Category Archives: BBC

Cabinet mini-reshuffle under way as Johnson keeps Nicky Morgan as culture secretary – live news

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Simon Hart named new Welsh secretary as prime minister announces that Morgan – who stood down as MP – will get life peerage

Here’s a host more middle and junior-ranking ministerial appointments just announced by No 10:

A mooted plan to merge the department for international development (DfID) and the foreign office (FCO) risks allowing British aid money to be spent on “UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives”, rather than on helping the world’s poorest people, more than 100 charities warn.

Related: Johnson to tell new Tory MPs they must repay public’s trust

Merging DfID with the FCO would risk dismantling the UK’s leadership on international development and humanitarian aid. It suggests we are turning our backs on the world’s poorest people, as well as some of the greatest global challenges of our time: extreme poverty, climate change and conflict. UK aid risks becoming a vehicle for UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives, when it first and foremost should be invested to alleviate poverty.

By far the best way to ensure that aid continues to deliver for those who need it the most is by retaining DfID as a separate Whitehall department, with a secretary of state for international development, and by pledging to keep both independent aid scrutiny bodies: the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the International Development Select Committee.

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‘Help me fight this fight’: Virginia Giuffre in plea to public over Prince Andrew scandal

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American tells BBC she was told to have sex with royal by Jeffrey Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell

A beleaguered Prince Andrew faced fresh embarrassment after his accuser Virginia Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked as a teenager to have sex with him, appeared on television to implore the British public to “not accept this as being OK”.

In her first UK broadcast interview, Giuffre repeated allegations she had sex with the prince when she was aged 17 on the instructions of Ghislaine Maxwell, a socialite and close friend of the US financier and sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in August.

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BBC admits ‘mistake’ in editing out laughter at Johnson in TV debate

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The broadcaster cut out laughter during leaders’ debate on Question Time in later news bulletin clip

The BBC has claimed it made a “mistake” in editing a clip where it cut out an audience laughing at Boris Johnson, insisting the decision was made due to time constraints rather than political bias.

In the Question Time leaders’ debate special, broadcast on BBC One on Friday night, an audience member asked the prime minister: “How important is it for someone in your position of power to always tell the truth?”

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Prince Andrew’s private secretary steps down after Newsnight interview

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Amanda Thirsk will run mentoring initiative, as Barclays becomes latest organisation to sever ties with the prince

Barclays has become the latest among a growing number of organisations to sever ties with Prince Andrew, as it emerged that the aide who orchestrated the beleaguered royal’s disastrous interview about his links to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is no longer his private secretary.

Amanda Thirsk, who was said to have played a key role in persuading him to agree to the BBC interview, has reportedly moved on to run his business mentoring initiative, Pitch@Palace.

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Prince Andrew: Calls for royal to say sorry and speak to FBI

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Lawyers for Epstein’s victims say they were ‘almost completely ignored’ in interview

Prince Andrew is facing a transatlantic backlash over his extraordinary defence of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after lawyers who represent 10 of the billionaire predator’s victims branded the royal unrepentant and implausible and demanded that he speak to the FBI.

After the royal’s defiant Newsnight interview on Saturday triggered a disbelieving reaction from the public and the media, the prince was under growing pressure from critics in the UK and US on Sunday who demanded an apology for his conduct and said that his defence of his actions was simply not credible.

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‘He was incredibly gracious after’: Newsnight team say Andrew was pleased with interview

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Appearance was secured after six months of negotiations and royal’s team referred decision upwards

As television interviews go, it was one of the most excruciating – and most sought-after – in British history. But when Prince Andrew’s painstakingly negotiated head-to-head with Emily Maitlis in Buckingham Palace finished, the royal appeared oblivious to the damage that had been done. In fact, he was so pleased with how things had gone that he gave the Newsnight team a tour of the palace afterwards.

On Sunday, as the prince’s team picked up the pieces from an interview widely perceived to have been disastrous for his reputation, the remarkable story of how it came about emerged – from the departure of a key aide to drawn-out discussions and a last-minute message to the Queen.

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Prince Andrew on friendship with Jeffrey Epstein: I let royals down

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Prince speaks publicly for first time about paedophile financier found dead in prison

Prince Andrew has said that he failed to uphold the standards of the royal family when he visited Jeffrey Epstein after the paedophile’s release from prison, admitting: “I let the side down, simple as that.”

The prince made the statement in an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight programme, the first time he has spoken publicly about his friendship with Epstein, to be broadcast on Saturday night.

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Tazeen Ahmad: award-winning journalist and broadcaster dies

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Family and friends recall ‘her powerful ability to turn around people’s lives for the better’

The award-winning journalist and broadcaster Tazeen Ahmad has died, her family have said. Ahmad was praised for her work in shining a light on important stories with “care, sympathy and integrity” across her extensive career.

She worked for the BBC and was part of the Channel 4 Dispatches team that won an RTS television journalism award and was nominated for a current affairs TV Bafta for the documentary The Hunt for Britain’s Sex Gangs.

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Little Britain radio review: neutered by BBC impartiality rules

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The delay to Brexit plus strict pre-election guidelines left few chances for trenchant jokes in David Walliams and Matt Lucas’s sketch show

In the many risk assessments of the possible consequences of Brexit happening on Halloween – lorry queues, drug shortages, street violence – scant attention was paid to a significant victim of its not happening: broadcasting specials timed to coincide with departure from the EU being forced to go out, even though the UK actually hadn’t.

The special Brexit edition of Little Britain, bringing David Walliams and Matt Lucas’s sketch show back to Radio 4, where it started in 2000, was at a double disadvantage. Having been denied its calendar reason for being, it also now found itself broadcast in the run-up to a general election, when the BBC’s already contorted attempts at political impartiality become even stricter.

