Work vs welfare: The battle tearing Britain’s youth apart

Work vs welfare: The battle tearing Britain’s youth apart

Since the Second World War, the British social contract has promised that if you knuckled down, worked hard and paid your taxes, you would be rewarded with a certain kind of life: a home to own, a decent school for your children, healthcare free at the point of use and a pension.

In recent decades, however, the deal has started to fray. Property prices as a multiple of average incomes have risen steadily, while there has been almost no real-terms wage growth since the financial crisis. The returns on hard work have dwindled, and the number of people who depend on the state has swollen.

This week, the contract looks worthless. In her doom-laden press conference on Tuesday morning, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed what had been clear to many, and prepared the nation for tax rises. These will shatter Labour’s manifesto promise not to increase tax on working people. 

They come after 16 months in power in which she and Keir Starmer have failed miserably in their efforts to reform Britain’s bloated welfare system. Unable to make even the mildest tweak to benefits, they have fallen back on taxes. The handouts will continue, and workers must shoulder ever more of the burden.

Widening generational divide

Between unemployment, disability and other forms of benefits, as well as pensions, British households are increasingly reliant on the state. Last year, 53.3 per cent of people were living in households that get more from the public purse than they pay in tax. The nation is heading towards a tipping point, where those who depend on handouts do not vote for them to be reduced, and outnumber the net contributors who are bled dry. 

Welfare looks less like a security net, or something to fall back on in hard times, and more like a way of life. A minority of better-paid workers, meanwhile, are treated as an endless piggy bank to be raided.

The situation is a petri dish for resentment. A survey this week by King’s College London and Ipsos found that 84 per cent of the public say the country feels divided, up from 74 per cent in 2020.

No generation is experiencing this growing sense of division more acutely than the young. They grew up in the shadow of the financial crisis, before the pandemic forced them out of school and university, and on to Zoom. Now, those who have graduated find themselves in the teeth of a tightening jobs market. 

Wages are stuck, property prices are out of reach for almost anyone without family help, and graduates are saddled with astronomical student debt while watching ever more of their peers receive government handouts. Small wonder the Ipsos survey found that the number of 16- to 24-year-olds who would like the UK “to be the way it used to be” has doubled in five years to 31 per cent.

It is not only low-paid workers feeling the pinch. Graduates who hoped their degrees would give them a premium in the labour market are finding that is no longer the case. Earlier this week, City bosses warned that upward pressure on the minimum wage meant it was rapidly catching up with graduate pay in traditional white collar jobs in accountancy, law and finance. They are wary, too, of making graduates work long hours – a rite of passage for such careers – for fear of running afoul of minimum wage laws.

Hardening social attitudes

Feeling let down and ignored by traditional parties, the young are fragmenting politically, just like their parents and grandparents. They are breaking to Left and Right, splitting on gender lines and, perhaps most surprisingly, hardening on social issues too.

A report this week by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) reveals the depth of the dissatisfaction. For the first time, a majority of the 2,100 respondents said they believe the welfare system is so generous it is stopping people from supporting themselves. 

Twenty-three per cent, the highest figure since records began in 1987, agreed strongly that “people would learn to stand on their own two feet if welfare benefits were less generous.”

And the most dramatic change in opinion came from the 16- to 34-year-old demographic. The percentage of that group agreeing with the statement shot up from 13 per cent in 2024 to 28 per cent in 2025. Attitudes towards criminals are hardening, too. More than two-thirds of those aged 25 to 34 said offenders should be given tougher sentences.

Abi France, a 25-year-old from Oxfordshire, did everything expected of her. Hoping for a career in mental health care, she did a first degree in psychology, then a Masters in neuroscience. She amassed thousands of pounds of debt to do so, only to find that jobs were thin on the ground. It was demoralising, especially when so many of her generation are relying on welfare instead.

“Going into a saturated job market, then going into a minimum wage job, and having to fight really hard for that, and then going into another minimum wage job, was quite disheartening,” she says. “I was aware I could have been getting the same amount on benefits. For me personally, that wasn’t a reason not to work, but it was disheartening, and it definitely made me question the UK.”

