The BBC can teach Trump a lesson about free expression

So, Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful BBC writ has finally arrived, and it does not disappoint.

- ALAN RUSBRIDGER

We are invited to believe that the US president is a man of almost saintly virtue whose unblemished reputation - and business prospects - have been irreparably tarnished by one lousy Panorama programme.

Trump’s legal team assert that the BBC had the “express intent of interfering with [the 2024 presidential election] and trying to undermine Trump’s odds of winning reelection”. He wants “compensatory and punitive damages” of no less than $5bn (£3.7bn) - and, depending on how you read his claim, as much as $10bn.

Some twerps on the right of British politics, so blinded by their hatred of our national broadcaster, have piped up in support of the US president. Rupert Lowe MP, who was elected on a Reform ticket and now sits as an independent, tweeted: “Trump is suing the BBC. Good luck to him, I say.”

The writ refers to the outgoing director general Tim Davie as “disgraced”, and quotes with some glee the opinion of the BBC’s former editorial adviser, corporate PR man Michael Prescott, that the programme was “neither balanced nor impartial - it seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance”.

So, well done, whoever chose to leak Prescott’s memo to The Daily Telegraph. In addition to toppling a respected DG and causing institutional meltdown at the BBC, you’ve also landed the corporation with the enormous expense of defending a specious defamation suit. I look forward to Prescott being called as a witness on behalf of Trump, a habitual liar and incorrigible denigrator of truthful media as “fake news”. The squirming will be exquisite.