Starmer urged to tell Trump his anti-BBC lawsuit ‘unacceptable, as president quotes Badenoch to back his ‘fake news’ claim
Good morning. Ministers are due to publish today a green paper on BBC charter renewal, setting out plans for how the corporation will be funded into the 2030s. With fewer and fewer people watching free-to-air TV, the licence fee is getting harder to justify, but there is no consensus as to what should replace it.
However, within the BBC at least, there probably is a consensus that the last thing licence fee payers want to see their money spent on is a multimillion-pound compensation payment to Donald Trump.
This has come to a head because the president has finally filed his lawsuit demanding damages worth up to to $10bn for the way a BBC Panorama documentary edited a clip from the speech he gave to supporters on 6 January 2021 before they attacked the US Capitol. Here is our overnight story by Callum Jones and Jeremy Barr.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has regularly accused the BBC of being biased on particular issues and, when news of the Panorama edit became a political controversy (more than a year after the programme was actually broadcast), she merrily joined the chorus of people attacking the BBC over the way the programme was put together. What British voters made of her comments is not entirely clear, but she seems to have impressed the president’s legal team, who quote her in the lawsuit to support their case. They say:
Conservative party leader and member of parliament Kemi Badenoch said that the distortion of the speech by the Panorama documentary was “absolutely shocking,” adding: “That is fake news, actually putting different things together to make something look different from what it actually was.” She continued: “And I do think heads should roll. Whoever it was who did that should be sacked, that’s what Tim Davie should be doing, identifying who put out misinformation, and sacking them.” Badenoch added: “The public need to be able to trust our public broadcaster .. . They should not be telling us things that are not true. This is a corporation that needs to hold itself to the highest standards, and that means that when we see people doing the wrong thing, they should be punished, they should be sacked.”
Keir Starmer has, up to now, done his best to avoid getting embroiled in this row, arguing that the BBC is operationally independent and that this is a matter for the corporation and the president to settle themselves. Although there were suggestions at one point that he and Trump would speak about the dispute, that does not seem to have happened. However, he may find it hard to remain uninvolved as this goes on. The lawsuit has been filed as there is evidence in other areas – trade policy, for example – that US-UK relations are no longer quite as warm as they were at the time of the state visit.
But Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is more than happy to speak out. He has regularly urged Starmer to be more robust with Trump in public, over a range of issues, and this morning he said the PM should tell Trump his compensation demand is unacceptable. He said:
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump’s outrageous legal threat and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.
The Trump administration has clearly set out they want to interfere in our democracy, which includes undermining our national broadcaster.
The prime minister needs to make clear this is unacceptable.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10am: Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor and former PM, resumes giving evidence to the Covid inquiry about the economic response to the pandemic.
11am: John Healey, the defence secretary, hosts a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius.
11am: Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, holds a press conference.
2pm: Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.
Late afternoon: Peers vote on the employment rights bill, with business groups urging Tory and cross-bench peers to drop their opposition to the one measure that stopped it being passed last week.
We are also getting 17 written ministerial statements today, which is what tends to happen shortly before a holiday recess, as ministers clear the decks. Today’s statements cover the BBC charter review, sentencing reform and planning reform, among other topics.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
Dentists in England to be paid more for emergency NHS appointments
Dentists in England will be paid more to ensure patients have easier access to emergency appointments under government plans, but experts have expressed doubt that it will improve care. Tobi Thomas has the story.
Nandy floats prospect of requiring BBC website users to get licence under plan to stop licence fee income declining
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has published a green paper on BBC charter renewal. It includes a consultation on options for the future.
On funding, the document says the government has an “open mind” on how the licence fee system may be reformed to stop fewer households paying every year. It suggests there might be a new type of licence fee for people who say they don’t watch BBC TV, but who do use the BBC’s website, or BBC Sounds.
At the moment people are only legally required to have a licence if they watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer.
The document also says ministers have ruled out replacing the licence fee with a new tax to fund the BBC.
It says:
In addition to BBC saving and efficiency programmes, we also want to explore wider reforms that could help address the funding challenges the BBC faces. We have not ruled out keeping the current licence fee in place with its current structure. However, given the sustainability challenges it is facing, we are also reviewing the scope of services for which the licence fee is required and considering differential rates for specific types of users, to make it more sustainable for the long-term, along with increasing commercial revenue to ease the burden on the public. This would aim to reverse the trend of fewer households paying every year and declining overall income, which risks the BBC declining if it is not addressed. Any reform of the licence fee must be proportionate and reflect the cost-of-living burden on the public.
