For all those who gush over Neville as the homme serleux of the national game, an equal number regard him as colossal hyprocrite
Gary Neville’s political vision has seldom been a study in coherent logic. This May, in a stump speech delivered via Instagram, he articulated an impeccably Thatcherite philosophy, declaring: “I’m not a socialist, I’m a capitalist. I believe in entrepreneurialism. I believe in companies making profit. I believe in lower taxes.” Five months on, he was appearing alongside Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour conference, later writing on Twitter: “The Conservatives are a cancer on the UK.” You start to see why, for all those who gush over Neville as the homme serieux of the national game, an equal number regard him as a colossal hypocrite who keeps twisting in the wind.
Ian Hislop, evidently, is one of them. In 64 series as captain on Have I Got News for You, the editor of Private Eye has lacerated politicians of all stripes for the contradictions between what they say in public and what they do in private. With Neville as guest presenter, he was handed perhaps the greatest open goal of all. It had seemed, in theory, a perfect gig for Neville, a chance for this sage of the social media age to expand his portfolio with some scripted zingers on the BBC’s premier current affairs quiz show.
Except the autocue could not save him once the subject turned to the World Cup. For as the panellists decried David Beckham for soft-soaping Qatar’s global image and Robbie Williams, already a veteran of Russia 2018, for agreeing to headline the opening ceremony, they danced around the fact that their host had just struck a sweet deal with Doha’s very own beIN Sports. All of them apart from Hislop, that is.
“The others have been very gentle with you,” he said, in that icy tone he adopts when switching from satirist to prosecuting counsel. “But the elephant in the room is still there. You’re commentating there, aren’t you?” “I am, yeah,” Neville shot back, suggesting he was up for the fight. “And what’s the defence?” “Well, my view has always been that you highlight the abuses in these countries, or you don’t say anything and stay back home.”