Panorama

UK parcel delivery company Evri is suing the BBC for libel and seeking £1.2 million in damages. That amount represents the lost business that the firm claims it has suffered as a result of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s My Parcel?

Panorama reporter Zoe Conway interviewed Evri couriers, who complained that the company reduced its per-parcel payment rate to the extent that “they couldn’t make a living if the accepted the pay cut.” The programme was broadcast on 15th December 2025 on BBC1, and repeated five days later on BBC2, and is still available on the BBC’s iPlayer streaming service.

In its lawsuit, filed at the High Court in London, Evri stated that Panorama falsely accused the company of “exploitative business practices designed to reduce pay for its couriers, with the result that they are regularly unlawfully paid less than the national minimum wage”. It is also seeking an injunction to prevent the BBC from repeating or streaming the programme in future.

Donald Trump v. The Wall Street Journal

Donald Trump has refiled his defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal. He originally sued the newspaper last July after it reported that he had sent child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a salacious letter on Epstein’s fiftieth birthday.

The case was initially dismissed last month, and Southern District of Florida judge Darrin P. Gayles made it very clear that Trump had failed to establish that the Journal had acted with ‘actual malice’, the legal standard required for defamation cases filed by public figures in the US. Gayles wrote: “The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite.”

In a front-page story published (in late editions) on 18th July 2025, the newspaper quoted Trump’s birthday greeting to Epstein: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

The text was enclosed within a drawing of the outline of a nude woman, and Trump signed the letter in the position where the woman’s pubic hair would be. A thick marker pen, Trump’s preferred type, was used for the drawing and signature. The letter was part of an album compiled in 2003 by Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell — who is also a child sex offender — containing letters and cards from Epstein’s friends, including Trump.

Trump was a close associate of Epstein’s who attempted to distance himself once Epstein’s crimes were revealed. The WSJ article — written by Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, and headlined “Trump’s Bawdy Letter to Epstein Was in 50th Birthday Album” — included denials by Trump, and quoted him as saying: “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else”.

Safdar and Palazzolo were named in Trump’s lawsuit, as was media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of the WSJ. Trump posted on Truth Social on 18th July 2025: “I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But now he has, and I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.” His lawsuit sought $10 billion in damages for defamation per se, and a further $10 billion for defamation per quod (that is, implicit defamation).

A copy of the letter was released by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on 8th September 2025, and the newspaper cited this as clear evidence that its story was true. When he dismissed the case last month, the judge noted that the letter described by the Journal and the copy released by the committee “appear identical”, though he did not make a judgement about the accuracy of the newspaper’s reporting. In his lawsuit filed today, Trump’s lawyers argue that “no authentic letter or drawing exists.”

Murdoch has a chequered history with Trump, as does the Journal. In an editorial at the beginning of last year, the newspaper called Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada “The Dumbest Trade War in History”. Murdoch was quoted calling Trump a “fucking idiot” in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury.

Trump’s lawsuit against the WSJ was the first time that a sitting American president had ever sued a media organisation. He has subsequently filed a lawsuit against The New York Times and the authors of Lucky Loser, and he sued the BBC after Panorama edited one of his speeches.

Trump has sued numerous other media figures and news organisations over the years as a private citizen, including Bill Maher and CNN. He sued Bob Woodward for copyright infringement, though that case was dismissed. His lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll was also dismissed. His unsuccessful lawsuit against Timothy L. O’Brien’s book TrumpNation sought $5 billion in damages.

Trump has never won a libel case in court, though he has received settlements in two cases. ABC settled after he sued them in 2024. He sued CBS later that year, and they also agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

Occasionally, Trump has filed defamation suits indirectly via his organisations or relatives. His brother sued their niece, Mary Trump, in 2020, though the case was dismissed. A suit filed against the NYT by his presidential campaign also failed. His wife won undisclosed damages from The Daily Telegraph in 2019, and she was awarded $3 million in damages from the Daily Mail in 2017.

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit

Charges filed against Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit under the lèse-majesté and Computer Crime laws were dropped today by the Criminal Court in Bangkok. The case related to a Facebook Live video stream on 18th January 2021, in which Thanathorn criticised the contract between AstraZeneca and Siam Bioscience (a Crown Property Bureau company) to produce coronavirus vaccines in Thailand.

The court has ruled that Thanathorn’s comments were directed only towards the government, and didn’t constitute defamation. Thanathorn was disqualified as an MP in 2019, and his Future Forward party was dissolved in 2020.

Sapa Talk

Spitting Image, the British puppet comedy show, is a cornerstone of modern television satire. In fact, it’s even been said that many UK cabinet ministers became household names purely as a result of their Spitting Image puppets. Thai television also broadcast a political puppet show, Robot Government (รายการรัฐบาลหุ่น), in the early 2000s, created by veteran actor and director Arun Bhavilai. (Unfortunately, Robot Government is not well documented, either online or in print.)

