Yvette Cooper rejects Trump administration's claim Europe at risk of 'civilisational erasure' becaue of migration
Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has rejected the Trump administration’s claim that Europe faces “civilisational erasure” because of issues like migration and ethnic diversity.
While she did not criticise the president in personal terms, in evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee she firmly dismissed one of the central ideas in his administration’s new national security strategy.
The document says that “economic decline [in Europe] is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure” and that migration is one of the main reasons for this. It says: “Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less.”
Cooper told the committee that, while the government agreed with some aspects of the strategy (which also calls for higher European defence spending), there were other areas where the UK took a different view.
She went on:
I think [it] wouldn’t surprise you that we’d take a different view on the strength of European democracies, the strength of our freedoms, our support for communities and our social cohesion as well.
And I think if you want to talk about the centuries of civilisation that we have to be proud of, our cultural industries are stronger than they have ever been. It’s a more important part of our economy than it has ever been.
We have strong and diverse communities who are proud to be British, who are an incredibly important part of the kind of country that we are, and we celebrate that, and will continue to do so.
Cooper said it was possible for the UK and the US to have “robust differences” on some topics. And she dismissed that parties had to share Trump’s ideas to be patriotic.
I would also just say I regard my party as a patriotic party as well, and will continue to be very clear about the strength of our country.
I’m very proud of Britain and the diverse country that we are, the creative, dynamic country that we are, and also the strong ally that we are to all sorts of countries across the world.
Cooper was more critical of the Trump document than her junior ministerial colleague, Seema Malhotra, who answered an urgent question about it in the Commons last week.
During that UQ, the former Labour minister Liam Byrne said the document had echoes of “some extreme rightwing tropes that date back to the 1930s”. In a post at the time I described this as a reference to the Nazis, but Byrne subsequently got in touch to say he was not referring to the Nazis but to Oswald Spengler, a German philosopher who wrote The Decline of the West in the 1920s and whose ideas influenced the ‘great replacement theory’ popular with the far right today. Byrne has explained this in more detail in a post on his Radical Centre Substack.
Minister rejects plea from Jeremy Corbyn for meeting about concerns of health of Palestine Action hunger strikers
A Home Office minister has refused a request from Jeremy Corbyn for a meeting to discuss the plight of eight remand prisoners accused of offences related to Palestine Action who are on hunger strike.
Corbyn raised the issued during justice questions when he said there were “deep concerns” about the group, five of whom have already been taken to hospital.
The group have various demands, including immediate bail and the lifting the ban on Palestine Action. The first activists started their hunger strike in October.
Corbyn asked:
There are a number of prisoners at the present time who are undertaking a hunger strike. They are remand prisoner and some of them don’t have a trial date until 2027.
There are deep concerns expressed by them, their families and their legal representatives about access to medical treatment and the way they have been treated when taken to hospital as well.
To help the situation, would the minister be able to meet their legal representatives, and families if necessary, in order to discuss the situation and try and move forward to help the safety of these particular prisoners?
Jake Richards, a Home Office minister, replied:
No.
Luckily, the Ministry of Justice and the Prison Service has robust and proper guidance and procedures for when these scenarios come to fruition.
I am satisfied, and the ministry is satisfied, that those procedures are being enacted, and we will continue to keep it under review.
Around the same time Corbyn released a letter on social media, signed by more than 50 MPs and peers, also calling for a ministerial meeting with laywers representing the eight remand prisoners. He said:
More than 50 MPs and Peers have joined me in urging David Lammy to immediately meet with the lawyers of those on hunger strike.
The government needs to wake up, take responsibility, and show some humanity before it is too late
Two of the eight have been on hunger strike for 45 days, and their relatives have warned they could die if the matter is not resolved.
A reader asks:
@ Andrew. Can we make any link between the BBC case and the US pausing the 41bn of tech investments?
Not really, other than that they are both evidence of Donald Trump being capricious.
BBC vows to defend itself in $10bn Donald Trump lawsuit
The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit that the US president, Donald Trump filed against it, Eleni Courea and Jamie Grierson report.
Jim Dickson (Lab) says that Gwain Towler, the former Ukip, Brexit party and Reform UK press officer, is on record as saying that he asked Nathan Gill why he was making pro-Russian statements in the European parliament, but accepted Gill’s claim it was a free speech issue. He says this sort of approach is not good enough.
Dickson is referring to a post that Towler wrote on his Substack blog.
I remember vividly when Nathan first started raising questions about Ukraine in the European Parliament. This was around 2018, as tensions simmered between Kyiv and Moscow. In my role as UKIP’s comms chief, I gave him a proper rollicking, our party’s focus was Brexit and the UK, not meddling in Eastern European geopolitics. It was completely outside our purview, a distraction that could dilute our message and alienate supporters.