For obvious reasons, a life on handouts has never appealed to aspirational young professionals, but in some cases, the outcomes are becoming oddly similar.

“You find that you’re working 38-, 40-, 50-hour weeks, sometimes more,” says one 26-year-old consultant from north London. “Yes, you’re being paid to an extent for it. But equally, you hear stories, and you see cases of the benefit system being used to fund more than the bare minimum lifestyle, and in some cases, abused. People lie and don’t get caught out, or even if they do get caught out, the enforcement measures aren’t there to clamp down on that abuse.”

Hard work no longer pays

At heart, it’s about fairness or, rather, the lack of it. For many young Britons, doing the right thing can look like working hard and getting a good degree, coming out, doing hundreds of interviews to get a job, then finding that you’re sharing a flat with people earning as much as you on minimum wage or benefits. And that this situation, rather than being a temporary pit stop on the way to riches, endures well into your 30s.

Indeed, a combination of a tightening graduate labour market, student debt and high property prices mean knuckling down and working hard is no longer a guarantee you will get on the ladder, or even be able to rent alone. In 2024, the average age of a first-time buyer in England was 34 – in the mid-1980s, it was 27. At the same time, more than one million young people are on benefits, not being in jobs or training. Soaring numbers are signed off work for mental health issues, which increasingly includes milder conditions like anxiety.

“I don’t think that you incentivise well by taxing working,” France says, adding she often feels, “very frustrated and angry” with the current system.

“The more you increase tax, the more you disincentivise working and incentivise not working by offering benefits. I’m not saying that that’s the intended effect, but that is an outcome – that is how psychology works. If you’re offered something to not work, and you’re getting stuff taken away for working, you know, that factors in.”

‘The more you increase tax, the more you disincentivise working,’ says Abi France, 25 - Rii Schroer

‘The more you increase tax, the more you disincentivise working,’ says Abi France, 25 - Rii Schroer

Georgiana Davies, 30, agrees. Despite having two jobs, one in TV and one in social media, she has been renting since she started her modern languages degree at University College London (UCL) 12 years ago.

“Even with those two jobs, trying to find a flat in London, in an area that I want to live in, in a house that is not poorly built, that I can afford, is extraordinarily difficult,” she says. “I don’t think it’s possible to buy a flat unless you have significant parental help.”

“A benefits system is needed for people who are genuinely in need,” Davies adds. “If you’ve got mild anxiety, I think not going to work probably makes that worse. And it leads to people being less sympathetic to genuine mental health problems. I think that ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ attitude needs to come back.”

The two women are characteristic of a generation that is seeing the rewards of hard work dwindle while ever greater numbers of their peers rely on state support. British welfare spending has increased steadily in recent decades, driven by pensions and exacerbated by a sharp recent rise in health and disability claims. 

Social protection accounted for £384bn in 2024-2025, nearly a third of all public spending. Disability benefits have increased from £36bn before the pandemic to £48bn in 2023-24, and are predicted to reach £58bn by 2029. At the same time, the tax burden has risen, from a modern low of 27 per cent of GDP in 1993 to 31 per cent in 2009 and 35 per cent in 2023.

Escalating brain drain

Disillusioned and losing faith in the future, many are tempted to emigrate. Those who remain are abandoning traditional political parties to throw their weight behind more extreme and populist political parties: the Greens on the Left, and Reform on the Right.

Sir John Curtice, the polling guru and senior research fellow at NatCen, says the findings echo his precious research, and that we risk young people losing faith in a political system which feels unfairly weighted against them.

“Young people tend to be a bit more on the Left and are socially liberal, but they are not particularly interested in increasing taxes to spend more on public services,” he says. “The proportion of public expenditure that is spent on services for older people, like health and social care, has been going up. Meanwhile, we have increasingly pulled out of providing public funding for younger people that go off to higher education. There’s no doubt there’s a note of economic concern amongst younger people.”