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IRA ‘planned to knock out electricity in south-east England’

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Former gun runner claims republicans plotted to bomb London power supply in 1990s

The IRA planned to attack power stations in south-east England in the final years of its terror bombing campaign, a former member has claimed.

The plan is alleged to have been made in the mid-1990s, shortly before the Belfast Agreement peace accord.

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‘Toxic’ Telegraph made me feel ‘nauseous’, says Graham Norton

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BBC chat show presenter explains why he stopped writing advice column

Graham Norton has said he stopped writing for the Daily Telegraph because the newspaper’s recent “toxic” political stances increasingly made him feel “nauseous”.

The BBC One chat show presenter wrote the newspaper’s advice column for 12 years before stepping down without explanation at the end of 2018. Norton has now said he decided to leave the outlet after it defended the likes of US supreme court then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh and published articles by future prime minister Boris Johnson containing falsehoods.

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Naga Munchetty: BBC reverses decision to censure presenter

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Corporation director general Tony Hall emails staff to say he is overturning ruling over impartiality guidelines

The BBC has reversed its decision to discipline Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty for breaking impartiality guidelines with her comments about the US president following enormous internal and external anger about the ruling.

The U-turn came after the Guardian published leaked internal correspondence casting doubts on the public claims made by senior BBC executives about the nature of the single viewer complaint that led to the ruling.

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Prominent Britons of colour condemn BBC over Naga Munchetty complaint

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Corporation accused of racial discrimination after presenter reprimanded for Trump remarks

More than 40 prominent broadcasters, celebrities and actors of colour have condemned the BBC, demanding it reconsider a decision partially upholding a complaint against the presenter Naga Munchetty, calling it “deeply flawed, illegal and contrary to the spirit and purpose of public broadcasting”.

In a letter published in the Guardian, the actors Lenny Henry, Adrian Lester and David Harewood, and presenters Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Gillian Joseph are among signatories describing the decision as “racially discriminatory treatment”.

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Johnson offers words of praise to Egypt’s leader despite repression

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Banning of BBC and crackdown on protests seemingly not on agenda at PM’s talks with Sisi

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, lavished praise on Egypt at a bilateral meeting with its president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in New York, hours before the UK hosted a global media freedom conference with Amal Clooney, the UK’s special envoy on media freedom.

Sisi has just instigated a fresh massive crackdown on journalists following the outbreak of protests against corruption in Egypt.

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Whistleblowers to sue Labour as antisemitism row deepens

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Ex-party staff to act over ‘defamation’ as angry Jeremy Corbyn criticises BBC documentary

The Labour high command is to be sued by former employees who broke cover last week to criticise the party’s handling of cases of alleged antisemitism in a dramatic escalation of the row engulfing Jeremy Corbyn’s party.

Two of the whistleblowers who featured in last week’s explosive BBC Panorama programme entitled Is Labour Anti-Semitic? – Sam Matthews and Louise Withers Green – contacted the Observer last night to say they had instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to act on their behalf because they believed the party had defamed them in its response to their claims. Others who spoke to Panorama are also understood to be considering contacting Lewis to represent them in libel actions.

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Corbyn decries BBC’s ‘inaccuracies’ over Labour antisemitism

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Labour leader says Panorama adopted ‘predetermined’ critical position

Jeremy Corbyn has said there were “many, many, inaccuracies” in the BBC Panorama documentary about antisemitism in the party, saying that the programme adopted a “predetermined position” before it was aired.

The Labour leader made the comments during a visit to the Durham Miners’ Gala. He said: “I watched the programme and I felt there were many, many inaccuracies in the programme. The programme adopted a predetermined position on its own website before it was broadcast. We’ve made very clear what our processes are.

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Third of Britons say they avoid news out of Brexit frustration

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Claims in YouGov poll come as news websites report record numbers of visitors

A growing number of Britons claim they are actively avoiding the news out of frustration at coverage of Brexit, research has found, even as news websites report record numbers of visitors wanting to read about major developments.

The discrepancy suggests that while many people publicly insist they are avoiding news about the UK’s ongoing political crisis, some may be unable to stop themselves secretly gorging themselves on updates about Britain leaving the EU.

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Russian broadcaster hits out at BBC show parodying Putin

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Tonight With Vladimir Putin portrays Russian president as a talkshow host

Russia’s government-owned news service RT has denounced a BBC comedy chatshow featuring a 3D animation of Vladimir Putin interviewing the likes of Alastair Campbell.

The BBC described Tonight With Vladimir Putin, which has yet to air, as a “television first” with new technology enabling a “3D digital cartoon of Putin to walk around and sit behind the desk, interviewing real human guests in front of a studio audience, all in real time.”

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What’s the next Game of Thrones? All the contenders for fantasy TV’s crown

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The saga of the Seven Kingdoms may be bowing out, but it has opened the floodgates. Here’s your guide to the next big heroes

Rand al’Thor was found as a baby on the slopes of Dragonmount and taken to Two Rivers, where he grew into a broad-shouldered shepherd boy. But Rand is possessed of immense power, a power as yet untapped, for he is also The Dragon Reborn, destined to be hunted by Darkhounds and Darkfriends as he bids to prove himself a mighty warrior leader. Among other things, Rand’s existence shows that you should always believe ancient prophesies, that even the low-born can save the world – and that characters in TV fantasy series must always have two names.

Rand is just one of the 2,782 characters who appear in Wheel of Time, the bestselling saga of fantasy novels by Robert Jordan. We can only hope the forthcoming adaptation on Amazon will hone the cast down a little, as we follow Rand and his forces towards Tarmon Gai’don, or the final battle between good and evil.

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