Tuesday briefing: What the BBC’s new crisis reveals about its failures – and future

In today’s newsletter: The nation’s public service broadcaster is at a critical juncture as it deals with governance misfires and a political agenda against it

Good morning. In 2004, when Greg Dyke quit the BBC in the wake of the Hutton inquiry, a much younger me was at the beginning of my media career, working at BBC Online. I remember staff felt the relatively popular director general had been the victim of the government lashing out after the death of David Kelly, and a failure to produce convincing evidence of the fabled weapons of mass destruction that supposedly supported Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq.

Many BBC staff will no doubt have been feeling a similar grievance after the abrupt resignations of director general Tim Davie and head of BBC News Deborah Turness on Sunday. They departed after a week of concerted attacks on the organisation orchestrated by the rightwing press and figures closely associated with the Conservative party – particularly Boris Johnson’s administration.

UK politics | Rachel Reeves is planning to remove the two-child benefit cap in full in the November budget, in a move that could cost more than £3bn but lift 350,000 children out of poverty.

Environment | Governments failing to shift to a low-carbon economy will be blamed for famine and conflict abroad, the UN’s climate chief warned at the start of Cop30 climate talks in Brazil.

France | The former French president Nicholas Sarkozy has been released from prison, after a judge ruled he could serve the rest of his sentence at home, pending an appeal. Earlier he had told a Paris appeal court that his three weeks in jail had been a “nightmare”.

Protest | Ministers banned Palestine Action despite being told by their advisers it could “inadvertently enhance” the group’s profile, an official government document written three months before the proscription of the group shows.

Books | Hungarian-British author David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker prize for his novel Flesh.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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