Hard work should pay. Unlock quality journalism that champions free enterprise. |  | Rob Crilly Chief US Correspondent | Donald Trump has filed a $10bn lawsuit against the BBC over a doctored speech, revealed by The Telegraph, that made it appear as though he encouraged the Capitol Hill riot.
The US president accused the BBC of defamation and of violating Florida’s deceptive and unfair trade practices act. He is seeking $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages for each count.
Trump uses legal threats as president in just the same way he did when he was a New York property mogul: to face down critics and to get his own way.
I’ve covered Trump for a decade. I know that sometimes the threats are just threats. Opponents fold and the threats are never translated into lawsuits.
“My lawyers are looking into it” is a favoured rhetorical tool to keep critics guessing, particularly when they are media organisations accused of spreading unflattering coverage. As the BBC is finding out today, sometimes even the longshot claims, the ones that legal experts say have close-to-zero chance of success, become real.
So just when BBC executives thought they may have got off the hook for a deceptively edited 2021 speech, Trump dropped a bombshell in the Oval Office.
“It’s called fake news,” he told an audience gathered for a border defence medal presentation. “So we’ll be filing that suit, probably this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
The BBC has had fair warning. In a letter from the president’s outside counsel, it was told the Panorama documentary “intentionally sought to completely mislead its viewers” by splicing together separate parts of his speech to supporters on Jan 6, 2021.
The letter asked the BBC to retract the report, apologise, and pay compensation or else. The corporation managed two out of three, but must have been hoping this was another empty threat when it refused to hand over any money.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team told The Telegraph: “The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own Leftist political agenda.”
The US president has little chance of winning the case but he has every intention of suing, ensuring that the story keeps running and running.
Read the full story and Rob’s analysis here ➤ | | Charles Moore The world now assumes our nation will make no serious protest against Chinese oppression, let alone act Continue reading ➤ Tom Harris This woke documentary shows why Reform is thriving in Scotland Continue reading ➤ Sean Thomas Why tech titans are the new medieval saints Continue reading ➤ | Make your voice heard. Join our journalists in conversation on today’s biggest topics. | | Matilda Britvan was shot in front of her six-year-old sister | | Lina Chernykh closes her eyes and pictures the smile on her niece’s face, writes Andrea Hamblin. Matilda Britvan, 10, was “full of joy” while cuddling animals at Bondi Beach when the terror began. Lina told me that is how she wants to remember her – not for the way her life was cruelly cut short. Matilda was the youngest of 15 people killed by father and son terrorists who targeted a Hanukkah festival in Sydney on Sunday. She was shot in front of her six-year-old sister, Summer. Her family cried until they had “no tears left” when they returned to the scene of the attack today.
Continue reading ➤
Bondi gunmen in Philippines for ‘military-style training’ weeks before attack ➤ | |  | | Pigs in blankets, mince pies, handfuls of Quality Street – for many, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them; but overindulgence can play havoc with your waistline and your gut health. From kidney beans to dates, our nutritionist selects the high-fibre cupboard staples to counter the excesses of the festive season. Continue reading ➤ | | | Situated in the prime Home Counties commuter belt, residents describe the Hampshire town of Fleet as a happy community where parcels sit safely on doorsteps and schools are deemed “next-level good”. While it might at first appear unremarkable, with its high street Greggs and dormant Christmas lights, government data has crowned a specific neighbourhood here the least deprived in England. See which other areas made the top 10 and whether yours made the cut. Continue reading ➤ | | | The world’s highest bridge – at a vertigo-inducing 2,050 feet – recently opened in China, a country already in possession of the world’s longest bridge, as well as the world’s tallest. However, none of them make our pick of the world’s 10 finest bridges, which include a picturesque viaduct in North Wales and a 3,300-year-old crossing in Greece. Continue reading ➤ | | | Escorted by riot police, vets are sent to slaughter cattle as France’s countryside erupts. From burning tyres to threats of “heads on spikes”, farmers are revolting, some likening the crackdown on lumpy skin disease to Covid-era overreach. Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, faces a Christmas of rural revolt. Continue reading ➤ | | | November’s Budget confirmed a crackdown on salary sacrifice, with a strict £2,000 cap on National Insurance relief looming in April 2029. Yet, until that deadline, high earners can cut their tax liabilities by tens of thousands. By stacking pension contributions with perks like electric car leases and buying extra holiday, an employee earning £150,000 could save £35,481 in tax. Rachel Wait explains the precise strategy required to maximise these benefits while the window remains open. Continue reading ➤ Below are two more helpful articles for you this morning: - Beauty norms and social pressures around ageing are changing. Ginnie Chadwyck-Healey, 42, is embracing her age and avoiding botox. This is the five-step routine she follows instead.