He adds that it is not just the young people one might typically think of as “left behind” who are feeling the pinch. Student loan fees, in particular, are adding to the frustration of professionals who would historically have expected to have had a smooth route to home ownership.

“Why do you think we are having all these labour market disputes amongst public sector professionals, particularly junior public sector professionals, for example, doctors?,” he says. 

“As a combination of decisions made by Labour and Tory governments, anybody who has been to university is paying 9p in the pound income tax more than everybody else. They’re doing that at a time when housing prices are sky-high, particularly in places like London, and living standards are struggling to improve in terms of GDP per head. Lo and behold, amongst those people in particular, you’ve got a problem.”

Young British medical professionals, for example, are leaving in their droves after years of training in the UK – nearly 2,000 in 2022-2023 – and heading to Australia, drawn by better pay, working conditions and quality of life.

Conor Nakkan, an economic researcher for the Intergenerational Foundation, a think-tank advocating for fairness between generations, believes that a loss of faith in the future among young people could have unpredictable and worrying consequences. Two factors in particular are driving the broken social contract, he says. 

“There is a general frustration amongst young people that centrist, status quo, political parties really aren’t taking their concerns and experiences into account, both in what policies they are putting forward and how they are communicating them.”

Nakkan, who is originally from Australia, says it is significant that despite many other parallels with the UK, his home country is not experiencing the same levels of dissatisfaction among the under-35s.

“Populist politics is not really happening amongst the young in Australia,” he says. “There’s compulsory voting there, the Labor party which just won has promised to cut student debt, and there’s investment in housing. It shows there’s something going wrong in the UK.”

“There is a sense that young people were encouraged to go to university, increase their skills, do all the things that were expected of them, only to come out of university and find the graduate job market is really tough,” he adds. 

“Especially this year, with the looming threat of AI and what effect that will have on the workplace. A lot of this comes back to the lack of opportunities for housing. That really prevents people from starting to form an independent post-university adult life of setting down roots. 

“When you’re paying sky-high rents to live in a dodgy apartment somewhere on the outskirts of London, you’re working your arse off, you’re paying 9 per cent extra to pay off your student loans, I can see why that drives a huge amount of resentment and disillusionment.”

He says a stagnating economy turns considerations about welfare into a “zero-sum” game. “When there’s a sense the pie isn’t getting bigger, it becomes about pitting the distribution of resources against different groups – who’s more and less deserving. There’s a sense that the economic future is more bleak. You have a limited amount of resources. If people are deemed to be the undeserving poor, I can see why they would attract more ire when your situation is not as good as you hoped it would be.

“You get this lack of hope in the future. A lot of sociological research shows that once people lose hope that living standards will continue to rise and their children will be better off than they are, that can drive people to some pretty radical positions that sound great, but in practice are going to be hard to do.”

Fed up voters

The evidence is that young people are turning away from Labour and the Conservatives. According to a survey by polling company Find Out Now, published in the FT this week, support for the Green Party among 18- to 29-year-olds has surged to 31 per cent since the election of their new leader, Zack Polanski, in September. Polanski ran an insurgent campaign advocating for the Greens to expand from their traditional environmental focus to encompass more populist Leftist policies, such as a wealth tax. Labour, which was polling as high as 39 per cent in January, has slumped to 19 per cent.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Reform’s national popularity is echoed among young people, albeit at lower levels.

Sensing a growing rift between net contributors and beneficiaries of the state, Nigel Farage this week said Reform voters were part of “alarm-clock Britain”, people who were “up early and working hard”.

His party has overtaken Labour to be the second most popular party among under-40s at 22 per cent, although they remain some way behind their polling level among older people, and even further behind Polanski’s billionaire-averse Greens among younger voters.

“The young have always been more Left-wing than older people,” says Ben Page, a visiting professor at King’s College London and former chief executive of Ipsos, a polling company. “Generally, people become Right-wing or small-c Conservative when they own a house. Because that is happening later in life, or not at all, then you should be prepared for people to be more willing to countenance supporting the Greens.

“The historical deal in Britain was that you put up with immigration and the rich because the state would look after you, and now it won’t. Fifteen-plus years of no increase in real wages and rising asset prices in the shape of housing does tend to make people fed up. 