But Nathan countered smoothly, framing it as a matter of freedom of speech, defending the right to question narratives about press freedom and political persecution in Ukraine. He argued passionately that MEPs should speak freely without fear of censorship. I accepted his explanation at face value; after all, we were the party of free expression, weren’t we? It seemed principled, even bold. Little did I know, those “questions” were the opening salvos in a far more sinister agenda.
Here is the news release from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the inquiry into foreign financial interference in UK politics.
Reed confirms that crypto currency will be in scope for this review.
Paul Waugh (Lab) returned to Nathan Gill, and said there were at least eight MEPs, either in the Brexit party or Ukip, were approached by Gill and asked to make pro-Russia statement. He went on:
What is it about parties led by [Nigel Farage] that makes them uniquely susceptible to foreign bribes?
Reed said he would not comment on specific allegations. He said this review is about protecting democracy in the round.
Stephen Gethins (SNP) asks if the EU referendum will be in scope for this inquiry.
Reed says the government is “not seeking to relitigate the past”, and he says there is no evidence that foreign interference has affected the results of elections in the past.
Chris Law (SNP) asks if any law changes might place before May, when the local, Scottish and Welsh elections are taking place.
Reed says he cannot anticipate the review will find.
Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, says that while Reed claims to be championing democracy now, he recently cancelled some local elections. He says that Reform of course welcomes the review. But he demands an assurance that it will also cover Chinese influence over Labour. He refers to Barry Gardiner taking money from a Chinese lawyer who was subsequently identified as a Chinese government agent.
Reed says the inquiry will look at all potential sources of malign, foreign interference.
He says, if any failings are identified, party leaders should put the national interest first.
Rosie Wrighting says a former Brexit party MEP who made similar comments to Nathan Gill refused to answer questions from the BBC about possible bribes. She asks for an assurance this will be looked at.
Reed says no stone will be left unturned.
Calum Miller (Lib Dem) follows, and he makes the same point. He says there is evidence that other MEPs were targeted for bribes. He asks for an assurance that the review will be able to go back and look at past cases.
Reed does not give that assurance. He says the purpose of the review is not to relitigate past cases and it will be forward looking.
Reed says review into foreign financial interference into UK politics will not look into individual cases
Sean Woodcock (Lab) said Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, recently accepted hospitality from Lubov Chernukhin, a Conservative donor and the wife of Russia’s former deputy finance minister.
Woodock asked if the review would cover accepting gifts from Russian oligarchs.
Reed said the review would not consider individual case, but instead the wider issue of foreign financial interference.
Paul Holmes, a shadow housing minister, responded to Reed for the Conservatives. He welcomed the decision to hold a review, but criticised the government for its decision to postpone some local elections.
Speaking for the Liberal Democrats, Zöe Franklin also welcomed the announcement.
But she also urged the government to go further and consider the case for a cap on the amount individuals can give to political parties. She says a small number of very rich people have too much influence over British politics.
Reed said the government was already planning to close loopholes in the legislation on foreign donations.
But he said, since the government’s strategy was published, “events have shown that we need to consider whether our firewall is enough”.
Reed said the findings of the review would influence the elections bill being introduced next year. He said:
The findings of the independent review will build on both the government’s elections strategy and counter political interference and espionage action plan, and inform the elections and democracy bill that we will bring forward next year.
Former permanent secretary Philip Rycroft to lead review of foreign financial interference in UK politics
Reed said Philip Rycroft, a former permanent secretary at the Brexit department, will lead the inquiry “into foreign financial interference in UK politics”.
He said Rycroft would report to Reed, and to the security minister, Dan Jarvis.
The purpose of the review is to provide an in-depth assessment of the current financial rules and safeguards, and make recommendations.
Rycroft will report by the end of March, and make recommendations.
Reed says inquiry need to ensure that Nathan Gill-style bribery case 'can never happen again'
Reed told MPs that Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK leader in Wales, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail for taking bribes linked to Russia. This was the longest sentence in a case like this in recent history, he said.
Now that Gill has been convicted, Reed said it was important to “take a step back to look at how we can protect our democracy against such appalling crimes”.
An elected politician took bribes to parrot the lies of a hostile state responsible for the death of Dawn Sturgess – a British citizen on British soil.
He took the side of those responsible for invading a sovereign European state.
And he was prosecuted while Putin’s military targeted the civilian men, women and children of Ukraine.
At the time he sat as a member of the European parliament, supposedly representing the British people, and went on to become a senior leader of a UK party.
We must learn the lessons so that this can never happen again.