Another show, Spa Joke [sic] (สภาโจ๊ก), was equally satirical, though it featured political lookalikes rather than puppets. The characters’ names were also soundalikes for those of real politicians. Like Robot Government, Spa Joke was broadcast on the independent channel iTV, running from 2002 to 2014. (After iTV closed down in 2007, Spa Joke moved to the state broadcaster NBT.)

Like Spitting Image, Spa Joke made political debates accessible to a mass audience, and this was one of the aims of the show’s creators. It was released on a long-running and popular series of VCDs, and the first year’s episodes are archived on YouTube, with the tagline “แล้วพบกันอีพีต่อๆไปครับท่านประธาน!” (‘see you in the next episode, Mr Speaker!’). It was briefly revived in audio form on the Clubhouse app in 2021, with live episodes that were even edgier than the TV version.

สภาโจ๊ก is also the title of a song by the band TaitosmitH, from their album เพื่อชีวิตกู (‘for my life’), which makes coded references to politicians of the period. The song refers to a man charged with possession of flour (Thammanat Prompao, who falsely claimed that the heroin he had smuggled was only flour), and a sleeping deputy PM (Prawit Wongsuwon, who was filmed dozing in parliament). The album was released on CD and vinyl in 2022.

In 2023, some of the original Spa Joke team created a new version of the show, Sapa Talk (สภาทอล์ค). This was initially broadcast on Thai-Tai, the channel that was previously known as Bluesky, though after a few months it moved to Thai Rath TV. Each episode is also on YouTube.

Sapa Talk’s cast included Phayao Nimma playing Prayut Chan-o-cha, and the actor also portrayed Prayut in the films New Abnormal (ผิดปกติใหม่) and The Cave (นางนอน). Sapa Talk has not released any new episodes since October last year, due to the national mourning period following the death of Queen Sirikit.

Kash Patel: “I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook...”

FBI director Kash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic today, seeking $250 million in damages. An article by Sarah Fitzpatrick, published online on 17th April, claims that “Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.”

The article, headlined “The FBI Director Is MIA”, includes a denial from Patel, who told the magazine: “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook.” Patel’s lawsuit describes the article as a “malicious and defamatory hit piece” though Fitzpatrick’s reporting is based on conversations — albeit off-the-record — with six current and former FBI officials.

Donald Trump v. The Wall Street Journal

Donald Trump’s $20 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal has been dismissed by a US District Court. In a written judgement published today, Southern District of Florida judge Darrin P. Gayles made it very clear that Trump had failed to establish that the Journal had acted with ‘actual malice’, the legal standard required for defamation cases filed by public figures in the US. Gayles wrote: “The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite.”

Last year, the Journal, reported that Trump had sent child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a salacious letter on Epstein’s fiftieth birthday. In a front-page story published (in late editions) on 18th July 2025, the newspaper quoted Trump’s birthday greeting to Epstein: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

The text was enclosed within a drawing of the outline of a nude woman, and Trump signed the letter in the position where the woman’s pubic hair would be. A thick marker pen, Trump’s preferred type, was used for the drawing and signature. The letter was part of an album compiled in 2003 by Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell — who is also a child sex offender — containing letters and cards from Epstein’s friends, including Trump.

Trump was a close associate of Epstein’s who attempted to distance himself once Epstein’s crimes were revealed. The WSJ article — written by Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, and headlined “Trump’s Bawdy Letter to Epstein Was in 50th Birthday Album” — included denials by Trump, and quoted him as saying: “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else”.

Safdar and Palazzolo were named in Trump’s lawsuit, as was media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of the WSJ. Trump posted on Truth Social on 18th July 2025: “I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But now he has, and I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.” His lawsuit sought $10 billion in damages for defamation per se, and a further $10 billion for defamation per quod (that is, implicit defamation).

A copy of the letter was released by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on 8th September 2025, and the newspaper cited this as clear evidence that its story was true. In today’s ruling, the judge noted that the letter described by the Journal and the copy released by the committee “appear identical”, though he did not make a judgement about the accuracy of the newspaper’s reporting: “Whether Trump was the author of the Letter or Epstein’s friend are questions of fact that cannot be determined at this stage of the litigation.”

Murdoch has a chequered history with Trump, as does the Journal. In an editorial at the beginning of last year, the newspaper called Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada “The Dumbest Trade War in History”. Murdoch was quoted calling Trump a “fucking idiot” in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury.

Trump’s lawsuit against the WSJ was the first time that a sitting American president had ever sued a media organisation. He has subsequently filed a lawsuit against The New York Times and the authors of Lucky Loser, and he sued the BBC after Panorama edited one of his speeches.

Trump has sued numerous other media figures and news organisations over the years as a private citizen, including Bill Maher and CNN. He sued Bob Woodward for copyright infringement, though that case was dismissed. His lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll was also dismissed. His unsuccessful lawsuit against Timothy L. O’Brien’s book TrumpNation sought $5 billion in damages.