“There’s now a large number of people, at least half the population, who expect to be poorer than their parents. That’s a massive shift in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the state is trying to pay huge debts and cope with massive demand for healthcare with an ageing population.”

There is increasing bifurcation within the younger cohort, too. In March, a report by Focaldata based on a survey of more than 2,000 16- to 29-year-olds found that 20 per cent of young women said they were Left-wing, compared to 13 per cent of young men. According to YouGov, at the general election last year, 6 per cent of women aged 18 to 24 voted for Reform, compared to 12 per cent of men.

Salem Zayed, a 23-year-old student, says he is leaning towards voting for Reform at the next election - Clara Molden

Salem Zayed, a 23-year-old student, says he is leaning towards voting for Reform at the next election - Clara Molden

Salem Zayed, a 23-year-old student, exemplifies the trend. “At the next election, I would lean towards Reform,” he says, adding that it is not solely about economics. If Gen Z have grown up in usually straitened economic times, they are also the first to have grown up in the information-drenched smartphone era.”

“Rather than immediate material conditions, it’s more to do with me seeing different ideas on social media,” he adds. “A lot of the discussion around immigration has been held together by a kind of societal taboo. If you oppose immigration, you’ll land yourself in all kinds of hot water. But online, you get to hear that maybe immigration is not this overwhelmingly positive thing.”

Zayed, whose parents moved to the UK from Egypt, says he believes some more recent immigrants “feel they are owed something, because they have historically been wronged”, he says. “They carry that attitude of resentment. In history, that has never been the attitude of the country you are migrating to. 

“When my parents came to this country, it was to get something better for their children, even though the British empire had a history in Egypt. We have gratitude. The fact that’s been lost means our immigration model obviously does not work.”

Not everyone agrees with his diagnosis. “I think a lot of these things are the consequence of governments that can’t get a grip or figure out how to tax the richest in society, and instead pass the responsibility of raising capital to middle-class or working-class people,” says one Green-leaning woman, who lives in Bristol.

“Benefits are there to support vulnerable people in our society, and I think it’s an important part of what we can offer as a country. The welfare state is an important part of our national identity. Undoubtedly there are some people who take the p---, but I think this percentage has been grossly inflated by Right-wing media and politicians.” 

The statistics suggest far more of her cohort are sympathetic to her perspective.

Broken social contract

Ben Page says his research shows that some of the hardening on social attitudes may be due to long-term forces, as well as dissatisfaction with economic prospects. “Support for the statement, ‘One of the best things about Britain is the welfare state’ has been going down since 1980. We thought it was to do with benefit scroungers, and unemployment receding. But it wasn’t actually. It’s just that each generation is less enthusiastic. If you could remember the 1930s, the post-war welfare state was amazing. If you’ve grown up in relative prosperity, it’s a different story.”

Housing affordability is critical. The median price-to-earnings ratio has doubled from 3.5 in 1997 to 8.3 in 2023. When Labour won the general election last year, it promised to build 1.5 million new houses. So far, it has failed miserably. One quick fix, says Conor Nakkan, would be to reform student loan repayments.

“For a long time, there was a solid graduate premium, which helped to deal with the debt, but it is increasingly evaporating,” he says. The pay gap between graduates and non-graduates for 21- to 30-year-olds has fallen from 35 per cent in 2007 to 21 per cent in 2024, while student fees have increased.

“The rate of loan repayment really affects young people’s disposable incomes to live the life they want, whether it’s [to] save for a house or go on holiday,” Nakkan adds. “Labour’s increase to employers’ National Insurance contributions has not helped, either.

“The first people not to be hired, or to be sacked, are going to be young people. We’ve already seen some of the impacts that has had on graduate hiring. Not punishing employers so much would be a good way of improving the jobs market for younger people.”

Abi France found a rewarding and stable job in the end. But she worries the national picture remains complicated. “It feels like we’re in a big problem that feels very hard to get out of,” she says. “There’s so many highly qualified young people that can’t get jobs, and less highly qualified people that can’t get jobs that are still worthy of having them. There’s a lot of people willing to give but just not the opportunities there.”

