Former Match of the Day host Gary Lineker has hit back at popular right-wing rabble rouser Tommy Robinson, real name Steven Yaxley-Lennon, after he was inexplicably asked to account for what he was doing walking along a street with a female.
The far-right activist shared a video of Gary and a woman walking down a street with the caption, “what you up to here Gary Lineker?” Predictably, the clip accrued over six million views and led to fans of Robinson making various accusations about the former dock10 mainstay, who traditionally isn’t pictured on social media walking down the street with a female. We probably don’t need to share potentially libellous social media posts to give an idea of what fans of Robinson made of an ageing footballer that doesn’t share their political views walking down the street with a possibly Asian-looking lady some years younger.
The England football legend and nemesis of the UK’s far right, who was ironically dethroned from a quarter of a century at the head of the BBC’s football flagship after inadvertently making a social media post that could be interpreted as being a bit right wing, despite being constantly pilloried by the right for being a bit left wing, issued a pretty straightforward response yesterday, and it turned out that not everybody’s as bad as online Robinson fans assume: “If you must know, I was going to a chemist with my daughter-in-law, to get some medicine for her unwell husband….my son. Hatred is a dreadful weakness,” he explained in a manner that nobody should really need to.
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Robinson, who frequently describes himself as a journalist, promptly became one of the most read posters on X, formerly Twitter, yesterday, and despite the platform’s traditional right-wing bias since South African billionaire Elon Musk took it over, he didn’t come out of it looking great.
“In a world full of Tommy Robinsons – be a Gary Lineker,” one user wrote. Another added: “Absolutely DESTROYED.”
A third wrote: “Tommy Robinson being made to look an absolute berk is exactly the Sunday content that was needed.”
A series of tweets went viral, claiming that Lineker had been in Thailand with the young woman on some sort of questionable activities, however they were quickly shut down by community notes, clarifying that Lineker was in Mexico and the woman was Bella, the wife of his son Harry.
It comes as former Neighbours star, and pin up of the far-right, Holly Valance was spotted alongside Robinson on several occasions since tragically parting ways from Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy.
The 42-year-old former actress has since devoted her time to popping up on social media with her ex’s peers including Robinson and Reclaim Party chief Laurence Fox.
An image recently shared online by ex-actor Fox depicted the mother-of-two and his wife snuggled together on a sofa in a luxury train compartment alongside a grinning Robinson, and was captioned “It’s a bit early for that.”
Which is nice.