Trump has never won a libel case in court, though he has received settlements in two cases. ABC settled after he sued them in 2024. He sued CBS later that year, and they also agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

Occasionally, Trump has filed defamation suits indirectly via his organisations or relatives. His brother sued their niece, Mary Trump, in 2020, though the case was dismissed. A suit filed against the NYT by his presidential campaign also failed. His wife won undisclosed damages from The Daily Telegraph in 2019, and she was awarded $3 million in damages from the Daily Mail in 2017.

“A vindication for investigative journalism...”

Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey has withdrawn his defamation lawsuit against the Financial Times newspaper, almost three years after it accused him of sexually assaulting and harassing more than a dozen women who had worked with him. Odey’s libel suit was filed at the High Court in London in 2024. FT editor Roula Khalaf’s reaction to the collapse of the case is quoted in today’s issue: “This is a vindication for investigative journalism and for the victims whose stories of abuse we reported”.

The FT published its investigation into Odey on 10th June 2023, as the cover story of its FT Weekend Magazine supplement (no. 1,026). The magazine’s stark headline read: “Crispin Odey has got away with assaulting and harassing women for 25 years”. The article, titled “THE GAMBLER” (pp. 18–25), was written by Madison Marriage, Antonia Cundy, and Paul Caruana Galizia.

500 Must-See Movies

Total Film magazine first published its 500 Must-See Movies special issue in 2017, listing 500 films classified into five genres: horror, science-fiction, thrillers, action movies, and comedies. A second edition was published in 2022, with a handful of changes.

Since then, ‘new’ editions have appeared each year, without any further changes to the selected films. This year’s sixth edition features only one substitution: in the thriller category, Performance has been removed and replaced by a new entry, Oppenheimer.

Empire and Us Weekly magazines have also published top-500 film lists, as did the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph newspapers. Empire later revised its list for its Australian edition, and published a collection of 500 five-star reviews. Dateline Bangkok also has its own list of 500 classic films.

Total Film’s previous greatest-film lists are: The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time from 2005, The Top 100 Movies of All Time from 2006, and 100 Greatest Movies from 2010. It also compiled a list of The Sixty-Seven Most Influential Films Ever Made in 2009.

The Stringer

Photojournalist Nick Út has filed a defamation lawsuit in France against Netflix and Gary Knight, producer of The Stringer. The documentary, directed by Bao Nguyen, alleged that The Terror of War, a famous photograph of a young girl, naked and screaming in pain after a napalm attack during the Vietnam War, was taken by Nguyen Thanh Nghe and not by Út.

The photo has been credited to Út ever since it was first published in 1972, though the documentary’s evidence to the contrary is compelling. The film relies heavily on the word of a single Associated Press whistle-blower, though digital mapping of the landscape at the moment the picture was taken places Út too far away from Kim Phúc, the girl in the photo.

Petal Camera

The Petal camera was released in Japan in 1948. This minuscule device is barely larger than a coin, though its chrome-plated brass body is reassuringly heavy.

The Petal’s disc-shaped film has six exposures, each only 6mm in diameter, which could be enlarged — into ‘petalargements’ — when processed. The camera has a fixed-focus lens.

It was manufactured by St. Peter Optical, primarily for export, and it was distributed in the US by Mycro Camera in 1949. The original circular Petal was followed by the Everax A (engraved with a floral motif) and a slightly larger Sakura Petal octagonal version.

The Petal is the world’s smallest film camera. It’s significantly smaller than the more famous Minox spy cameras from Latvia and Germany. It’s also smaller and more advanced than the Hit cameras made by Tougodo, which became a generic term for all Japanese post-war subminiature cameras.

Other smallest-ever analogue cameras include:

• Bolsey 8 — the smallest cine camera
• Sony Ruvi — the smallest video camera
• Polaroid iZone 200 — the smallest instant camera

100 Years of Anime

100 Years of Anime, by Matthieu Pinon and Philippe Bunel, was first published in French (Un siècle d’animation japonaise) in 2017, to mark the centenary of anime (Japanese animation). The book’s English translation was published last year.

Jonathan Clements wrote the definitive history of anime in 2013. 100 Years of Anime is nothing like as scholarly as the Clements book — it has no footnotes, and only a very brief annotated bibliography — but it is better illustrated, with colour photographs on almost every page. Pinon and Bunel are also the only other authors, besides Clements, to write a complete 100-year history of anime.

Clements also co-wrote The Anime Encyclopedia, a uniquely comprehensive guide to thousands of anime titles. His co-author Helen McCarthy wrote the first English-language book on the subject, Anime! A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Animation.

Dianarama:The Betrayal of Princess Diana

Former Panorama reporter Martin Bashir’s extraordinary TV interview with Princess Diana was broadcast on BBC1 on 20th November 1995. Diana’s criticism of Camilla Parker-Bowles provided the key soundbite — “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” — though her comments about Prince Charles’s accession were even more remarkable. Asked whether their eldest son William should succeed the Queen instead of Charles, she replied: “My wish is that my husband finds peace of mind. And from that follows other things, yes.”

