Nandy

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the BBC must fight to restore trust after criticism that a Panorama documentary misled viewers by editing a speech by Donald Trump.

She said a review of the broadcaster’s charter would ensure a “genuinely accountable” BBC, defending it as a “national institution”.

BBC director general Tim Davie earlier told staff “we’ve got to fight for our journalism” after the US president’s threat to sue the corporation for $1bn (£760m).

A leaked internal BBC memo said the Panorama film misled viewers by splicing together parts of Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021 and made it appear as if he had explicitly encouraged the Capitol Hill riot. BBC chair Samir Shah has apologised.

Davie resigned on Sunday alongside BBC News CEO Deborah Turness after mounting pressure over that memo, which was written by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the broadcaster’s editorial standards committee.

The memo also accuses the BBC of issues within its Gaza coverage, particularly by BBC Arabic, anti-Trump and anti-Israel bias and one-sided transgender reporting – among other “troubling matters”.

Davie told staff on Tuesday: “We have made some mistakes that have cost us, but we need to fight”, adding that “this narrative will not just be given by our enemies, it’s our narrative”.

He said the BBC went through “difficult times… but it just does good work, and that speaks louder than any newspaper, any weaponisation”.

Later on Tuesday, speaking in the Commons, Nandy warned MPs attacking the broadcaster to “consider just what is at stake”.

She told the Commons: “There is a fundamental difference between raising serious concerns over editorial failings and members of this House launching a sustained attack on the institution itself, because the BBC is not just a broadcaster, it is a national institution that belongs to us all.”

She added that the BBC “has faced criticism from all sides for its coverage of highly contentious and contested issues, and [has been] accused of giving too much airtime to particular parties, and for giving them too little”.

The BBC’s charter expires at the end of 2027 and the once-a-decade process of reviewing it is set to begin shortly, which she said would help it “renew its mission for the modern age”.

Nandy said there was a concern over how long the BBC took to respond to criticisms which undermined trust.

She acknowledged “serious concerns and failings” on the part of the BBC Arabic Service, but urged strong support for the World Service, which she said was “a light on the hill for people in places of darkness”.

BBC figures on the corporation’s editorial guidelines and standards committee will face questions at a hearing in the coming weeks.

Shah and board members Sir Robbie Gibb and Caroline Thomson are expected to attend a session called by the Commons culture, media and sport committee.

Former editorial standards advisers Michael Prescott, the author of the leaked memo, and Caroline Daniel will also be invited to give evidence.

Shadow culture secretary Nigel Huddleston said there are “too many examples of bias” at the BBC and said the corporation required “institutional change”.

In a post on social media on Tuesday, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that while the BBC as an institution “ought to be treasured”, it has “continually let down licence fee payers”.

Trump threatened to take legal action if the BBC did not make a “full and fair retraction” of the Panorama programme by Friday. The corporation has said it will reply in due course.

In the staff call on Tuesday neither Davie nor the BBC chair mentioned Trump’s legal threat.

Downing Street has said this was a “matter for the BBC”.

“It is clearly not for the government to comment on any ongoing legal matters,” the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.

“Our position is clear, the BBC is independent and it’s for the corporation to respond to questions about their editorial decisions.”

Asked whether there were concerns the issue would affect Sir Keir Starmer’s contacts with Trump, the spokesperson said the two had a “very strong” relationship.

The spokesperson would not be drawn on whether the BBC should apologise directly to the president.

The culture secretary has apologised for breaking rules by failing to declare she had received donations from the man she picked to run England’s new football regulator.

On Thursday, the commissioner for public appointments published a report which found that David Kogan had made two separate donations of £1,450 to Lisa Nandy, when she was running to be Labour leader in 2020.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Nandy said: “We didn’t meet the highest standards – that is on me.”

The Conservatives have said Nandy’s actions were “a serious breach of public trust” and called for a further investigation into Sir Keir Starmer, who also received donations from Mr Kogan.

In a statement, Mr Kogan has said: “As the commissioner states, my suitability for the role has never been in question, and at no point was I aware of any deviation from best practice.”

Mr Kogan, a sports rights executive, was initially longlisted for the football regulator role under the previous Conservative government.

Nandy became involved in the process after Labour won the 2024 general election and she took on the role of culture secretary.

In April, she announced that Mr Kogan would be her preferred pick to fill the £130,000-a-year role.

However, a month later she removed herself from the appointment process after Mr Kogan revealed to a parliamentary committee that he had donated “very small sums” to Nandy in 2020.

In his report, commissioner for public appointments Sir William Shawcross said Nandy had “unknowingly” breached the code and should have checked if Mr Kogan had given her money before choosing him as her preferred candidate.

The contributions were part of total donations worth £33,410 to Labour and the party’s candidates in the five years prior to his appointment, the commissioner said.

Mr Kogan’s donations to Nandy were below declaration thresholds set by the Electoral Commission and by Parliament.

Asked why she had not declared the donation during the appointments process, Lisa Nandy told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg she had not known about the money at the time it was given.

She said that during her leadership campaign she had been “out on the road” doing hustings and interviews.

“I wasn’t involved in fundraising for the campaign, and as soon as I found out I declared it and recused myself and I complied fully with the process.”

She insisted Labour was different from the Conservatives saying: “When we make mistakes – and we will make mistakes, we are human beings- we put ourselves through independent processes, we respect the outcome and we take the consequences.”

In his report, Sir William said: “It need not be true that the donations actually influenced the secretary of state’s decision-making – only that the risk of this perception should have been mitigated by declaration of this financial interest.”

He found the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had breached the rules by failing to declare Mr Kogan’s previous donations to Labour when he was named as the government’s preferred choice for the job.

The department also breached the rules by not discussing the donations to Nandy when Mr Kogan was interviewed for the job, Sir William found.

After the report was published, Nandy wrote a letter to the prime minister saying: “I deeply regret this error. I appreciate the perception it could create.”

In his reply, Sir Keir Starmer wrote: “I know you to be a person of integrity and on the basis of your letter, it is clear you have acted in good faith.”

In May 2024, Mr Kogan donated £2,500 to the prime minister’s local Labour branch of Holborn and St Pancras.

The Conservatives have asked the government’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus to investigate whether Sir Keir’s role in Mr Kogan’s appointment broke ministerial rules on transparency.

Downing Street said Sir William Shawcross had already carried out an extensive review and “found no breaches aside from those set out in the report”.

The football regulator role was set up following a fan-led review into the management of football clubs.

The regulator has been tasked with improving the financial sustainability of clubs and safeguarding “the heritage of English football”.