Steve Reed announces review of foreign financial interference in British politics following Nathan Gill conviction
Steve Reed, the housing, communities and local government secretary, has announced a review into foreign financial interference in British politics.
In a statement to MPs, he says he is responding to the conviction of Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK leader in Wales.
Updated
Reform UK unveils rethink in Send policy after backlash, and criticises level of spending going to private equity providers
Reform UK may not have performed a full U-turn this morning, but Richard Tice, the deputy leader, did try his hand at a significant reset that more or less counts as one. He was trying to repair the damage that he caused at a press conference about Send (special educational needs and disabilities) last month.
As my colleague John Harris revealed in his Politics Weekly podcast last week, even though the Tice press conference was not widely reported, parents with children noticed what he had said. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and others in the party have long claimed that special educational needs are being over-diagnosed. But Tice went a bit further, claiming that parents were gaming the system – and saying that allowing Send children to wear ear defenders in class (a relatively common practice for autistic children who get distressed by loud noises) was “insane”.
John was quoting More in Common focus group research in his podcast, and here are just two of the comments they wrote up after a focus group conducted with Reform UK supporters.
The National Autistic Society also denounced the Tice comments last month as “a new low”.
There were various elements to the Tice reset. Here are the main points.
Tice apologised for what he said last month. He opened the press conference saying:
The first word I want to say is sorry.
Yes, four weeks ago, when I gave a press conference, I offended a number of people talking about Send.
We never stop learning in life, and what that told us is that everybody is unhappy, frustrated, angry, furious about what is going on in the Send system.
As apologises go, this was a bit mealy mouthed. Tice did not specify exactly what he was apologising for, and his “everybody is unhappy” comment implied it was not really his fault. Still, he did say sorry.
Tice said that Andrea Jenkyns, the former Tory minister who is now mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, will lead a review of the Send system for the party. He said:
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 Jenkyns, who has considerable professional and personal experience in this sector.
Tice said that Reform councillors and experts will also join the group, which will produce an interim report in the first quarter of 2026.
Jenkyns is neurodiverse (she has ADHD), and her son has special educational needs too. In the past she has criticised Farage’s position on Send.
But Tice did not resile from claims that there is over-diagnosis. He said that, after the controversy about his remarks last month, he received various letters, some of which were from young people who were “cross with their own parents who had, in a sense, had them labelled in the SEN system and they felt that disadvantaged them at school”. He also said that GPs are saying that Send is over-diagnosed – in an apparent reference to this report.
Tice suggested a much better system was possible. He said:
Imagine the optimistic scenario. Imagine that we did not call children disabled, that we learned from other nations where people are called differently abled …
Imagine a system where children don’t have to travel in a taxi every day 60 to 90 minutes to a specialist school.
Imagine having a specialist school in rural areas within two or three villages. Imagine using redundant churches five days a week that are currently only used one day a week. I have literally seen with my eyes how successful that can be, a school in the north of England renting a church five days a week.
Tice criticised the amount of money being spent by councils on private schools owned by private equity providers. He said:
There are some strange things going on in this sector. For example, many of you may not there are now some over 30,000 places, independent specialist places, that are funded for profit. They are funded by private equity groups that see this as one of the big growth areas, turning over £2bn plus.
Tice said these private equity-owned schools were charging “more than Eton”. He went on:
Something’s not quite right here. It does not compute. It does not seem sensible.
Tice suggested it would be better for charities to run these schools instead. “That could be a great way forward,” he said. He also praised a report from the County Councils Network on Send which he said he would urge everyone to read. The report calls for the government to invest in “building capacity in mainstream schools to meet more SEND children’s needs, such as therapists, educational psychologists, and wider inclusion and preventative support”.
This is quite a shift from the normal Reform UK line, which is normally to praise outsourcing to the private sector.
The Reform UK rethink may have been prompted, not just by the backlash to what Tice said last month, but by what newly-elected Reform councillors are saying. In her excellent account of Reform UK in power at Lancashire county council published at the weekend, Helen Pidd quoted a Reform councillor who looked shocked when told what Farage had said about Send, and who insisted that she knew better because she had personal experience of the system.
Updated
There are two urgent questions in the Commons today after justice questions.
12.30pm: A Foreign Office minister responds to a Tory UQ about “the rights of British Chagossians to access the Trust Fund and resettle on the Chagos Archipelago”.
After 1pm: A Foreign Office minister responds to a UQ from a Labour backbencher about the UK’s “new approach to Africa.
Then there will be two ministerial statements.
After 1.30pm: Steve Reed, the housing secretary, will make a statement on “electoral resilience”.
After 2.30pm: Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, will make a statement about the next phase of planning reform.