In Dianarama: The Betrayal of Princess Diana, Andy Webb calls the Panorama interview “the most momentous footage the BBC has ever recorded, or will ever record”, and he’s probably right. As we now know, Bashir obtained the interview by deception: he commissioned graphic designer Matt Wiessler to create fake bank statements, and presented them to Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, who then put him in touch with Diana herself.

The forged bank statements added credence to a series of false conspiracy theories that Bashir told to Spencer and Diana. In the weeks leading up to the interview, he was essentially gaslighting Diana — Webb describes his “wicked intent” — exploiting her paranoia after ‘Dianagate’ and other scandals.

Dianarama is the first book on the Diana interview. It’s a comprehensive account of the background, the interview session itself, and the consequences for Diana, Bashir, and the BBC. Webb has spoken to most of the key players — except Bashir, of course, whose only public comment on Diana came in a brief Sunday Times interview on 23rd May 2021.

The book pieces together a detailed account of Bashir’s contacts with Spencer and Diana prior to the interview. Webb also reveals the extent of the BBC’s efforts to cover up Bashir’s serious breaches of journalistic ethics. (The corporation carried out an internal investigation in 1996, though no disciplinary action was taken. BBC News executive Anne Sloman wrote a sinister and prophetic memo at the time: “The Diana story is probably now dead, unless Spencer talks.”)

In 2020, the BBC finally commissioned an independent inquiry into the Diana interview, led by John Dyson. Webb analyses Dyson’s findings, and the witness testimonies from Bashir and others, concluding that Dyson’s “whole assessment of the scandal must be called into question.”

Webb claims a pivotal role in exposing the facts about the interview: “it was only when I was able to get hold of a formerly secret document from the BBC, after a thirteen-year struggle, that the scandal burst into the open and Bashir’s duplicity was revealed for the first time.” He also writes: “I can say without being too swell-headed that something I did... finally brought it to light.”

He began his research into the story in 2007, when he submitted a Freedom of Information request to the BBC, but the corporation denied the request, and Webb moved on to other projects. He didn’t renew his investigation until 2020, when he sent another — much more fruitful — FoI request. He made a Channel 4 documentary about the case later that year, and directed a follow-up in 2021.

Much of the credit for exposing the story belongs to the Mail newspapers. On 7th April 1996, less than six months after the Panorama broadcast, The Mail on Sunday first reported that Bashir had commissioned Wiessler to create the fake bank statements. Spencer gave a series of interviews to the Daily Mail — published on 3rd, 4th, and 7th November 2020 — and it was his allegations that led the BBC to launch the Dyson inquiry. Webb was indirectly responsible for this, as he sent Spencer the replies to his 2020 FoI request, which prompted Spencer to talk to the Daily Mail.

Thai Political Milestones, no. 6:‘Shutdown Bangkok’

Thailand’s politics had been polarised for almost a decade by 2013, between the yellow-shirt and red-shirt movements. Yingluck Shinawatra managed the impossible, by bringing both sides together in a common cause — though they were united against one of her Pheu Thai government’s key policies, a blanket amnesty for those accused of political crimes. The proposed amnesty would have given immunity to Abhisit Vejjajiva over his role in the deadly crackdown on red-shirt protesters in 2010, though the bill was widely perceived as a cover to exonerate Yingluck’s brother Thaksin of his corruption charges.

The amnesty bill was approved by parliament on 1st November 2013, thanks to Pheu Thai’s majority in the House of Representatives, though the vote was held at 4am, in a misguided attempt to pass it without drawing attention to the legislation. Protests against the amnesty took place in Bangkok, and the bill was unanimously rejected by the Senate, on 11th November 2013.

At the same time, on 20th November 2013, the Constitutional Court rejected an attempt by Pheu Thai to amend the constitution and return to an entirely elected Senate. (Under the previous 1997 constitution, the Senate had become fully democratic for the first time, though the subsequent constitution drafted after the 2006 coup created a half-elected and half-appointed Senate.)

In a highly unusual and provocative step, Pheu Thai publicly rejected the court’s verdict, and even called for the impeachment of the five judges who voted against the government. Yingluck ultimately withdrew the proposed amendment, and dropped all plans for an amnesty, though these concessions emboldened the anti-government protesters to increase their campaign, calling for the eradication of what they called the Thaksin regime.

People’s Democratic Reform Committee

Mass demonstrations began on the weekend of 23rd and 24th November 2013, when around 100,000 protesters gathered at Democracy Monument. Suthep Thaugsuban, a senior figure in the opposition Democrat Party, resigned as an MP to lead a new protest group, the People’s Democratic Reform Committee. The PDRC briefly occupied the offices of several government ministries on 25th November 2013.

PDRC protesters carried whistles instead of the hand-clappers used in previous demonstrations, though in other respects they followed the yellow-shirt playbook. Their street protests caused maximum disruption in Bangkok, provoking a political crisis, and creating the conditions for a military coup.

In 2010, when Suthep was in government and the red-shirt rallies were at their height, Suthep said: “if they violate the laws, such as blocking roads and intruding into government offices, we will have to disperse the protesters.” But, three years later, he was using precisely the tactics that he had previously condemned.

