The BBC was today forced to edit its flagship Reith lecture series to remove criticism of Donald Trump amid a new bias row.
Left-wing author Rutger Bregman claimed that a ‘decision had been taken at the highest levels’ of the BBC to remove his allegation that Mr Trump is ‘the most openly corrupt president in American history’.
The lecture, broadcast this morning, was recorded in October – just before the U.S. President announced that he was intending to sue the corporation for ‘anywhere between $1billion (£760million) and $5billion (£3.8billion)’ over a Panorama episode which ‘doctored’ one of his speeches. The BBC has apologised to Mr Trump, but refused to pay him damages.
The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this month that the White House had been enraged by the BBC’s decision to commission Mr Bregman, who used the showpiece Reith Lectures to draw parallels between Trump’s America and the rise of fascism in the 1930s. It branded Mr Bregman ‘a rabid anti-Trump individual’.
In his first talk, entitled A Time Of Monsters, Mr Bregman – who has previously described opposition to Mr Trump in the US as a fight between ‘good and evil’ – likened the President, Nigel Farage and tech billionaires such as Elon Musk to fascists.
The decision to commission Mr Bregman fuelled ongoing accusations that the corporation has an institutional left-wing bias.
But now Mr Bregman has taken to X, formerly Twitter, to complain: ‘I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history”.’
Dutch author Rutger Bregman said that a ‘decision had been taken at the highest levels’ of the BBC to remove his reference to Trump as ‘the most openly corrupt president in American history’
The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this month that the White House had been enraged by the BBC’s decision to commission Mr Bregman, who used the showpiece lectures to draw parallels between Donald Trump and fascism
He added: ‘This sentence was taken out of a lecture they commissioned, reviewed through the full editorial process, and recorded four weeks ago in front of 500 people in the BBC Radio Theatre. I was told the decision came from the highest levels within the BBC. This has happened against my wishes, and I’m genuinely dismayed by it.’
A source present at the recording of the lecture said that the BBC had also deleted a section in which Bregman thanked the BBC team for helping him with the text.
The crisis over the doctoring of the Trump speech has already led to the resignation of BBC director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness.
Yesterday, the BBC chairman Samir Shah apologised for ‘the mistakes that have been made and the impact that has had’ in the bias row but said he is ‘not someone who walks away’. He told a committee of MPs that he intended to ‘fix’ the problems.
When the BBC’s Reith Lectures were first delivered in 1948, they represented one of the most prestigious intellectual platforms in British public life.
Named after the BBC’s founding director-general Lord John Reith, right, the talks were intended to ‘stimulate thought and contribute to knowledge’ – and uphold Lord Reith’s belief that broadcasting should enrich the nation.
Every year, in this spirit, a leading figure is invited to deliver a series of lectures on contemporary – and lofty – issues which are broadcast on Radio 4 and the World Service.
It is considered a huge honour to be invited. Previous lecturers include philosopher Bertrand Russell, who gave the first lectures, and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who spoke on quantum theory. More recently, Wolf Hall author Dame Hilary Mantel spoke in 2017 about history.
Yesterday, the BBC chairman Samir Shah apologised for ‘the mistakes that have been made and the impact that has had’ in the bias row when appearing before MPs
The speakers propose their own themes in consultation with the BBC. After his lecture, Mr Bregman, a 37-year-old Dutch vegan whose books include Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World, expanded on his anti-Trump themes over a post-lecture dinner for guests personally invited by Mr Davie in the council chamber in Broadcasting House.
Under the gaze of a portrait of Lord Reith, the guests, including Radio 4 executive Eleanor Garland and David Olusoga, the BBC historian and Celebrity Traitor, dined on venison carpaccio and herb-crusted lamb rump as Mr Bregman talked about the need to organise a ‘resistance movement against populism’.
A BBC spokesperson said: ‘All of our programmes are required to comply with the BBC’s editorial guidelines, and we made the decision to remove one sentence from the lecture on legal advice.’
