Starmer urged to stand up for BBC against Trump’s ‘outrageous’ $10bn lawsuit – UK politics live
Ed Davey says prime minister must make it clear lawsuit is ‘unacceptable’ as US president quotes Badenoch to back ‘fake news’ claimGood morning. Ministers are due to publish today a...
By Andrew Sparrow · The Guardian World
Ed Davey says prime minister must make it clear lawsuit is ‘unacceptable’ as US president quotes Badenoch to back ‘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. 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 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. Continue reading...