On 9th December 2013, all Democrat Party MPs resigned from parliament and the PDRC led around 160,000 people in a march to Government House. Yingluck dissolved parliament and called a general election for 2nd February 2014, though the Democrats announced that they would boycott the vote.

Registration for the election took place at the Bangkok Youth Centre stadium, and the PDRC began one of its biggest rallies there on 22nd December 2013. After four days, on Boxing Day, the police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, and a police officer was killed.

Suthep escalated his protests, announcing a ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ campaign that began on 13th January 2014, designed to cause gridlock in the capital city and sabotage the election. Yingluck declared a state of emergency on 22nd January 2014, and four days later the PDRC blocked access to polling stations to prevent early voting in the election.

On election day, 11% of polling stations were closed due to PDRC protests, and voting was cancelled in nine provinces. On the eve of the election, a lone gunman shot four pro-democracy demonstrators at Lak Si in Bangkok. (His M16 rifle was concealed in a Kolk popcorn bag, which became a tasteless fashion accessory among some PDRC members.)

After months of disruption, riot police began attempting to reclaim some of the blockaded buildings and roads in Bangkok. On 18th February 2014, four protesters and a police officer were killed at Phan Fah when protesters attacked the police with grenades and gunfire, and the police responded with live ammunition. Suthep finally ended his shutdown on 3rd March 2014.

The 2014 Coup

On 20th March 2014, army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha announced that the military had taken over control of national security. In a televised broadcast, he sought to reassure the public: “We urge people not to panic. Please carry on your daily activities as usual. The invocation of martial law is not a coup d’etat”

Two days later, Prayut led the National Council for Peace and Order in a military coup against the Pheu Thai government. He was appointed prime minister on 21st August 2014, a role he held for nine years.

Thai Political Milestones:

• no. 1: ‘Black May’
• no. 2: 14th October 1973
• no. 3: 6th October 1976
• no. 4: Yellow-shirts v. Red-shirts
• no. 5: ‘Three-finger’ Protests

Bob Vylan

The punk duo Bob Vylan are suing RTÉ for defamation, after the broadcaster described their Glastonbury Festival performance as antisemitic. Bob Vylan appeared at Glastonbury on 28th June alongside Irish band Kneecap, and both groups were under criminal investigation for their performances.

Bobby Vylan led the Glastonbury crowd in a chant of “death, death to the IDF”, a reference to the Israel Defense Forces. On the same day, Kneecap member Móglaí Bap urged the crowd to “start a riot”, though he retracted the comment a few minutes later.

On 30th June, RTÉ News reported: “The lead singer of British band Bob Vylan led antisemitic chants from the stage.” The band sued RTÉ for libel on 9th December, and announced the lawsuit in an Instagram post on 11th December: “We have decided to take legal action against RTÉ after they recklessly labelled us and our actions at Glastonbury antisemitic.”

The police investigation into Kneecap’s performance was dropped on 18th July, after less than a month. On 23rd December, Avon and Somerset Police announced that no charges would be brought against Bob Vylan, “on the basis there is insufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction.”

Donald Trump:“The BBC intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers...”

President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the BBC, seeking $10 billion in damages. In a submission to the US District Court in the Southern District of Florida filed yesterday, Trump’s legal team argue that “the BBC intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world”.

Trump had previously threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion, after it broadcast an episode of its long-running documentary series Panorama that edited one of his speeches in a misleading way. Last month, a letter from Trump’s lawyer accused the BBC of making “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” in the programme.

The Panorama episode, Trump: A Second Chance?, featured an extract from a speech Trump gave on the morning of 6th January 2021, the day of the attempted insurrection by Trump supporters at the US Capitol building in Washington. At an early point in the speech, Trump said: “we’re gonna walk down, and I’ll be there with you... We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” The speech continued for almost an hour, and in the final passages Trump’s tone became more combative: “And we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”

However, Panorama edited three soundbites from the speech together seemlessly, making Trump appear to say: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, / and I’ll be there with you / And we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” This went beyond the usual editing for brevity and clarity, as it changed the sequence of his words and spliced together lines that were delivered almost an hour apart. But it did not fundamentally alter the meaning of Trump’s speech, as he was impeached for inciting violence at the Capitol.

The episode was broadcast in the UK twice last year: on BBC1 on 28th October, and repeated on BBC2 on 2nd November. But it was not broadcast or streamed by any of the BBC’s American TV services. It was available via the BBC iPlayer for a year after its first broadcast, though that service is geoblocked outside the UK.

To prove to a Flordia court that he was defamed by Panorama, Trump must first establish that the programme was viewed by Floridians. His lawsuit makes the rather weak argument that, due to the increased usage of VPN software, there is an “immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary”, though there is no evidence that any VPN users in the state actually watched it. Regardless, the BBC could certainly argue that it takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that the iPlayer is not accessible outside the UK.

