Starmer declines to agree to Ed Davey’s call for him to tell Trump to drop his $1bn against BBC
Andrew Sparrow
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says President Trump “is trying to destroy our BBC, not because he cares about the truth, but because he doesn’t want to get away with his lies”. Will the PM tell Trump to drop his demand for a $1bn settlement from the BBC.
Starmer says he will always stand up for a “strong, independent BBC”.
Davey says the Tories also undermined the BBC. They put two cronies on the BBC board. One, Robbie Gibb, is still there. Will the PM sack him now?
Starmer says he agrees the last government undermined the BBC; they undermined almost everything, he says.
But he says he won’t go into the internal workings of the BBC.
More from PMQs here.
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Updated at 07.45 EST
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There’s a missing link in British public life – and it underpins crises from the BBC to our prisons, writes Guardian columnist Rafael Behr:
Britain’s national broadcaster is unusually well respected as a venerable institution and a provider of reliable news. That reputation has made it an effective force countering fragmentation and radicalisation in the information space. Without it, UK politics would go (further) down the US path of extreme polarisation, tending towards civil unrest.
That is why the story of shoddy editorial practices described in a leaked internal memo, leading to the resignation of senior executives, is doubly grim. It is inherently bad that editorial standards went awry – far awry in the case of Panorama’s slyly edited video of a Donald Trump speech to an insurrectionary mob. And it is disastrous that such failures empower Trump and his legion of fellow-travellers in British politics and media to portray the BBC as irredeemably corrupt.
The frenzy is out of proportion to the offence, but consistent with a longstanding vendetta. The BBC is a target for rival news organisations that resent its unique status and privileged funding. It is also ideologically threatening to the radical right because the licence-fee model is an exemplar of a mutually funded public good. The corporation doesn’t have to exhibit liberal-left bias to provoke its enemies. They already see it as a factory shipping cultural collectivism and resent the purchase it has on the nation’s affections.
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Donald Trump has sued several US outlets so far in his second term – some cases of which have been thrown out in the courts.
For example there’s the $15bn case he brought against the New York Times and two of its reporters, for a series of news articles and a book about his time on the show The Apprentice, and his earlier life.
That case had argued that reporting describing Trump’s multimillion-dollar inheritance from his father as a product of “fraudulent tax evasion schemes” was false and defamatory.
However as my colleague, Guardian US’ politics and democracy reporter George Chidi wrote in September, a federal judge tossed out the lawsuit in September describing the claim as filled with “vituperation and invective” and violating civil procedure in federal cases for failing to get to the point.
Trump refiled the case in October- tending a much shorter submission this time around. The lawsuit is ongoing.
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Updated at 10.13 EST
As well as voicing his thoughts on the BBC and Donald Trump’s lawsuit threat at today’s at prime minister’s questions (PMQs), Ed Davey also reiterated his call to Keir Starmer to tell the US president to drop his demand for a $1bn settlement from the BBC, in a post on X.
The Liberal Democrat leader wrote after PMQs:
Donald Trump is coming for the BBC and for your wallets. I urged the prime minister to stand up for the 23.8 million licence fee paying households, and tell Trump he won’t get a penny.
During parliament, Davey had told MPs that Trump had undermined press freedom in America and he was now trying to do the same thing in the UK, where he was being “disgracefully egged on” by Reform leader Nigel Farage.
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Updated at 10.20 EST
Trump is threatening to sue the BBC in Florida over what he says was a deceptively edited documentary. He told Fox News the “butchered” video made him seem far more “radical” in his speech on 6 January to supporters, many of whom later stormed the Capitol.
But the case would hinge on whether anyone in Florida watched it and felt misled. If there was an audience so affected, then a US court would need to determine whether the BBC had intentionally tried to deceive viewers.
Trump’s role in invoking political violence from his supporters on January 6, 2021, has already been thoroughly investigated.
A US congressional committee during Biden’s term in the White House concluded that Trump was involved in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the legal results of the 2020 election.
That committee was led by Democrats but also had Republican members. Eight Republicans at the time voted with Democrats to indict Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election’s results.
Prosecutors then charged Trump in 2023 with offences such as conspiracy to defraud the US, and obstructing official proceedings. But those criminal cases and the indictments did not prevent Trump from running for office again – and winning.
Since retaking the White House, the President has continued to downplay his actions on January 6, calling the Capitol riots as “a day of love”. On his first day in office this year he granted clemency to all those charged for storming the Capitol, including those already convicted for their violent acts.
Last weekend he also issued preemptive pardons to several of his allies involved in seeking to overturn the 2020 election vote.
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Updated at 09.04 EST
What action did the BBC take to address the Trump edit issue?
Frances Mao
How exactly did the BBC deal with the Trump video edit complaint when it came to their attention?
A reminder to readers, the complaint did not come from the White House or Trump himself, nor did it come from viewers who watched the programme when it was broadcast last year.
Instead it was raised internally by Michael Prescott and David Grossman, external advisers on the BBC’s ethics and standards committee. Grossman had undertaken a review of BBC News’s entire US election coverage last year, which also raised other concerns about balanced reporting. (For example, he said the BBC had put too much emphasis on a poll which appeared to show Kamala Harris on track to winning the 2024 vote.)
Samir Shah, Chair of the BBC’s board, published a letter to a parliamentary committee on Monday detailing what action was taken in response to the Trump edit.
He said the standards panel had discussed the issue at a meeting in January, and again in May.
BBC News had told the standards panel that the purpose of editing the clip “was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time”, Shah said.
The Panorama programme was informed of the complaint but no further action was taken. “With hindsight, it would have been better to take more formal action,” Shah wrote.
He said after Prescott’s letter was leaked and published by a UK tabloid last week, the edit had drawn over 500 complaints and prompted “further refection” by the board.
Shah conceded that there had been an “error of judgement” made, and the BBC wished to apologise for it.
“We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”
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Updated at 10.22 EST
Starmer also said the BBC must “get its house in order” in regards to editorial mistakes.
However he added he supported a strong and independent BBC, and the case for impartiality is “stronger than ever” in an age of disinformation.
“I believe in a strong and independent BBC. Some would rather the BBC didn’t exist. Some of them are sitting up there. I’m not one of them.”
“In an age of disinformation, the argument for impartial British news service is stronger than ever, and where mistakes are made, they do need to get their house in order, and the BBC must uphold the highest standards to be accountable and correct errors quickly.”
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Updated at 07.44 EST
Starmer declines to agree to Ed Davey’s call for him to tell Trump to drop his $1bn against BBC
Andrew Sparrow
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says President Trump “is trying to destroy our BBC, not because he cares about the truth, but because he doesn’t want to get away with his lies”. Will the PM tell Trump to drop his demand for a $1bn settlement from the BBC.
Starmer says he will always stand up for a “strong, independent BBC”.
Davey says the Tories also undermined the BBC. They put two cronies on the BBC board. One, Robbie Gibb, is still there. Will the PM sack him now?
Starmer says he agrees the last government undermined the BBC; they undermined almost everything, he says.
But he says he won’t go into the internal workings of the BBC.
More from PMQs here.
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Updated at 07.45 EST
Let’s take a look again at the 12-second clip that’s triggered this lawsuit threat from President Trump.
A comparison of the original and edited footage shows how the BBC selectively edited a Donald Trump speech from January 6 2021, resulting in the organisation being accused of making it appear clearer that he encouraged the US Capitol attack.
Side-by-side comparison of BBC-edited Trump speech from day of Capitol attack with original – video
This was one scene in the hour-long Panorama episode Trump: A Second Chance? about Trump’s supporters and his political prospects in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. It followed some of Trump’s most ardent supporters who wanted to get him back in the White House
The BBC broadcast the documentary in October 2024, one week before Trump won the election on 5 November.
They did not receive any reader complaints on it at the time. It was brought to the attention of the board’s ethics and standards committee, and discussed, at meetings in January and May this year.
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Updated at 07.58 EST
Margaret Sullivan, Guardian US’s media politics and culture columnist, argues the BBC’s editing error was bad, but the response is over the top.
The BBC’s error in a documentary film about Donald Trump was a serious one. During the editing, two clips of the president speaking to his riled-up crowd of followers in Washington were juxtaposed, even though there was nearly an hour between the two. The edited version could have made viewers believe Trump had made an unmistakable call for violence at the US Capitol that day. He did make inflammatory statements, of course, and he does bear significant responsibility for the riot at the Capitol that day, but he skirted the direct instruction that the film suggested.
So, yes, this was a bad mistake that was not adequately acknowledged or corrected when there was a chance to do so. That is something that calls for internal examination and external acknowledgment, some of which has occurred.
But the current aftermath of the long-ago error – the film was published last year before the US presidential election – is significantly out of proportion.
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Updated at 06.23 EST
Acting BBC news head to address journalists this afternoon
Frances Mao
Jonathan Munro, the deputy head of news, and the News Board will address staff working in the news division in a meeting this afternoon.
It follows yesterday’s all-staff call, where outgoing director general Tim Davie said there had been a “weaponisation” of criticism, and urged staff to carry on with their work.
BBC board Chair Samir Shah in the call also deflected questions from staff as to why the board had not acted sooner to defend their journalism.
Munro has taken charge of all editorial newsmaking decisions in the wake of Deborah Turness stepping down as head of the news division.
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Updated at 05.49 EST
You can see the relevant parts of Donald Trump’s interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham here, outlining his stance on the BBC.
Donald Trump says he has ‘obligation’ to sue BBC in Fox News interview – videoShare
The threat to sue the BBC follows various other warnings by the US president against media companies who he has disagreed with.
In July, Paramount, parent company of CBS News, chose to settle a case in which Trump had argued that the company had violated consumer protection laws by misleadingly editing a 60 Minutes interview of then vice-president Kamala Harris. Legal experts had not viewed it as a strong case for the president but company leadership saw it as an unnecessary distraction, particularly as it sought US government approval of a merger with Skydance Media. Paramount ultimately paid $16m.
Trump also won a settlement last year from ABC, owned by Disney, which he had sued over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. ABC agreed to pay $15m.
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Updated at 05.11 EST
The letter from Donald Trump’s lawyer to the BBC sets a deadline of 14 November – this Friday – for it to respond and calls for a “full and fair retraction” of the documentary, an apology, and that the BBC “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused”. If it does not comply then it says he will launch his $1bn legal action.
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