Tim Davie tells BBC staff ‘we have to fight for our journalism’ but does not address Trump’s $1bn lawsuit threat – live | Politics
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- November 11, 2025
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Tim Davie tells BBC staff ‘this narrative will not just be given by our enemies’
Frances Mao
Frances Mao is a Guardian reporter.
Tim Davie, the BBC director general, has this morning addressed all BBC staff in an online call. He opened the address with an acknowledgment of the “very tough” period.
Then he rallied the troops, with a tacit acknowledgment of the “enemies” of the BBC, and the “weaponisation” of its mistakes.
These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things.
He said he heard the calls from staff to stand up for their journalism.
I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponisation. I think we have to fight for our journalism.
We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.
BBC Chair Samir Shah also addressed staff in the call. We’ll have more shortly.
Key events
MoJ releases figures saying 91 prisoners released by mistake between April and October, implying error rate reducing
The Ministry of Justice has just released figures saying 91 prisoners in England and Wales were released in error between 1 April and 31 October this year. It has not said any more about who they were.
This sounds a lot, but in the year ending March 2025 262 prisoners were released in error, or an average of about 22 per month.
These figures suggest releases in error (RiEs, in prison jargon) are now happening at the rate of 13 per month, which implies a big improvement.
But the MoJ report also says that the RiE figures get revised over time, normally upwards. That is because some mistakes may not yet have been noticed yet. It says:
Data on releases is based on the information available at the time. It may be the case in some circumstances that information on a case is brought to light that either confirms or disproves a release in error. Consequently, figures for recent months may change over time, as there has been less time for such cases to be detected. In the past, these revisions have tended to be upwards.
The HM Prison and Probation Service annual digest for 2024 to 2025 said that, of the 115 RiEs reported for the year ending March 2024, 87 were reported within that period and 28 were reported later.
There are three ministerial statements in the Commons today.
At 3.30pm, after justice questions, David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, will make a statement about prisoners released in error.
After 4.30pm, Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, will make a statement about pensions. We don’t know what it will say, but there is speculation that it will related to the call for compensation for Waspi women.
And that means that Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, will not make her statement about the BBC until after 5.30pm, perhaps closer to 6pm.
Davie defends BBC against ‘weaponisation’ of criticism
Here is Michael Savage and Frances Mao’s story on Tim Davie’s address to BBC staff this morning.
Defence minister warns of division between military and civilian population being ‘greater than it has ever been’
Dan Sabbagh
Dan Sabbagh is the Guardian’s defence and security editor.
Al Carns, a junior defence minister who also served in the elite Special Boat Service, warned on Armistice Day that “the division between the military and the population is greater than it has ever been”.
The armed forces’ minister said Britons “quickest reference” to the military today would be “probably be a film” rather than personal or family experience, given its shrunken size and an absence of direct conflict.
Speaking at a Ukraine conference at Chatham House in London, he argued this placed the UK at risk given threats from Russia and other hostile states: “It’s a dangerous place to be in the current geopolitical environment”.
The comments about the loss of the military’s salience in British public life after the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts reflect warnings made at the time of the publication of the UK’s strategic defence defence review in June.
Carns said that could be partly remedied by politicians articulating the impact of conflicts abroad.
What does the war in Ukraine really mean for the UK? It’s the biggest contribution to the cost of living crisis.
The cost of the Jaguar Land Rover bailout following a cyber attack on the car maker, at £1.5bn, was half of removing the two child benefit cap, he added, though the culprits had not yet been identified.
This is from John Simpson, the veteran BBC international affairs editor, on Donald Trump’s legal threat against the corporation. (See 11.11am and 11.57am.)
Donald Trump’s demand for a billion dollars from the BBC comes from a local Florida law firm. It was sent to the wrong address, and the writer didn’t know what ‘salacious’ really means: ‘Due to their salacious nature, the fabricated statements that were aired by the BBC…’
Epping hotel can continue to house asylum seekers, high court rules
Asylum seekers can continue to be housed at an Essex hotel that became a flashpoint for anti-immigration protests during the summer, the high court has ruled. Ben Quinn has the story.