Trump’s lawsuit also cites the Canadian media company Blue Ant, which had a licence to distribute Panorama internationally. But Blue Ant did not sell the episode in question to any American broadcasters, and in any case, the international version of the episode was edited to allow time for commercial breaks, and the Trump speech was one of the sections cut from this shorter version.

The lawsuit describes Panorama’s editing of Trump’s speech as “an intentional and malicious effort to falsely and deceptively portray President Trump as having called for violent action”. The BBC has already issued a public apology, saying on 13th November that the edit “gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”. The key distinction here is between “intentional” and “mistaken”, as US defamation law requires evidence of deliberate intent to mislead. But the Panorama episode featured extensive interviews with Trump supporters, and was by no means the hatchet job that the lawsuit describes.

Trump is seeking $5 billion in damages for defamation, and an additional $5 billion for alleged violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. (The FDUTPA is a consumer protection law, and seems to have no relevance to the Panorama episode.) The lawsuit ends by requesting a jury trial, which may be the most significant aspect of the filing: a jury in Florida — a Republican state — would likely be dominated by Trump voters, which might therefore influence the verdict.

This is the third time that Trump has personally taken legal action against a news organisation during his second term. The first occasion was earlier this year, when he sued The Wall Street Journal, claiming that a letter he wrote to Jeffrey Epstein didn’t exist. (Since the WSJ lawsuit was filed, the letter has been published, and Trump continues to deny that he wrote it, even though it’s clearly signed by him.) He also filed a lawsuit against The New York Times and the authors of Lucky Loser.

Trump has sued numerous other media figures and news organisations over the years, including Bill Maher and CNN. He sued Bob Woodward for copyright infringement, though that case was dismissed. His lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll was also dismissed. His unsuccessful lawsuit against Timothy L. O’Brien’s book TrumpNation sought $5 billion in damages.

Trump has never won a libel case in court, though he has received settlements in two cases. ABC settled after he sued them last year. CBS also agreed to an out-of-court settlement earlier this year after he sued them in 2024.

Occasionally, Trump has filed defamation suits indirectly via his organisations or relatives. His brother sued their niece, Mary Trump, in 2020, though the case was dismissed. A suit filed against the NYT by his presidential campaign also failed. His wife won undisclosed damages from The Daily Telegraph in 2019, and she was awarded $3 million in damages from the Daily Mail in 2017.

Two of the BBC’s most senior executives, Director-General Tim Davie and head of BBC News Deborah Turness, both resigned over the fallout from Panorama’s Trump episode, making Davie the third BBC director-general to resign over a controversial programme. Greg Dyke quit alongside BBC chairman Gavin Davies in 2004, following the suicide of David Kelly, who had been the source for a Radio 4 report about the government allegedly ‘sexing up’ a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. George Entwistle resigned in 2012 after Newsnight falsely accused Alistair McAlpine of child abuse.

Thai Political Milestones, no. 5:‘Three-finger’ Protests

In the days following the 22nd May 2014 coup, demonstrations at Victory Monument in Bangkok were initially tolerated by the junta, though by June of that year, police were being stationed at likely venues to pre-empt any potential protests. Opponents of the coup turned to symbolic acts such as the three-finger salute from the Hunger Games film series, briefly disrupting a speech by coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha on 19th November 2014.

The protest movement was revived in February 2020, with ‘flash mob’ demonstrations on university campuses following the Constitutional Court’s dissolution of the Future Forward party. Future Forward’s progressive policy platform had received overwhelming support from younger Thais eager for structural change, and the party’s abolition was seen as a return to the status quo.

The first mass protests took place on 18th July and 16th August 2020, when more than 10,000 people attended rallies at Democracy Monument organised by Free Youth. Lawyer Arnon Nampa led a smaller protest there on 3rd August 2020 (the so-called Harry Potter rally). A week later, at a Thammasat University protest organised by United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, student Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul read out a ten-point manifesto calling for greater oversight of the monarchy.

The movement increased in popularity and momentum, and tens of thousands of people attended an overnight rally at Thammasat on 19th September 2020. On 14th October 2020, protesters marched from Democracy Monument to Government House, and the government declared a state of emergency in Bangkok.

Protesters regrouped at Ratchaprasong on 16th October 2020, and riot police used water cannon to disperse them. Further mass rallies were held later that week, including at Victory Monument on 18th and 19th October 2020. Water cannon was used again on 8th November 2020, when protesters marched from Democracy Monument to the Grand Palace.

Tensions increased on 17th November 2020, when riot police used water cannon laced with tear gas to prevent protesters from entering parliament. The demonstrators breached the barricades, and were met by a royalist counter-protest. Gunshots were fired, and projectiles were thrown by both sides. More violence occurred a week later when a ping-pong bomb was thrown at protesters outside the Siam Commercial Bank headquarters.

Free Youth rebranded as REDEM (Restart Democracy), and organised a march from Victory Monument to the Viphavadi Rangsit Road military barracks on 28th February 2021. Protesters threw rocks and other projectiles at the police, who deployed tear gas and water cannon against them. The police also fired rubber bullets, in a significant escalation. There were injuries on both sides, and a police officer suffered a fatal heart attack.