It has been typical for people to grow out of the rebellious politics of their youth and embrace more centrist or conservative views as they pass through the expensive milestones of adulthood towards middle age: owning a home, paying more tax and having children. If they never have the opportunity to grow up, there is no good reason for their politics to change, either.

When the social contract looks to be in tatters, who can blame young people for seeking alternative politics, or voting with their feet?

Revealed: The devastating memo that plunged the BBC into crisis

The Telegraph has published the internal dossier that has plunged the BBC into crisis.

The document, written by former journalist Michael Prescott and sent to the BBC board, exposes a string of incidents that demonstrate serious apparent bias in the corporation’s reporting.

They include evidence that BBC Panorama “doctored” a speech by Donald Trump to make it wrongly appear as though he directly called for violence on the day that his supporters stormed the US Capitol.

Mr Prescott, who until June 2025 was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, also highlights serious problems with BBC Arabic’s reporting on Gaza, in which it apparently gives extensive space to the views of Hamas. Elsewhere, he raises concerns that a unit of rogue LGBT+ reporters is censoring coverage of the trans debate, and highlights how the BBC’s own flagship fact-checking service, Verify, produced a “thoroughly wrong” report suggesting car insurers were racist. Mr Prescott’s warnings were ignored by senior executives. The Telegraph’s reporting on the memo led to calls from Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, for “heads to roll” at the BBC. Donald Trump Jr accused its reporters of being “dishonest” and Israel’s deputy foreign minister demanded Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, be sacked. Lord Grade, head of the broadcasting regulator Ofcom, wrote to Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, urging him to “thoroughly” examine the claims, while Mr Prescott himself is to give evidence on the memo in a parliamentary inquiry next week.

Here you can read each part of the dossier in full:

Introduction
US election
Racial diversity
Biological sex and gender
Israel/Hamas war
Conclusion


The introduction

Dear Board Members,
You may know that I have been one of the two independent external advisers working alongside the EGSC. I held this role for three years and stood down in the summer. I departed with profound and unresolved concerns about the BBC. Since leaving, I have thought long and hard about what, if anything, to do about this. My conclusion is that these concerns are serious enough for me to draw them to your attention, in your oversight role of the BBC.

What follows is a summary of what were, in my view, some of the most troubling matters to come before the EGSC during my term.

My view is that the Executive repeatedly failed to implement measures to resolve highlighted problems, and in many cases simply refused to acknowledge there was an issue at all. Indeed, I would argue that the Executive’s attitude when confronted with evidence of serious and systemic problems is now a systemic problem in itself - meaning the last recourse for action is the Board.

Much of what I set out below is taken from reports prepared for the EGSC by David Grossman, the Senior Editorial Adviser to the Committee. My understanding is that, as Board members, you have access to EGSC papers should you wish to read his excellent (and so often damning) analyses.

One of the defences often deployed by the BBC when criticised by external organisations is to claim the evidence presented is mere ‘cherry picking’. This is why David’s reports were so very important: they came from within the BBC and were produced by a very experienced and talented BBC journalist. Yet his findings were still, on the whole, dismissed or ignored, even after EGSC members tried to press home the case for full-blooded action.

I served as the Political Editor of the Sunday Times for 10 years, and in corporate advisory roles since then, including as Corporate Affairs Director of BT.

I think it is important to state that I have never been a member of any political party and do not hold any hard and fast views on matters such as American politics or disputes in the Middle East. My views on the BBC’s treatment of the subjects covered below do not come with any political agenda.

Rather, what motivated me to prepare this note is despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light. On no other occasion in my professional life have I witnessed what I did at the BBC with regard to how management dealt with (or failed to deal with) serious recurrent problems.

Long though the following note is, I do urge you to read it. My hope is that you may be able to ensure action where the EGSC has not.


The US election

Panorama

One week before polling day, the BBC aired an hour-long Panorama special called: Trump: A Second Chance?