No 10 signals PM will not intervene in dispute between Trump and BBC, and says it’s for corporation to decide on apology
No 10 has indicated that Keir Starmer will not intervene to resolve the dispute between Donald Trump and the BBC.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, a No 10 spokesperson declined to comment on the president’s threat to sue the corporation for $1bn. Asked about the issue, the spokesperson said:
This is a matter for the BBC. It’s clearly not for the government to comment on any ongoing legal matters.
Asked if the government thought the BBC should apologise directly to Trump, the spokesperson said the BBC was “editorially and operationally independent” and that these were decisions for the corporation to take.
When it was put to the spokesperson that Alison McGovern, the local government minister, said this morning the BBC should apologise (see 9.07am), the spokesperson said that the BBC has already issued a general apology. He implied that this was what McGovern was referring to.
The spokesperson suggested that Starmer has not spoken to Trump recently, and he gave no indication that Starmer plans to raise the BBC issue with the president.
Asked whether the government would help the BBC pay any damages that a court might award to Trump, the spokesperson replied:
Obviously, that’s a hypothetical question.
Again, it’s not for the government to comment on any ongoing legal matters.
Asked if the government thought the lawsuit was a threat to the BBC’s future as a broadcast, the spokesperson said:
We support a strong, independent BBC. But, again, it is not for the government to comment on any ongoing legal matters.
Asked if Starmer was worried the row might damage his relationship with the president, the spokesperson said the PM had a “very strong relationship” with Trump.
Asked if Starmer was worried that Nigel Farage, who spoke to Trump about this on Friday, might be speaking to the president more often than he is, the spokesperson said he did not accept that. He stressed that Starmer and Trump have had a good relationship since they both took office.
Davie avoids discussing Trump lawsuit threat, or giving transition timeline, in call with BBC staff
Frances Mao
Frances Mao is a Guardian reporter.
Here are some of the other key points from Tim Davie’s all-staff call with BBC colleagues
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On the offending video edit of Trump’s speech, Davie said: “We did make a mistake and there was an editorial breach and I think some responsibility had to be taken”. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen to resign, he said, along with the “relentlessness” of the role and the opportunity to clear the runway for a new director general in the lead-up to 2027 charter renewal.
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He mentioned “transition” a few times, but did not disclose details or any timeline for his departure and replacement. Shah, who joined in the call halfway, said the board was in “succession mode”.
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Davie acknowledged that senior news editors were unhappy that their journalism had not been more vigorously defended, and said that while it was important to be “out there making our case”, when it came to responding to attacks, “we have to make sure we’re getting it right when we go out” and a sense of proportionality was also communicated – the few mistakes for several hundred hours of content. “It’s important that we calmly communicate to people the wood from the trees.”
There has been no shortage of former BBC journalists setting out their views on the corporation’s current crisis. Here are three articles worth reading.
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Danny Shaw, a BBC former home affairs correspondent, says in an article for the Spectator today that groupthink was a problem when he was at the corporation.
There is nothing wrong with being proud of the organisation you work for – and there is everything right about working closely together as a team. But the danger is that it breeds a kind of ‘groupthink’ in which alternative or unfashionable views are marginalised, and where external complaints about your output are dismissed. I was sometimes guilty of it myself during 31 years at the BBC and I believe it’s at the root of the scandal that has now cost Tim Davie, the Director-General, and Deborah Turness, the CEO of News, their jobs.
Indeed, the tunnel vision that has led some BBC shows and journalists down the wrong track on the Middle East and trans issues reminds me of our past reporting on immigration. From about 2004, when the expansion of the EU sparked an influx of migrants to the UK, to the Brexit referendum in 2016, BBC News failed properly to reflect concerns about the impact of mass migration, in particular, the way it was changing the nature of many of our towns and cities.