Rubber bullets were also used to disperse protesters at Sanam Luang on 20th March 2021, outside Bangkok’s Criminal Court on 2nd May 2021, and at Democracy Monument on 18th July 2021. In August 2021, there were almost daily clashes near Viphavadi Road between between riot police and the radical Thalufah protest group, with rubber bullets being fired on 7th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 15th, and 16th August (when a teenager was tragically hit by a live bullet).

The three-finger campaign is the latest in a series of protests that have epitomised Thai politics over the last fifty years. Some — in October 1973 and May 1992 — resulted in dozens of casualties, though ultimately led to democratic reforms. Others — in October 1976 and May 2010 — simply ended in tragedy. Perhaps the most successful, on their own terms, have been the yellow-shirt and ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ campaigns, both of which followed the same playbook and achieved the same result (a military coup).

Ultimately, the three-finger protests did not achieve their objectives, and their leaders are now either behind bars or living in exile. But the impact of the 2020–2021 protests can be measured by the changing attitudes of younger people towards traditional national values, and by the increasing popularity of the ‘orange movement’ in recent elections.

Thai Political Milestones:

• no. 1: ‘Black May’
• no. 2: 14th October 1973
• no. 3: 6th October 1976
• no. 4: Yellow-shirts v. Red-shirts

Thai Political Milestones, no. 4:Yellow-shirts v. Red-shirts

Thai politics over the past two decades has been dominated by the polarisation between two broad groups of protesters: red-shirts and yellow-shirts. They represent opposite ends of the political spectrum, and they are both defined by their attitudes towards the divisive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Yellow-shirts

Street protests against Thaksin began in 2005, intensifying in early 2006 after he sold a 48% stake in his Shin Corp. business to Singaporean company Temasek. (Thaksin’s government had increased the legal limit on foreign ownership of telecom firms to enable the Shin sale, and changed the tax code to avoid paying any tax on the deal, in a blatant manipulation of the law for personal gain.)

Media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul formed the People’s Alliance for Democracy and organised weekly anti-Thaksin rallies, attended by PAD supporters wearing yellow shirts to symbolise their loyalty to the monarchy (and, by extension, Thaksin’s implied disloyalty). The first major PAD protest took place at Bangkok’s Royal Plaza on 4th February 2006.

On 5th March 2006, around 50,000 PAD protesters marched from Sanam Luang to Democracy Monument, burning Thaksin in effigy. On 29th March 2006, anti-Thaksin demonstrators gathered at Siam Square, bringing the shopping district to a standstill.

Despite its name, the PAD was definitely not a pro-democracy organisation. Sondhi caused maximum disruption and instability, creating the conditions for a military coup, which took place in 2006.

The PAD revived its campaign in 2008, occupying Government House for three months and even forcing the closure of two airports in Bangkok. After the yellow-shirts had blockaded parliament for three days, riot police dispersed the demonstrators on 5th October 2008.

The 2006 Coup

Thaksin was deposed by a military coup on 19th September 2006. But if the coup had been designed to eradicate Thaksin’s political influence, it was unsuccessful, as even today — almost twenty years later — he remains one of the most influential political figures in Thailand. The yellow-shirt rallies had paved the way for the coup, and the subsequent red-shirt protests were held in response to it.

Red-shirts

The red-shirt movement, formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, began after the 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin’s government, and for many years red-shirts were regarded as Thaksin loyalists. Unlike the more affluent yellow-shirts from Bangkok, red-shirts supporters were predominantly working-class voters from Isan and the north of Thailand.

Red-shirt protesters caused disruption in Bangkok in 2009, with a mass rally outside Government House on 8th April, followed by a violent confrontation with the military at Din Daeng on 13th April. Then, in March 2010, the UDD began a long-running and largely peaceful series of rallies near Democracy Monument, initially triggered by the seizure of Thaksin’s assets by the Supreme Court.

On 10th April 2010, the military launched a crackdown on the protesters at Democracy Monument. The red-shirts intensified their demonstrations, establishing city-centre protest camps at Ratchaprasong and Sala Daeng. On 14th May 2010, the camps were surrounded by armed soldiers, leading to a week of deadly street battles between protesters and military snipers.

Ninety-four people were killed in April and May 2010, a death toll exceeding the most notorious crackdowns in modern Thai history, namely October 1973, October 1976, and May 1992. The events of April and May are known in Thai as ‘เมษาโหด’ (‘cruel April’) and ‘พฤษภาอำมหิต’ (‘savage May’), respectively.

Thai Political Milestones:

• no. 1: ‘Black May’
• no. 2: 14th October 1973
• no. 3: 6th October 1976

Andy Ngo v. The Observer

Right-wing writer Andy Ngo has filed a defamation suit against Guardian News and Media over a music review published online and in The Observer. In his review of the Mumford and Sons album Rushmere, critic Phil Mongredien mentioned that Winston Marshall left the band after he had “praised “alt-right” agitator Andy Ngo.”

