Month: November 2025

Alison McGovern speaks to media about BBC crisis as culture secretary due to address MPs in attempt to contain fallout

Good morning. Yesterday the BBC in crisis story, that had primarily been about the resignations of its director general and its head of news, veered into international diplomacy when Donald Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn over the way it edited a clip of the speech he gave before his supporters attacked the US Capitol and people working there on 6 January 2021.

This is obviously awkward for the government, not least because the BBC is funded with taxpayers’ money and so any payout to the president would ultimately come from them.

I think the president can say what he wants, and he will do. And we know that.

If they’ve made an editorial mistake, then they should apologise … I think the BBC is probably chock full of policies on what they should do when they make editorial mistakes, so I think they should stick to it.

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Company failed to effectively operate, maintain and upgrade its wastewater assets, Ofwat finds

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Wessex Water has been ordered to pay £11m over wastewater failures and told to spend it on improvements to reduce sewage spills and other measures.

Ofwat, the industry regulator for England and Wales, said that Wessex Water and its shareholders would fund a total enforcement package of £11m, none of which will be paid for by customers through bills.

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Star of Japan’s cinematic golden age, who collaborated with Kurosawa and played the lead in Kobayashi’s Human Condition trilogy, died from pneumonia

The Japanese stage and screen actor Tatsuya Nakadai, whose celebrated performances symbolised a golden age for the country’s cinema, has died aged 92.

Nakadai garnered more than 100 screen credits during a career spanning seven decades, but is perhaps best known internationally for his role in Ran, Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 epic set in the Sengoku “warring states” period that took its inspiration from Shakespeare’s King Lear.

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