Tice declines to restate his claim that people who say they recall Farage being racist at school are lying
Q: Are you still saying that the people who were at school with Nigel Farage and who recall him making racist comments were all making things up?
Tice says that is “old news” and that the party covered that a couple of weeks ago. He has moved on, he says.
And that was the end of the Q&A.
Q: Are you worried that it might be a mistake to side with Donald Trump, who is not popular in the UK, and against the BBC, which is popular?
Tice says the BBC produces some very good programme. But sometimes it gets things wrong.
And, with more people using services like Netflix, the way the BBC is funded needs to be reviewed.
Tice refuses to condemn Reform UK mayoral candidate for saying David Lammy should 'go home to Caribbean'
Q: Is it acceptable for someone like Chris Parry, the Reform UK mayoral candidate, to tell a black Briton that they should go home to the Caribbean?
Tice claims he has answered this already (he hasn’t), and he asks if the questioner has anything to ask about special needs.
Tice refuses to say if he thinks BBC should fight Trump's lawsuit or settle?
Q: Should the BBC settle with Trump in response to his lawsuit?
Tice says his answer is the same; the BBC should reform.
He does not answer the question.
Q: What do you think is behind the rise in the number of Send children?
Tice says it might be Covid, or children being out of school for a long time, or social media, or a combination of all those things. The “jury is out”.
But to just keep throwing money at this is not a solution.
Q: Would it be right for the BBC to give licence fee payers money to Donald Trump?
Tice says Trump is entitled to be angry with the BBC about the way it reported his speech. He says he does not know how this will end up. But he says he wants the BBC to change.
Tice say he does not think people are aware of how much private equity involvement there is in Send provision.
He says, if this is “money for old rope from a monopolistic supplier”, a new approach might be needed.
He says he thinks the money can be spent more effectively. He says joint ventures might be a better approach.
And, for the second time, he references approvinngly a County Councils Network report looking at this issue.
Q: Do you support what your mayoral candidate Chris Parry said about David Lammy needing to return to the Caribbean?
Tice ignores the question, and just says Reform UK will judge the party on how it is delivering.
Updated
Tice says private providers sometimes charge “more than Eton” for private provision for Send children.
He suggests provision might be better and cheaper provided in-house by local authories. He again references his church hall proposal. (See 11.22am.)
Q: What is your view of Trump’s legal action against the BBC?
Tice says this is an opportunity for the BBC to operate in a different way.
Tice is now taking questions.
He says his key message is that Reform is determined to ensure that this system works better.
He says it will different options in councils. And he suggests the party will work on a cross-party basis with other parties.
Tice says 'sorry', in apparent reference to past jibe about ear defenders, as he announces Reform UK review of Send policy
Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, starts his press conference by saying “sorry”. He says at a press conference four weeks ago he said something the offended parents of Send children.
He says this shows how difficult the subject is; it is hard not to cause offence, he suggests.
And he says that some of the letters he received were from children who did not like having a Send diagnosis. He suggests this back up claims about Send being over-diagnosed.
He claims he has personal knowledge of cases of people being over-diagnosed. He knows that offends some charities, he says. But imagine if we learned from other countries and, instead of calling people disabled, we called them differently abled, he says.
He asks people to imagine Send children not having to travel 90 minutes by taxi to get to school.
And he asks people to imagine empty church halls being used for Send provision.
He also announces that Reform UK is setting up a review of Send provision.
Tice’s apology seems to be a reference to a press conference last month when he said that allowing Send children to wear ear defenders in school was “insane”.
He was referring to the way autistic children in particular are often highly sensitive to noise, and some of them wear ear defenders in a classroom setting to minimise the distress they can experience from hearing yelling. Disability campaigners were horrified by the remark.
Updated
Tice is about to hold a press conference to discuss Reform UK plans for special educational needs and disabilities (Send) reform. There is a live feed here.
Richard Tice says Reform UK agrees with Trump in wanting 'wholesale change' at BBC
Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, has said that he agrees with Donald Trump in wanting “wholesale change” at the BBC. In an interview on GB News, asked about Trump’s lawsuit, Tice said:
What I’m supportive of is the fact that President Trump is requesting and requiring much greater recognition within the BBC, just how badly they got things wrong and the wholesale change that needs to take place.
It’s already resulted in the director general and the head of news going, but there needs to be a wholesale clear out of the bias in the BBC, whether it’s the bias against President Trump, whether it’s the bias against the Jewish community. There’s so many areas where the BBC has to do much, much better.
There’s much that’s great about the BBC, but in the news section they get things consistently wrong, and that’s why wholesale reform is required. That’s why we’ve said that we would reform the funding model for the BBC.
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.
Updated
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”.
Updated
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.
Updated
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.
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