The review was published on the Guardian’s website on 28th March (and remains online), and in The Observer’s arts supplement The New Review on 30th March. The Observer has since been sold, though Ngo is suing GNM as it owned the newspaper at the time of publication.

GNM has argued that the term ‘alt-right’ was used in quotation marks to indicate that it was a label applied to Ngo by others. The company also defined ‘alt-right’ as more radical than centre-right though not as extreme as far-right.

In a pre-trial High Court judgement released today, however, judge Guy Vassall-Adams agreed with Ngo “that alt-right would be understood by readers to refer to an extreme right-wing position”, and that this was presented in the article as a fact without evidence. Thus, he wrote, the meaning of the phrase was “plainly defamatory at common law.”

Panorama

President Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion, after it broadcast an episode of its long-running documentary series Panorama that edited one of his speeches in a misleading way. A letter from Trump’s lawyer accuses the BBC of making “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” in the programme.

The Panorama episode, Trump: A Second Chance?, featured an extract from a speech Trump gave on the morning of 6th January 2021, the day of the attempted insurrection by Trump supporters at the US Capitol building in Washington. At an early point in the speech, Trump said: “we’re gonna walk down, and I’ll be there with you... We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” The speech continued for almost an hour, and in the final passages Trump’s tone became more combative: “And we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”

However, Panorama edited three soundbites from the speech together seemlessly, making Trump appear to say: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, / and I’ll be there with you / And we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” This went beyond the usual editing for brevity and clarity, as it changed the sequence of his words and spliced together lines that were delivered almost an hour apart. But it did not fundamentally alter the meaning of Trump’s speech, as he was impeached for inciting violence at the Capitol.

The episode was broadcast twice last year: on BBC1 on 28th October, and repeated on BBC2 on 2nd November. Under UK defamation law, a one-year statute of limitations applies, meaning that Trump could not now sue the BBC in the UK. His home state, Florida, has a two-year statute of limitations for defamation, and Trump’s legal letter to the BBC states that he intends to sue under Florida’s defamation law.

Although a lawsuit would fall within Florida’s statute of limitations, Trump would be almost certain to lose a libel case, as the Panorama episode was not broadcast or streamed by any of the BBC’s American TV services. (BBC1 and BBC2 are UK domestic channels. The programme was available via the BBC iPlayer for a year after its first broadcast, though that service is geoblocked outside the UK.) As the Panorama episode was not accessible to an American audience, it does not fall within the remit of a Florida court.

Panorama’s editing of the Trump speech was criticised in an internal BBC report by Michael Prescott, a former BBC advisor, who accused the programme of “taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance.” His report was leaked to The Daily Telegraph, which published it on 4th November. Two of the BBC’s most senior executives, Director-General Tim Davie and head of BBC News Deborah Turness, both resigned over the controversy five days later. Trump wrote a Truth Social post describing Davie and Turness as “very dishonest”, and thanked the Telegraph for its coverage.

Davie is the third BBC director-general to resign over a controversial programme. Greg Dyke quit alongside BBC chairman Gavin Davies in 2004, following the suicide of David Kelly, who had been the source for a Radio 4 report about the government allegedly ‘sexing up’ a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. George Entwistle resigned in 2012 after Newsnight falsely accused Alistair McAlpine of child abuse.

This is the third time that Trump has personally taken legal action against a news organisation during his second term. The first occasion was earlier this year, when he sued The Wall Street Journal, claiming that a letter he wrote to Jeffrey Epstein didn’t exist. (Since the WSJ lawsuit was filed, the letter has been published, and Trump continues to deny that he wrote it, even though it’s clearly signed by him.) He also filed a lawsuit against The New York Times and the authors of Lucky Loser.

(Trump’s legal letter to the BBC was sent on 9th November, and he has given them until 14th November to retract the Panorama programme, apologise, and pay unspecified compensation. This five-day notice period before a libel lawsuit can be issued is stipulated under Florida’s defamation law, though when Trump sued the Journal, he gave less than five days notice, issuing his lawsuit only a few days after he called Murdoch seeking a retraction. This could potentially invalidate his case against the Journal.)

Trump has sued numerous other media figures and news organisations over the years, including Bill Maher and CNN. He sued Bob Woodward for copyright infringement, though that case was dismissed. His lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll was also dismissed. His unsuccessful lawsuit against Timothy L. O’Brien’s book TrumpNation sought $5 billion in damages.

Trump has never won a libel case in court, though he has received settlements in two cases. ABC settled after he sued them last year. CBS also agreed to an out-of-court settlement earlier this year after he sued them in 2024.

Occasionally, Trump has filed defamation suits indirectly via his organisations or relatives. His brother sued their niece, Mary Trump, in 2020, though the case was dismissed. A suit filed against the NYT by his presidential campaign also failed. His wife won undisclosed damages from The Daily Telegraph in 2019, and she was awarded $3 million in damages from the Daily Mail in 2017.