As the licence fee is a tried and tested public funding model, we are not considering replacing it with alternative forms of public funding, such as a new tax on households, funding through general taxation, or introducing a levy on the revenues of streaming services to fund the BBC …
We will consider the potential for reforming the licence fee alongside broader reform options … which could support households with the cost of living. This will include looking at options to support the BBC to generate more commercial revenue and operate more efficiently to provide a sustainable long-term funding model for the BBC at the lowest possible cost for households.
At this stage the government is keeping an open mind on activities/services for which households could be required to hold a TV licence, including potentially BBC online services or BBC Sounds.
In a statement, Nandy says:
My aims for the charter review are clear. The BBC must remain fiercely independent, accountable and be able to command public trust. It must reflect the whole of the UK, remain an engine for economic growth and be funded in a way that is sustainable and fair for audiences.
Rishi Sunak is giving evidence again to the Covid inquiry about the economic response to the pandemic. There is a live feed here.
Starmer’s communications chief to address cabinet on media strategy overhaul
David Dinsmore, the former Sun editor recently appointed as head of government communications, is addressing the cabinet this morning on overhauling the government’s media strategy as ministers increasingly try to combat far-right rhetoric online. Eleni Courea has the story.
UK unemployment rose to four-year high of 5.1% before budget
The rate of UK unemployment rose to a four-year high of 5.1% in the three months to October, as the labour market showed signs of further weakening before last month’s budget, Phillip Inman reports.
For more on the background to the US president’s lawsuit, here is a Guardian video comparing the Panorama edit of the Donald Trump speech with the real thing.
Here is an explainer by Haroon Siddique looking at the strength of Trump’s legal claim.
It includes this quote.
George Freeman, the executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York, told the BBC that the $1bn figure was “totally meaningless” and that Trump “has a long record of unsuccessful libel suits – and an even longer record of letters like the one you received that don’t end up as lawsuits at all. They’re just there to threaten and to scare media he doesn’t like.”
And here is a Guardian article by Margaret Sullivan saying the Trump legal threat is “significantly out of proportion” and that the president just used ligitation against the media as “a cudgel to encourage grievance and division, and a way to control the political message by undermining the reality-based press”.
BBC ‘should definitely fight’ Trump’s lawsuit, former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer says
After interviewing Chris Ruddy (see 9.26am), the Today programme this morning also interviewed Mark Damazer, a former controller of BBC Radio 4 and, before that, assistant director of BBC News, about President Trump’s lawsuit. He urged the BBC not to settle.
Damazer said:
I heard [Ruddy] say that it would be damaging to the BBC’s reputation to fight the case. I think it would be extremely damaging to the BBC’s reputation not to fight the case.
This is about the BBC’s independence. And, unlike American media organisations which have coughed up the money, the BBC doesn’t have commercial business interests that depend on President Trump’s beneficence in the White House. So they should definitely fight it.
And, on the merits of the case … the BBC has likely an extremely strong case. The 1960s established a very wide margin of press freedom in a case called Sullivan v The New York Times, from which the BBC would undoubtedly benefit.
President Trump was not harmed by what the BBC mistakenly did in its Panorama edit. The programme wasn’t shown in the United States. He was neither financially nor politically hurt, and the BBC should definitely fight this case.
Trump ally says BBC case will get ‘ugly’ if it goes ahead, and says he would urge them to settle for about $10m
Donald Trump may end up getting a settlement worth around $10m from the BBC, a friend of the president has said.
In an interview on the Today programme, Christopher Ruddy, who has known Trump for years and who runs the rightwing media company Newsmax, said that, although the BBC would have a strong defence under US law, it would also have big incentives to settle. He explained:
When an American case like this goes forward, the court usually gives the plaintiff, in this case it’s the president, very significant powers of discovery. And they’ll get emails and conversations and private things that were said by BBC executives about him, about his campaign, that may not be very flattering and may have shown an intent to harm him in the production of this.
I’m not saying that will happen. I’m saying it could happen.
And so, rather than go through that, they the defendant in this case, the BBC would, would likely offer a settlement.
Ruddy said, he were advising the BBC, he would urge them to go for a “quick and easy settlement” because a legal battle would not “look good”. He went on:
[Trump] is obviously not going to get $5bn. If I was looking into a crystal ball, I might say this case would settle probably around $10m.
The cost of litigation for the BBC to go through a case like this in the United States with attorneys would be probably about $50m to $100m. And the president has an excellent attorney well known in defamation, Alex Brito of Miami. He’s a very serious legal contender. These things are usually ugly. And that’s usually why they settle … I’m sure the BBC has enough money to cover a settlement of that size.
Liz Truss cited in Trump’s lawsuit to back his claim BBC guilty of ‘fake news’
Donald Trump’s lawyers have also quoted Liz Truss, the former Conservative PM, in their lawsuit against the BBC to support their claim that the president was defamed. The document says:
No less an authority than the United Kingdom’s former prime minister, Liz Truss, discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable, and the BBC’s pattern of actual malice.
Remarked Truss: “[The BBC] is a huge problem. They’ve lied, they’ve cheated, they’ve fiddled with footage, especially in the case of President Trump, but also covering up what’s happening in Britain whether it’s mass migration, whether it’s our economic problems, they are always biased towards the left . . . .” She was also asked whether the BBC’s tepid apology was sufficient, and responded: “No I don’t, because they keep doing it again and again. They have painted a completely false picture of President Trump in Britain over a number of years, they’vedone the same thing about conservatives in our country . . . .” Lamenting the BBC’s lost status as a “paragon” of journalism, she remarked that the BBC’s “fake news” has caused immense harm to the public for a long time.
BBC bosses ‘right to stick by their guns’ against Trump, says health minister Stephen Kinnock
BBC bosses are “right to stick by their guns” against Donald Trump, Stephen Kinnock, the health minister has said, after the US president filed a $10bn lawsuit against the corporation. Eleni Courea has the story.
Starmer urged to tell Trump his anti-BBC lawsuit ‘unacceptable, as president quotes Badenoch to back his ‘fake news’ claim
Good morning. Ministers are due to publish today a green paper on BBC charter renewal, setting out plans for how the corporation will be funded into the 2030s. With fewer and fewer people watching free-to-air TV, the licence fee is getting harder to justify, but there is no consensus as to what should replace it.
However, within the BBC at least, there probably is a consensus that the last thing licence fee payers want to see their money spent on is a multimillion-pound compensation payment to Donald Trump.
This has come to a head because the president has finally filed his lawsuit demanding damages worth up to to $10bn for the way a BBC Panorama documentary edited a clip from the speech he gave to supporters on 6 January 2021 before they attacked the US Capitol. Here is our overnight story by Callum Jones and Jeremy Barr.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has regularly accused the BBC of being biased on particular issues and, when news of the Panorama edit became a political controversy (more than a year after the programme was actually broadcast), she merrily joined the chorus of people attacking the BBC over the way the programme was put together. What British voters made of her comments is not entirely clear, but she seems to have impressed the president’s legal team, who quote her in the lawsuit to support their case. They say:
Conservative party leader and member of parliament Kemi Badenoch said that the distortion of the speech by the Panorama documentary was “absolutely shocking,” adding: “That is fake news, actually putting different things together to make something look different from what it actually was.” She continued: “And I do think heads should roll. Whoever it was who did that should be sacked, that’s what Tim Davie should be doing, identifying who put out misinformation, and sacking them.” Badenoch added: “The public need to be able to trust our public broadcaster .. . They should not be telling us things that are not true. This is a corporation that needs to hold itself to the highest standards, and that means that when we see people doing the wrong thing, they should be punished, they should be sacked.”
Keir Starmer has, up to now, done his best to avoid getting embroiled in this row, arguing that the BBC is operationally independent and that this is a matter for the corporation and the president to settle themselves. Although there were suggestions at one point that he and Trump would speak about the dispute, that does not seem to have happened. However, he may find it hard to remain uninvolved as this goes on. The lawsuit has been filed as there is evidence in other areas – trade policy, for example – that US-UK relations are no longer quite as warm as they were at the time of the state visit.
But Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is more than happy to speak out. He has regularly urged Starmer to be more robust with Trump in public, over a range of issues, and this morning he said the PM should tell Trump his compensation demand is unacceptable. He said:
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump’s outrageous legal threat and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.
The Trump administration has clearly set out they want to interfere in our democracy, which includes undermining our national broadcaster.
The prime minister needs to make clear this is unacceptable.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
10am: Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor and former PM, resumes giving evidence to the Covid inquiry about the economic response to the pandemic.
11am: John Healey, the defence secretary, hosts a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius.
11am: Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, holds a press conference.
2pm: Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.
Late afternoon: Peers vote on the employment rights bill, with business groups urging Tory and cross-bench peers to drop their opposition to the one measure that stopped it being passed last week.
We are also getting 17 written ministerial statements today, which is what tends to happen shortly before a holiday recess, as ministers clear the decks. Today’s statements cover the BBC charter review, sentencing reform and planning reform, among other topics.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
