Inside the BBC meltdown over licence fee’s future

Scrambling to find £500m

The BBC is scrambling to cut £500m from its budget after executives discovered a gap in finances which shocked even new director-general Matt Brittin.

It comes as the number of households paying the £180-a-year licence fee fell by half a million last year to 23 million, the latest BBC accounts show.

The previous year, accounts showed a 300,000 drop in licence fee payers.

The BBC’s chief financial officer, Bérangère Michel, said earlier this year that the drop in TV licences had “resulted in an unsustainable financial position”.

The BBC must cut £500m from its budget by 2028 – with £160m to be delivered immediately. The corporation has already announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of the first stage in its savings plan.

Other cost-cutting options include cutting BBC Four arts and its archive channel and moving its content to BBC Two. The BBC Three youth channel could also be under threat.

‘Every part of BBC affected’

• More shows are set to be axed, following this week’s decision to scrap , insiders said.
• In a staff memo, seen by The i Paper, interim BBC head of news Jonathan Munro, said the 200 job closures announced in June would be followed by “further post closures (in news)” in the coming months.
• “Every part of BBC News will be affected, including senior leaders, and we’re reviewing some on-air roles,” said Munro.

Familiar faces set to depart

There will be familiar faces leaving, presenters, on-screen correspondents. They will be looking for a small number of expensive on-air people who they might try to persuade to leave sooner than they expected. It’s all up in the air.

A leading news figure told the i paper

Apprentice jobs also hit

• Apprentices were also told they could no longer expect jobs, as a result of the cuts.

Two rescued a week after Nepal floods

Two people have been rescued alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal, nine days after
a catastrophic flash flood killed more than 1,200 people.

Some 39 workers are still believed to be trapped inside the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project, according to Suresh Raut, a senior official of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

Rescued workers named

Authorities have named Sanjaya Shah, a mechanical foreman with the NEA, as the first person to be rescued from tunnels.

The second person rescued is Kabir Maharjan, the BBC reported.

Injuries to hands and feet

• Both workers have injuries on their hands and legs, thought to be from crawling through the tunnel.
• They are also suffering from lack of oxygen, authorities said.

Hundreds of the more than 5,000 still missing are labourers working in a vast network of tunnels at hydropower sites along the river.

Engineers have been pumping air into the hydropower tunnels as part of the huge rescue operation. Aside from the tunnel, it is estimated that over 5,000 people remain missing in Nepal and Tibet.

The rescues inject hope into an otherwise gruelling mission through thick mud.

A tunnelling expert told the news agency that teams had already dug through debris blocking the tunnel for 50-60 metres (164-196 feet) before finding survivors.

They were hoping for a breakthrough, said Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association.

“After a week of 24/7 heartache, we might, just, be back in miracle country.”

Watch more from The i Paper

Four things to know as Reform reported to the police over ‘funding breach’

Reform UK has been reported to the police over allegedly breaching political donation rules.

In the Channel 4 report, Reform’s Dan Jukes, discusses with a donor ways to allegedly get around electoral rules by securing a £500,000 donation via a foreign source.

The report, carried out by Verbatim Investigations, appears to show head of policy James Orr, suggesting the donor’s father could pay for polling. The report claims Reform commissioned three polls £32,500 in total and that the public was not told who commissioned or funded them.

The law

Under UK law, foreign companies are not a permissible source of funding for political parties, including payments for studies and research. Accepting donations from them could constitute a criminal offence.

Reform claimed it was the victim of a hoax and denied any wrongdoing.

Reform’s response:

Reform UK has been the target of a hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded, climate change activists posing as would-be party donors. The party denies any wrongdoing.
Reform UK has a robust vetting process for prospective donors approved by the Electoral Commission.

A Reform Spokesperson

Who reported Reform?

• The Lib Dems have written to the Met Police and Electoral Commission saying that James Orr, a senior adviser to Farage, facilitating the donation from an impermissible donor would breach the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.
• Labour also intends to report the matter to the police, it is understood, while the Greens have called for an investigation.
• The Met said it is assessing the reports.

‘No money reached Reform UK at all,’ says Orr

Orr, Reform’s policy head who is at the centre of the allegations, said that “no money reached Reform UK at all”.

“It was a public poll arranged by an independent person paying an independent pollster, and those polls were published immediately for the general public,” he said in a video posted to X.

Aides step down

Both Orr and Jukes have stepped down from their roles. Farage said Reform UK has “broken no laws” and has not “taken any dodgy money” amid allegations the party breached political donation rules.

How unprecedented El Niño could persist through to February

The head of the United Nations has warned that the world is facing a “supersized” El Niño event that has a “near 100 per cent likelihood” of lasting until February next year.

Antonio Guterres was speaking as UN experts warned the world has entered a “danger zone of extreme weather” in the coming months.

• Data released by the World Meteorological Organisation shows this year’s El Niño is set to be the strongest in more than 70 years, with “big impacts on rainfall and temperature patterns”.
• The natural climate phenomenon is already established in the Pacific and is caused when sea temperatures rise.
• The effects of El Niño vary by region. Hot, dry weather may hit South America, south east Asia and Australia. In India, monsoon rainfall can decrease but the southern US faces a higher chance of flooding.

Guterres warned that El Niño was being “supersized before our eyes” and that the world should brace for extreme weather. He said: “The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up.”

In Britain, the direct impact of El Niño can be harder to discern but forecasters have warned of the likelihood of a wet and stormy autumn and early winter. The Met Office has said the weather phenomenon can increase the risk of colder UK winters.

Watch more from The i Paper

Strawberry fields for ever as gene-edited fruit to hit UK shelves

Gene-edited strawberries and tomatoes could soon be in British supermarkets for the first time after the Government gave the green light for final approval of the foodstuffs.

The Food Standards Agency will now have the final say on whether the products – a longer-growing strawberry and tomatoes with increased vitamin D – can be offered to consumers.

• Gene-edited foodstuffs have had their DNA adjusted to enhance or delete certain natural attributes such as ripening times or nutrient levels.
• In this case, “sunshine” tomatoes have been created by the Norfolk-based John Innes Institute with as much vitamin D as two eggs. A US company has also created eight strawberry varieties that fruit for longer.
• Crucially the technique is different from genetic modification, where material is added to an organism. With gene editing no additional DNA is introduced.

The Food Standards Agency now has the final say on whether the tomato and strawberry varieties can be offered to consumers after the Government approved the precision-bred plants.

Scientists say the fruits will look and taste the same as equivalent non gene-edited products. The result will be in an extended growing season for strawberries and tomatoes with the same amount of vitamin D as 28g of tuna.

Watch more from The i Paper

Disgraced comedy actor Chris Langham dies, aged 77

The former The Thick of It star has died from cancer at the age of 77. His high-flying career came to an end in 2007 when he was convicted of viewing child sexual abuse images.

• Langham’s death was announced via an obituary in which said he had died from pancreatic cancer on 24 June this year.
• He was for many years a leading comedy actor and writer, starring in the BBC’s Whitehall satire The Thick of It. He was also a writer for and appeared in sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News.
• But his career came to an end when he was charged with 15 counts of downloading indecent images, including clips that showed the rape of a teenager and sexual abuse of an eight-year-old.

Langham’s fall from grace was precipitous. Days after winning a Bafta he was charged with sex offences and subsequently sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment. The actor claimed he had viewed the material for research purposes.

The actor denied he had a sexual interest in children but he was placed on the sex offenders’ register. In a 2015 interview, the actor said: “I did something terribly wrong… I was punished, quite correctly, for being as stupid and arrogant as the judge described me to be.”