00:00I think the board of the BBC certainly have questions to answer about how they have handled this.
00:06But I think the key issue for politicians today is, are they going to defend the institution of the BBC?
00:12It's a world-leading institution, the most trusted media institution in the world, and we should protect it.
00:19That's why I have written to the Prime Minister Kirstana, Kimi Badenoch and Nigel Farage
00:25to see if they'll join me in criticising Donald Trump, who is undermining the BBC with his comments,
00:31attacking the leadership, calling BBC journalists corrupt,
00:37and with his press secretary suggesting that people should watch GB News.
00:42That's a level of interference in our media which is unprecedented,
00:45and I hope other political leaders will join the Liberal Democrats in calling President Trump out.
00:50Look, the BBC needs to deal with the criticisms.
00:52I've had criticisms of the way the BBC has given far too much coverage for Nigel Farage and reform.
00:57So we're going to have criticism of the BBC, but within that we need to recognise how valuable an institution it is.
01:04It's world-leading in its trust in it, on the media, and that's so precious to our country.
01:11And that's one of the reasons why people like President Trump and others like him, Nigel Farage, want to undermine the BBC.
01:17Well, the Liberal Democrats, I think, are speaking for the vast majority of the British people.
01:20We value the BBC, and we don't want Trump's America to become Farage's Britain
01:25with a BBC that's been hit in the way that Donald Trump is hitting the free press in America.
01:31There are people on the right wing of British politics, and indeed in the White House,
01:36who've been attacking the BBC for a long time,
01:39and it's part and parcel of the whole Trump-Farage approach,
01:43have divisive politics, undermine free press, undermine freedom of speech.
01:47We can't allow Trump's America to become Farage's Britain,
01:52and that's why the Liberal Democrats will be firmly behind the BBC, despite our own criticisms.
01:57I've said the BBC isn't perfect, and we've had our criticisms,
02:02but it is the one institution that's protecting British values from a full Trump takeover,
02:09and as that very precious institution, Liberal Democrats will defend it.
02:13Of course, there's the odd mistake they make.
02:17I have to say, Donald Trump makes many, many more, as does Nigel Farage,
02:21and so the fact that Nigel Farage is basically teaming up with President Trump to criticise the BBC
02:28is shocking. It's unpatriotic. It's wrong.
02:31And it shows that he wants Trump's America, with his attacks on free media, coming to the UK.
02:36The interference we've seen in elections has come from Nigel Farage's friend, Vladimir Putin.
02:43We've seen Russian interference in the most profound, appalling ways,
02:47and yet Nigel Farage calls Vladimir Putin the world leader he most admires.
02:52I think people need to see through Nigel Farage, see through Donald Trump,
02:56and realise what they're trying to do to our great country and our British values.
03:00Liberal Democrats won't accept it. I don't think the vast majority of British people will either.
03:03I spoke to the President on Friday. He just said to me,
03:09is this how you treat your best ally?
03:12It's quite a powerful comment, isn't it?
03:14It's quite a powerful comment. So, there's been too much going for too long.
03:19You might have noticed, Harry, that last year half a million people stopped paying the licence fee.
03:24The year before, half a million people stopped paying the licence fee.
03:28If the BBC doesn't now get a grip, get somebody in from the outside,
03:33somebody who has got a history and a culture of changing organisations, of turning them around,
03:41then I think what you would see within the next couple of years are many, many millions,
03:45just refusing, just not wanting to have the licence fee.
03:48The BBC has been institutionally biased for decades.
03:55I well remember the Wilson Report, two decades ago,
03:59saying the BBC were not covering areas like Europe and immigration with any sense of impartiality.
04:05And you could, you know, add on to that, net zero, climate change,
04:11all their interpretation of the horrors that have happened in Gaza.
04:14And now, of course, the United States President.
04:19We need to very much slim down BBC.
04:21When it comes to entertainment, when it comes to sport, and many other areas like that,
04:26well, they should compete against everybody else for a subscription model.
04:31That's the modern world that we live in.
04:35So, the licence fee, as currently is, cannot survive.
04:39It is wholly unsustainable.
04:44Which, which, by the way, doesn't mean I don't want a BBC.
04:50I think part of our global brand, I think the BBC is important.
04:53I think BBC World Service is actually very, very important.
04:57And I think the BBC should get back to doing news, but just to doing straight news.
05:03If it can manage that, it has something of a future.
05:06If it can't manage that, frankly, it has no future at all.
05:11My worry, Olivia, with the BBC, is it employs its people from such a narrow segment of society
05:21that I don't think they think they're biased at all.
05:26It's just the world view of people the BBC employ, who happen to live in North London,
05:31rather than the view, more broadly, of what's out there in the country.
05:36That's our complaint.
05:38They've gone so mad on DEI and everything else,
05:40they're not reflecting the country we're living in.
05:43If they did reflect the country we live in,
05:45we wouldn't have the current crisis and the current problems that we've got.
05:50If I was the President of the United States of America,
05:52if I was the person making sure that the United Kingdom had security guarantees
05:58that meant that it could be defended, whereas on its own it would be helpless,
06:01and I'd been stitched up on the eve of a national election.
06:09I mean, people talk about election interference.
06:12What the BBC did was election interference.
06:16If you put yourself in Donald Trump's shoes,
06:18I think you'll understand why, when I had a chat with him on Friday,
06:23he made his feelings on the subject known to me in no uncertain terms,
06:29and not in a quotable form.
06:31I think I wanted to do the best.
06:32I actually missed him on the way.
06:33I did the best so far.
06:37And I thought...
06:37I did the best.
06:40I don't know.
06:41I won't want to know.
06:42I'm in the middle of the week.
06:43I think it's on the way.
06:44I'm inside the ground.
06:45I'm in the middle of the week.
06:46I don't want to know,
06:46but I'm in the middle of the week,
06:48and I will not leave the road.
06:49I think that's the number of people,
06:50and I do not want to call any of them.
06:53I love them all about the world.
06:55I feel the stupid thing.
06:55I do not want to know.
06:56I know.
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