Lineker insists he must constantly share his political views so he can “look at himself in the mirror at night”. I get that. He’s a good looking chap and well groomed. I imagine he looks in mirrors quite a lot. His job as a TV presenter calls for it.
Happily, as a financial journalist, I normally don’t have to trouble myself with Lineker’s political views. But now he’s strayed into my territory, so I do.
Last night, Lineker said he couldn’t support Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League Final because it had signed a sponsorship deal with a major arms company.
As the underdog against Champions League winning machine Real Madrid, Borussia was attracting the support of a lot of neutral footie fans, including me.
But it lost Lineker when it signed a three-year sponsorship agreement with German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall, announced ahead of last night’s Wembley showdown.
“First time I’ll be cheering for Real Madrid in a Champions League final,” said former England captain Lineker.
Since his political views matter so much to him, he really should think them through. It’s easy to make a passing swipe at the arms trade.
It’s an uncomfortable business, making weapons that scare, maim and kill people. But history shows that if you don’t have them, people will scare, maim and kill you instead. And you can’t stop them.
Lineker isn’t the only one who’d like to shun the arms trade. In recent years a vast movement has grown up that wants nothing to do with it.
It’s called environmental, social and government (ESG) investing. Sometimes it’s called ethical investing, or socially responsible investing.
Basically, ESG wants to help people invest without putting money into companies that pollute the planet, make pornography, hire forced labour and yes, make weapons.
There’s nothing wrong with that. People should be free to decide where they invest their money. There’s a problem, though. And it came into laser-sharp focus the moment Vladimir Putin‘s tanks rolled into Ukraine.
At that point, the argument over whether making weapons is unethical became a bit more complicated.
There’s no ESG movement in Russia. If anyone was foolhardy enough to launch one, they’d fall out of a high window before you could say KGB.
Putin is free to make as many bullets, tanks, guns, shells, bombers, missiles and nuclear weapons as he can afford, without some ESG campaigner or TV sports presenter moaning that he’s not being environmentally or socially friendly.
Which means we need weapons manufacturers, too. Heroic Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky has made that clear.
He wants us to send Ukraine as many weapons as we can make, to stop Putin raping and murdering his people.
And we should give them to him.
The ESG movement has been so successful that it has blocked the flow of funding into the UK weapons manufacturers such as FTSE 100-listed BAE Systems.
Now that’s really dangerous.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently had to step in as fears grew that our arms industry would be starved of funding just as we need it most, while Putin makes nuclear threats and Chinese premier Xi Jinping prepares to invade Taiwan.
Sunak issued a joint statement with the Investment Association arguing that investments with an ESG mandate can invest in the defence sector.
He said: “There is nothing more ethical than defending our way of life from those who threaten it.”
Lofty liberal commentators may sneer at Sunak for all the things he’s got wrong but that’s one thing the PM got dead right.
Arguing in favour of the global arms industry isn’t easy. Weapons are bad for the planet and bad for people. Israel‘s use of them in Gaza is highly divisive.
Yet without them, the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would walk all over us. And no Gary Lineker tweet on earth would stop them.
He should think about that next time he looks in the mirror.
