Starmer urged to stand up for BBC against Trump’s ‘outrageous’ $10bn lawsuit – UK politics live | Politics

Donald Trump could get a deal worth about $10 million from the BBC, a friend of the president says.

In an interview on the Today programme, Christopher RuddyTrump, who has known Trump for years and runs right-wing media company Newsmax, said that although the BBC had a strong defense under US law, it would also have great incentives to reach a deal. He explained:

When an American case like this proceeds, the court often grants crucial discovery powers to the plaintiff, in this case the plaintiff president. And they will get emails, speeches and private things BBC executives said about him and his campaign; these may not be very flattering, and in the making of it he may have indicated an intention to harm her.

I don’t see this happening. I’m saying it could happen.

And so the BBC, which is the defendant in this case, would probably offer a settlement rather than go through this.

Ruddy said he had advised the BBC and would encourage them to go for a “quick and easy solution” as a legal battle “won’t look good”. He continued:

[Trump] Obviously he won’t get $5 billion. If I were looking into a crystal ball, I’d say this case would probably settle for around $10 million.

The cost for the BBC to review such a case with lawyers in the United States would likely be between $50 and $100 million. And the president has an excellent, well-known defamation lawyer: Alex Brito of Miami. He is a very serious legal competitor. These things are often ugly. And that’s usually why they get the deal… I’m sure the BBC has enough money to cover a deal of this size.

In their lawsuit against the BBC, Donald Trump’s lawyers also quoted former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss to support their claim that the president was insulted. document says:

No less an authority than the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, has discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable, and the BBC’s actual pattern of bad faith.

Truss noted: “[The BBC] It is a very big problem. They’ve lied, they’ve cheated, they’ve manipulated images, particularly in the case of President Trump, but they’re also covering up what’s going on in Britain, whether it’s mass immigration or our economic problems, they’re always biased against the left. . . .” He was also asked if the BBC’s lukewarm apology was enough and he replied: “No, I don’t know, because they keep doing it over and over again. They have painted a completely false picture of President Trump in the UK for several years, and they have done the same for conservatives in our country. . . .” He lamented the BBC’s loss of its status as the “exemplary model” of journalism, stating that the BBC’s “fake news” had long caused great harm to the public.

BBC bosses ‘right to use their guns’ against Donald Trump Stephen KinnockThe health secretary said this after the US president filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the company. Eleni Courea It has a story.

Good morning. Ministers will today publish a green paper on renewing the BBC’s charter and set out plans for how the company will be funded in the 2030s. With fewer and fewer people watching free-to-air TV, it’s becoming harder to justify the license fee, but there’s no consensus on what could replace it.

However, there is probably consensus, at least within the BBC, that the last thing license fee payers want to see their money spent on is a multimillion-pound compensation payment to Donald Trump.

This situation has come to a head as the president finally filed the lawsuit seeking up to $10 billion in damages over the editing of the speech he gave to his supporters before storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a BBC Panorama documentary. Here’s our story in one night callum jones And Jeremy Barr.

Kemi Badenoch, The Conservative leader has regularly accused the BBC of bias on certain issues, and when news of the Panorama edit turned into a political controversy (more than a year after the program was actually broadcast), he gleefully joined the chorus of people attacking the BBC for the way the program was put together. It’s not entirely clear what British voters thought of his comments, but they appear to have impressed the president’s legal team, who quoted him in the case to support their cause. They say:

Conservative party leader and MP Kemi Badenoch said the distortion of the speech in the Panorama documentary was “absolutely shocking”, adding: “This is fake news, putting different things together to make something look different than it actually is.” He continued: “And I think there should be confusion. Whoever did this should be removed from office, that’s what Tim Davie needs to do, identify who is spreading the misinformation and remove them from office.” Badenoch added: “The public needs to be able to trust our public broadcaster… They shouldn’t be telling us things that aren’t true. This is a company that needs to hold itself to the highest standards and that means when we see people doing something wrong they should be punished, they should be sacked.”

Keir Starmer has so far done his best to avoid getting involved in the row, arguing that the BBC is operationally independent and that this is a matter for the corporation and the chairman to resolve between themselves. Although there were suggestions that she and Trump would talk about the dispute at some point, that does not appear to have happened. However, it may be difficult for him not to get involved while this situation is going on. The case was brought because there was evidence that US-UK relations in other areas (for example, trade policy) were no longer as warm as they were during the state visit.

However Ed DaveyThe leader of the Liberal Democrats is more than happy to speak out. He has regularly called on Starmer to be tougher on Trump publicly on a range of issues and this morning said the Prime Minister should have told Trump his compensation claim was unacceptable. He said:

Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump’s outrageous legal threat and protect license fee payers from being left out of pocket.

The Trump administration has made clear that they want to interfere with our democracy, including undermining our national broadcaster.

The Prime Minister needs to make it clear that this is unacceptable.

Here is the agenda of the day.

9.30: Keir Starmer chair cabinet.

10am: Former chancellor and former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continues to give evidence to the Covid inquiry into the economic response to the pandemic.

11am: Defense minister John Healey hosted a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius.

11am: Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, holds a press conference.

14:00: Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper testifies to the House of Commons foreign affairs committee.

Afternoon: As peers vote on the employment rights bill, business groups are calling on Tory and other colleagues to drop their opposition to the only measure that prevented it from passing last week.

We are also receiving 17 written ministerial statements today; This usually happens shortly before the holiday break, when ministers are clearing desks. Today’s announcements include the BBC charter review, sentencing reform and planning reform, among other issues.

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