affairs.

“I’m prepared to take the appropriate disciplinary action all the way to termination,” Mr Davie told a committee of MPs.

“We are going to be publishing clearly social media guidelines and they will cover both news and current affairs and beyond. Within those guidelines the enforcement policies will be very clear.

“We will be able to take disciplinary action. We will be able to take people off Twitter. If they want to work for the BBC [we] would suspend their Twitter account, absolutely.

Appearing before the DCMS select committee, Mr Davie said he was unafraid to take a tough approach. “I am now the director-general so I’m running the show and, in my view, party political statements are not the right thing for people to be making as part of an impartial news organisation.”

He said there would be “a range of enforcement” for rule-breakers: “Sometimes someone just needs a talking-to. Other times there are serious matters, or there’s a real problem.”

Some have argued that Lineker and other stars would be exempt from the rules because they are freelancers on contracts, rather than full-time BBC employees.

But Mr Davie said the rules apply to everyone who is “a face of the BBC”. He said: “The audience is less bothered by contractual status.”