I watched the programme and found it to be neither balanced nor impartial – it seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance. Critics of the Republican presidential candidate vastly outnumbered those who argued for him. What examination there was of reasons for Trump’s popularity seemed to me insufficient given the overall balance of the programme.

Given what I took to be the anti-Trump nature of the programme, I of course assumed there would be a similar, balancing Panorama programme about Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris the following week. I remain shocked that there was not.

I raised my concerns at the EGSC and David Grossman was asked to review the programme.

He concluded the main contributors to the documentary were heavily weighted against Trump, with just one supporter against ten who questioned his fitness for office.

Worse still, David highlighted alarming concerns about how Panorama had edited Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6*, 2021, the day of the Capitol Hill riot.

Examining the charge that Trump had incited protesters to storm Capitol Hill, it turned out that Panorama had spliced together two clips from separate parts of his speech.

This created the impression that Trump said something he did not and, in doing so, materially misled viewers.

The spliced together version of Trump’s comments aired by Panorama made it seem that he said: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be 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.”

In reality, the first part of Trump’s speech: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you,” came 15 minutes into the speech. The second half of the sentence that was aired by Panorama, “and we fight. We fight like hell....” came 54 minutes later.

Fifteen minutes into the speech, what Trump actually said: “We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” It was completely misleading to edit the clip in the way Panorama aired it. The fact that he did not explicitly exhort supporters to go down and fight at Capitol Hill was one of the reasons there were no federal charges for incitement to riot.

That was not the end of Panorama’s distortion of the day’s events.

On January 6, 2021, the so-called Proud Boys, Trump’s supporters, marched to Capitol Hill before Trump had started speaking.

David’s report to the EGSC highlighted that Trump’s ‘speech’ clip was followed by video footage of the Proud Boys marching towards Congress. This created the impression Trump’s supporters had taken up his ‘call-to-arms’.

This was one of the most shocking sets of issues uncovered during my time with the EGSC. If BBC journalists are to be allowed to edit video in order to make people “say” things they never actually said, then what value are the Corporation’s guidelines, why should the BBC be trusted, and where will this all end?

And yet, faced with David’s findings, the Executive refused to accept there had been a breach of standards and doubled down on its defence of Panorama.

At the EGSC meeting on May 12th , 2025 Jonathan Munro asserted: “There was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr Trump’s speech before the riot at the Capitol. It’s normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips.”

This completely goes against my understanding of BBC editorial policy regarding misleading edits. You will remember, it was this kind of editing that led to the resignation of BBC1 controller, Peter Fincham, following what has become known as Crowngate.

On the (to my mind shocking) failure to try to balance the anti-Trump Panorama with an equally aggressive look at Harris, Jonathan seemed unconcerned, saying it was not necessary “for due impartiality to have companion programmes”. Not doing so in this case was a “legitimate judgement” within the guidelines, he added, without any further justification as to why he took this (to my mind surprising and alarming) point of view.

Deborah Turness tried to justify the doctored video and mangled timeline of the day by citing the US Congressional Committee on Trump’s role in the January 6th riots – the one which concluded he was involved in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the legal results of the 2020 election.

Yet this was a Democrat-packed Committee, not an objective source of truth. I can see no justification for editing video clips so that a presidential candidate appears to say something he never did – and this defence did nothing to change my mind. I do urge the Board to pay particular attention to this matter.

During the EGSC meeting, neither the Director General nor the Chairman made any comment about Jonathan’s dismissive attitude to David’s findings or Deborah’s defence of the edited video clips.

My concerns prompted me to email the Chairman the day after the EGSC meeting.

With regard to the Executive’s comfort in having video clips edited to misrepresent the speaker, I warned: “This is a very, very dangerous precedent. I hope you agree and take some form of action to ensure this potentially huge problem is nipped in the bud.”

I received no reply.

Liz Cheney

One of the most misrepresented comments of the presidential campaign was that made by Trump about his arch Republican critic Liz Cheney, who campaigned to get Kamala Harris elected.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson on October 31st, 2024, Trump took issue with Ms Cheney because she “always wanted to go to war with people”.