I despair at the position it is now in. I have little to no sympathy for Tim Davie. He has helped create the problem by constantly opining on the BBC being too liberal. He has legitimised the critique which has toppled him. He appeased the same forces who have brought him down. He seemed to me to think little about what impartial journalism means in this age of universal deceit. I am also unmoved by some of the complacency the BBC often has when it talks about itself- talking about doing things “only the BBC can do”. This list is much more limited than is often presented as being. I think there is still value to a national broadcaster funded by some kind of national levy- but if the BBC cannot or will not defend itself, and if it will not stand true for a truly radical concept: fearlessly impartial journalism, not fearful management of impartiality, then it will fade away. And it’ll deserve to.
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And Mark Urban, another former Newsnight journalist, says in a post on his Substack that there is some substance in the concerns raised by Michael Prescott.
For most of the time I worked on Newsnight a lively spirit of contrarianism, an ability to set aside one’s own prejudices, a commitment to seeking a diversity of views, and having a longer production day in which to debate a topic, worked in our favour. It was balanced on most issues, particularly domestic politics.
But more recently, and in common with every other big developed world news organisation I know, generational change brought a younger, more dirigiste kind of progressivism onto the team. The language of ‘lived experience’, ‘don’t be a bystander’, and formulas such as ‘silence is violence’, entered the editorial conversation.
Thus I was in a meeting where one producer with strong views on trans issues tried to veto an interview bid for JK Rowling, saying she was “very problematic” (she didn’t want to come on anyway). On different occasion another of our journalists told Rod Liddle, who did make it on to the show, to his face that they were dead against inviting him on, triggering a (justified) complaint from the columnist.
Davie ‘bullish’ on BBC charter renewal, telling staff ‘we have a very strong case’
Frances Mao is a Guardian reporter.
Pressed on charter renewal, which the next director general will have to negotiate through to the end of 2027, Tim Davie told colleagues in his all-staff call that the BBC’s work so far had put it in good stead.
“We’re in a really good position to get a good charter” he said, adding that “the government of the day are supportive of public institutions and have been saying they want sustainable, long-term funding.”
He pointed to the success of local newsrooms across the UK and programmes like Celebrity Traitors – “the numbers are outstanding”.
All of the Brits use us and they care about us and we’re important.”
We just need to do our business, keep strong …. I’m quite bullish about it. I think we have a strong case.
Racism returning to UK politics – and people are very scared, says Starmer
Decades-old racism is returning to British politics, and “it makes people feel very scared” Keir Starmer has said, warning that divisive hard-right politics was “tearing our country apart”. As Eleni Courea reports, in an interview for ITV’s Lorraine show, Starmer accused Nigel Farage’s Reform UK of overseeing a return of the racist and divisive politics “that frankly I thought we had dealt with decades ago”.
Davie urges staff to carry on doing the work – ‘that speaks louder than any newspaper, any weaponisation’
Frances Mao
Frances Mao is a Guardian reporter.
In his all-staff call (see 11.35am), Tim Davie said he knew staff were probably feeling concern during such a “tumultuous” period.
You can ask questions of ‘Where is the BBC going? Are we rudderless? What happens to the future?
And they’re stressful [questions], they’re difficult … one of my biggest emotions at the moment is I care desperately about the organisation, the thousands of people who work for it.
He said the staff, more than 23,000 people making news and programmes, need to carry on with their quality work.
It’s all of our actions together, and us working and doing our business every single day.
He had been listening to the radio services yesterday, watching the programmes, even “went to iPlayer to try and find a bit of relaxation”.
It’s all there. And if we keep delivering, the facts speak.
Don’t let anyone stop you thinking that we are doing a fantastic job. We’ve actually grown trust, let’s get that narrative out there.”
I’m fiercely proud of this organisation. There are difficult times it goes through but it just does good work. And that speaks louder than any newspaper, any weaponisation.
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