- Have you left decorating for Christmas until the last minute? These are the 16 best artificial Christmas trees for sale to help get you started.
|  | Claire Allfree | Exactly 250 years ago, on a freezing winter evening in the Hampshire village of Steventon, Jane Austen was born. Since then, it feels as though Austenmania has only gathered strength. Surely, some of you may be thinking, we’ve reached peak Jane? Surely, there’s no more to be said about her dazzling wit and Colin Firth’s wet shirt?
Wrong. If you think that, you haven’t read Austen’s books – not properly. For, like Shakespeare, Austen is near-infinitely capacious. As I’ve discovered in re-reading her work this year, her late-18th-century upper-middle-class English milieu, and the lovers and mothers and chancers and dreamers who people it, are alarmingly like our own.
Austen is the bitchiest writer I know, as well as one of the most truthful. She understood so clearly the extent to which women – and, yes, men – deceive themselves. We remember the Emmas and the Wentworths and the Lizzy Bennets, but look closer at their supporting cast: a riot of indecently entertaining, self-righteous screw-ups, all impeccably drawn and true.
So here’s a comprehensive list of my favourites, in all their virtues and vices. Happy birthday, Miss Austen, and thank you.
Continue reading ➤ | Rockin’ Robin Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes...
It won’t have escaped your notice that practically every day of the year is now a Day too, marking one worthy cause or another: Bubble-Wrap Appreciation Day (last Monday in January), Dance Like a Chicken Day (May 14), you name it. National Robin Day (Dec 21) is something I can gladly get behind. I always feel a little flutter of joy when I see (or hear) one of these birds – in common, I suspect, with pretty much everyone. How to show our gratitude?
Peter Saunders had an idea: “As an antidote to the commercialisation of robins for profit each Christmas, they should be fed through winter (nutritious mealworms are their favoured snack). This would be a reward for their felicitous song and the solace they bring to those who embrace the folkloric idea that their appearance signifies that departed loved ones are spiritually nearby.”
Crispin Caldicott concurred: “There are few things as lovely as the lonesome sound of a robin singing in a damp English garden in winter. Their status as Britain’s favourite bird is not surprising.”
However, he felt they shouldn’t steal the show entirely: “I can never forget the poignant words of my father in his last few weeks: ‘Oh, I do hope there are blackbirds in heaven…’ Every time I hear a blackbird in spring, I think of that.”
Janet Newis responded: “A few years ago I was required to play the organ at the funeral of an elderly gentleman who was a lifelong nature lover. After playing the hymns I was able to sit quietly with the mourners as the coffin left the church to the requested recording of the beautiful song of a blackbird.”
Rosemary Harrison added: “The beautiful song of the blackbird has always been top of my chosen list of records should I ever be invited on Desert Island Discs.” Which bird’s song gladdens your heart? Let me know what you think here, and the best of the bunch will feature in a future edition of From the Editor PM, for which you can sign up here.
Please confirm in your reply that you are happy to be featured and that we have your permission to use your name. | |
How did darts player Cameron Menzies injure his hand at the World Darts Championship at Alexandra Palace? | | Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including PlusWord, Sorted, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
Yesterday’s Panagram was KNOWINGLY. Come back tomorrow for the solution to today’s puzzle. | | Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow. Chris Evans, Editor
P.S. I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here. | |
.png){kind=icon}
.jpg )
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire