'Should worry us all': UK outrage as BBC bosses culled after Trump fury

A UK politician has warned Donald Trump could "destroy" the BBC.

The British Broadcasting Company director general, Tim Davie, as well as head of news Deborah Turness, resigned Monday following criticism of a documentary aired about Trump. An internal memo at the BBC suggested two parts of Trump's speech in the Panorama show had been edited together to make it look as though he explicitly encouraged the Capitol Hill riot of January 2021.

Trump has since responded to the documentary and the resignations of Davie and Turness in a post to Truth Social. He wrote: "The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught 'doctoring' my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th.

"Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt 'Journalists.' These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!"

But Ed Davey, a member of the UK parliament and leader of the Liberal Democrats party, warned that Trump has the power to "destroy" the BBC following the Panorama documentary. Responding to Trump's Truth Social post, Davey wrote: "It's easy to see why Trump wants to destroy the world's number one news source. We can't let him.

"The BBC belongs to all of us here in the UK. The Prime Minister and leaders from across the political spectrum should be united in telling Trump to keep his hands off it." Outraged members of the public agreed with Davey, with one person calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to "make it abundantly clear to the fool Trump" that the president's opinion of the BBC was of no interest.

Davey also called the former director general a "decent man doing a difficult job" and warned the White House and Trump's statements on the BBC are worrying.

He wrote: "I had my disagreements with the BBC under Tim Davie but he was a decent man doing a difficult job. To see Trump's White House claiming credit for his downfall and attacking the BBC should worry us all."

In Trump's speech in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, he said: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."

However, in the Panorama edit he was shown saying, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell." Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, has since described the BBC as "100% fake news."