The BBC will fight a $10bn defamation lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over its Panorama speech edit, the broadcaster has said.
President Trump is claiming the broadcaster “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” doctored a speech he made before the US Capitol riots in January 2021 to appear as if he had incited the violence.
In a statement, the corporation said it would not be changing its previous stance on defending the case, but refused to comment further. The BBC previously apologised for the edit, but refused to pay the president compensation.
Mr Trump’s lawyers said on Monday that he had filed a $10bn lawsuit against the BBC in a Florida court for claims of defamation and violating trade practices.
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer is under growing pressure to intervene as top politicians urged him to back the UK’s national broadcaster.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said prime minister should “stand up for the BBC against Trump’s outrageous legal threat”.
But former culture secretary Baroness Nicky Morgan warned that it was the BBC’s board which “needs to get a grip,” saying Mr Trump’s lawsuit was “inevitable”.
Kemi Badenoch quoted in ‘fake news’ evidence in Trump lawsuit
Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch has been quoted in Donald Trump’s lawsuit as evidence of his claims over the BBC’s “fake news”.
In the lawsuit it says: “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.’”
BBC wants change to ‘deliver for the UK for generations to come’, Tim Davie says
Outgoing BBC director-general Tim Davie has responded to the launch of the royal charter review and said the BBC wants change “so we can continue to deliver for the UK for generations to come”.
“We welcome the publication of the government’s Green Paper and the start of the public consultation on the future of the BBC”, he said.
“We urge everyone who cares about the success of the UK’s world-leading creative industries to have their say.
“At the BBC we want change so we can continue to deliver for the UK for generations to come.
“We want to secure a public service BBC that is independent, sustainably funded for the long term, and meets our audience’s needs.”
Reform UK announce working group on ‘broken’ Send system
Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice has announced a working group to examine issues in the “broken” special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system.
He told a Westminster press conference that the group will be chaired by Reform’s Greater Lincolnshire Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns.
“The Send system is broken in Britain, and Reform are determined to fix it. And that’s why I’m announcing today that we are setting up a Send working group to be chaired by Dame Andrea Jenkins, who has considerable professional and personal experience in this sector.”
He said Reform councillors and experts will also join the group, which will produce an interim report in the first quarter of 2026.
51 MPs and peers urge Lammy to meet Palestine Action hunger strike lawyers
A group of 51 MPs and peers have come together to write to home secretary David Lammy over the fate of eight Palestine Action protesters on hunger strike in prison.
The letter, seen by the Press Association, expresses “dismay” at the government’s “lack of action to protect the health and wellbeing of British citizens”.
Labour MPs Rachael Maskell (York Central), Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill), Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree), Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) and Simon Opher (Stroud) are among the 51 signatories to the letter.
Also on the list are former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Mother of the House Diane Abbott, who both now sit as independent MPs, as well as Labour MP John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington).
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson responded that the deputy prime minister is “being kept informed of the situation” and that “appropriate action” will always be taken.
Doctors reject claims patients will die as result of strike action
The NHS is bracing itself for resident doctors to walk out for a five-day strike from 7am tomorrow.
It comes after members of the British Medical Association (BMA) voted to reject Wes Streeting’s latest offer and go ahead with industrial action in the run-up to Christmas.
Former BMA member Lord Winston, who quit the union in protest over the strikes, said on Monday that he thought people would die as a result.
But BMA chiefs have rejected claims that people may die. Dr Shivam Sharma, deputy chairman of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, told LBC Radio: “I would completely disagree with that, and I want to be evidence-based – we know that senior colleagues, consultants will be covering this strike action, and we know that studies have shown that mortality rates do not increase, they stay the same, if not decrease during strike action because we have those experienced senior consultants that are covering.
“And actually, what’s dangerous for patients is continuing down this trend where doctors continue to leave, patients aren’t getting the care that they deserve, and doctors are feeling that they’re in a system that is setting them up to fail.”
Britain would have faced ‘business Armageddon’ without government loan scheme during Covid, Sunak says
Rishi Sunak has said Britain would have faced “widespread business Armageddon” if the government did not intervene with a loan scheme to see them through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry for a second day, former prime minister and chancellor Mr Sunak insisted the risks of businesses not paying back Covid-era loans was “unequivocally” worth it, when balanced against the risks of inaction.
He told the inquiry: “To go back to these couple of weeks… it felt existential.
“We were facing a situation where businesses, I think it actually came from the British Chambers of Commerce, I think something like half of all small and medium-sized businesses had less than a month’s cash in the bank.
“You were facing widespread business Armageddon and that is why there was an imperative to act at scale and at pace to prevent what I think would have been catastrophic loss of businesses and jobs. The independent evaluation has suggested up to 3 million jobs and half a million businesses that were saved as a result of these interventions.”
He added: “There was an imperative to get this right and to get it out, and get the money to the businesses as soon as humanly possible, and you just did not have the luxury of, quite frankly didn’t have the luxury of weeks, let alone months. If a business out of cash, and it goes bankrupt, it goes bankrupt. That’s that.”
Watch: Former BBC director says broadcaster should not pay Trump
BREAKING: BBC will fight lawsuit, broadcaster says
The BBC has said it will fight a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” a BBC spokesperson said.
Watch live: Rishi Sunak gives evidence to Covid-19 inquiry for second day
Rishi Sunak is giving evidence to the Covid-19 inquiry for a second day.
You can watch it live below:
Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk
