My latest article for LBC - Tuesday 11th Nobember 2025
The latest scandal, involving manipulated footage that distorted President Trump’s remarks, is merely the most visible symptom of a chronic disease.
The BBC’s decline has not come suddenly but through a slow, painful unravelling: crisis after crisis, apology after apology, each followed by a review, an inquiry, a promise to “learn lessons”.
And yet, the same patterns repeat. More blunders. More blind spots. A once-great institution, now lumbering from one self-inflicted scandal to the next.
Of course, the British public still finds comfort in Strictly and The Traitors, amongst other entertainment. And there remain fine journalists whose integrity is beyond question. But affection for the BBC’s past cannot obscure the need for a sober reckoning with its present. In a global media market where competition is ruthless and credibility is everything, we must now ask, without sentimentality: is the BBC still fit for purpose?
The answer, regrettably, is no.
For years, its leadership has denied what has become obvious to almost everyone else - that the Corporation has an institutional bias so deep it can no longer perceive it. The latest scandal, involving manipulated footage that distorted President Trump’s remarks, is merely the most visible symptom of a chronic disease.
When BBC stars like Gary Lineker use their publicly funded platforms to rail against government immigration policy, when its newsrooms hesitate to call Hamas a terrorist group even as civilians are butchered, when its Arabic service gives airtime to Hamas sympathisers disguised as “journalists”, when the BBC platforms a performance at Glastonbury which is brazenly antisemitic- these are not isolated lapses. They are manifestations of a worldview.
The recent revelation that the BBC’s LGBTQ desk suppressed gender-critical stories tells us the same story again: this is an organisation captured by ideology, not guided by impartiality. The licence-fee payer is funding a worldview - not a broadcaster.
Samir Shah, the BBC Chairman supposedly steadying the ship, speaks of “mistakes”. But a pattern of political prejudice repeated over decades cannot credibly be dismissed as error. The Prescott report makes clear that this is cultural, not accidental. When the Corporation’s grandees - Nick Robinson, John Simpson and others - react with reflexive defensiveness rather than reflection, it tells us all we need to know. The problem is not a few rogue editors; it is the BBC’s soul.
Now we face a moment without precedent: reports that President Trump is preparing legal action against the BBC over false and inflammatory claims in a Panorama documentary. Lawyers’ letters have been sent. The White House may even consider restricting BBC access. What began as a private legal dispute is fast becoming an international affair.
The question is no longer just about the BBC - it is about Britain’s political class. How will the Prime Minister respond?
Keir Starmer now finds himself in an impossible bind. On one hand, he must know the BBC’s failings are indefensible. On the other, he privately agrees with much of its output - the polite left-liberal consensus that sees conservatism as a curiosity and patriotism as a problem. Yet he also recognises that Britain cannot afford a diplomatic rupture with Washington. President Trump is direct, transactional, and unlikely to forgive perceived slights.
So Starmer must choose: will he side with the national interest, or with the metropolitan echo chamber that has long defined his party and, increasingly, the BBC itself?
For years, the Corporation has lectured the country on who we are, what we may say, and which opinions are beyond the pale. But its authority is draining away, replaced by cynicism and fatigue. The BBC once bound Britain together; now it reflects our divisions back at us.
If reform does not come - real reform, not another “review” or “trust exercise” - then the question will no longer be whether to scrap the licence fee, but how soon.
The nation is watching.
Suella
