Articles by Annabelle Dickson

World

The BBC’s fight with Trump couldn’t have come at a worse time 

Opposition politicians wasted no time defining the terms of battle. “Just getting rid of two members of staff does not eradicate the cultural problems that lie deep within the BBC and have for many, many decades,” Nigel Farage, a Trump ally who leads Britain’s poll-topping Reform UK party — and could well become the country’s next prime minister — told a press conference Monday as supporters cheered on. In his sights too: an overhaul of the BBC’s decades-old funding model, which depends on an annual fee paid by individual households. “This isn’t about Trump. Trump’s just the final straw of what we’ve seen over the course of the last weeks, months, and indeed, decades,” said Farage. The crisis has left Britain’s liberals stuck in the middle. In a letter sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform’s Nigel Farage today, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey called for British politicians to defend the BBC, warning: “The BBC belongs to Britain, not Trump.” ‘Error of judgement’ The latest BBC crisis was triggered last week when the Telegraph newspaper published a memo written by Michael Prescott, the BBC’s former standards adviser, covering a range of alleged failings in its content. That included its coverage of transgender issues, the war in Gaza, and Trump’s presidency.