Things must have changed. I always believed that a taxi clearance or line up clearance was just that...a clearance. It was up to the captain to decide whether it is safe to do so. Can ATC also*order*a pilot to take off. If so, do they accept responsibility for any incident? I accept the fact that ATC can instruct an aircraft to vacate an active runway but the concept that they can order an aircraft to line up is new to me. How times change!
The aircraft was at the holding point. It was not interfering with the safe operation of the runway, purely causing a slight delay to the following aircraft. How do we know whether that aircraft was fully ready?
It looks like you didn't even listen to the clip or read the transcript.
She ordered him to enter 28 and vacate it, NOT line up and wait. It was an order, not a clearance. She only cleared him to line up and wait after he said "we are actually now fully ready" (when they still weren't).
He was holding up traffic, for almost FOUR minutes. There was traffic behind.
And he SAID he was fully ready but in fact he wasn't because he was still doing checks, on the phone, etc. He told a porky and chanced his arm. That's how we know he wasn't fully ready.