He went on to describe her as a “radical war hawk”. He added: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her face. OK let’s see how she feels about it.”

Mr Trump went on to attack politicians “sitting in Washington in a nice building saying “oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy...”

Mr Trump was clearly criticising politicians who readily send US troops to war without thinking about the human cost.

The Harris campaign chose to see things otherwise and claimed Trump had advocated shooting Liz Cheney.

On behalf of the EGSC, David Grossman looked at the BBC’s US presidential race coverage overall. Alas, when it came to the Cheney matter, the BBC repeatedly pushed this inaccurate version of what Trump said.

On the BBC News Channel on 1st November, one presenter asked his guest: “He is out there on the campaign trail saying he wants people to shoot Liz Cheney in the face.... Is that the sort of thing women react well to?”

Speaking on the Six O’Clock News the same night, North America Editor Sarah Smith said Trump had been “ratcheting up the violent rhetoric”.

She added: “In the latest spat, Donald Trump has been accused of being petty, vindictive and a wannabe tyrant because he suggested that one of his political opponents should face guns, have them trained on her face.”

On World News America, one presenter said Trump “appeared to suggest Liz Cheney should face a firing squad for her stance on foreign policy”.

The following day the BBC’s North America Correspondent told the News Channel that Trump had had a “rough week” which included “comments about the Republican Liz Cheney and how she should face nine rifle barrels”.

US election coverage more broadly

David Grossman’s review of the BBC’s coverage of the US presidential race not only highlighted the significant failures of Panorama and of multiple outlets over Trump’s views about Liz Cheney, it also uncovered a range of wider concerns.

I commend to you his full report, delivered to the EGSC on January 16th, 2025, but below is a summary of his findings:

The BBC ignored its own guidelines about not giving undue weight to a single poll and gave excessive coverage to the rogue ‘Iowa poll’ – which suggested a Harris victory days out from the election. This poll dominated coverage in the days leading up to polling day while other polls that contradicted its findings were underplayed.

The BBC focused too heavily on campaign issues promoted by the Harris campaign, such as abortion and women’s rights, at the expense of giving greater weight to jobs, the economy and immigration – which proved to be a significant driver of how people voted.

In covering Trump’s legal wrangles during the campaign, (in May he was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying records), the BBC often failed to highlight that many US prosecutors are political appointees. This prevented viewers from having an understanding of the anti-Trump ‘lawfare’ at play during the presidential race.

There was an over-emphasis on certain events, such as Trump’s comments about people eating pets in Springfield. That dominated the coverage for a week which, David’s report warned, appeared “excessive” and risked compromising impartiality.

The BBC sometimes fell into using, without attribution, contested language such as “reproductive rights”. This signals to many BBC viewers, particularly those in America, a biased mindset.

There was an overall tendency to frame issues in a way that was similar to the Harris campaign and less fact checking of “questionable statements” she made as opposed to Trump. Words used by the Harris camp were also echoed in some BBC coverage, such as referring to Trump supporters as “election deniers”. The phrase “baseless” was also used to describe some of Trump’s contested claims but never in association with questionable claims made by his opponent.

The use of aggregate economic and immigration data skewed coverage because it masked important class and regional variations which contributed to the election result.

The balance of more in-depth programmes was “markedly anti Trump/pro Harris”. The internal review couldn’t find a single programme that looked more critically at Harris and her record than at Trump.


Racial diversity

During my time as an advisor to the EGSC it became clear the BBC fell too easily for putting out ill-researched material that suggested issues of racism when there were none.

The insurance swindle that never was

On February 24, 2024, multiple BBC outlets gave extensive coverage to one of BBC Verify’s first flagship reports, which purported to show a so-called “ethnic penalty” in car insurance.

The central claim was that people living in areas with a high proportion of ethnic minority residents paid more for car insurance, even when road accident figures and crime levels were similar. A scandal, if true.

BBC audiences were being encouraged to believe Britain’s major insurers were, intentionally or unintentionally, racist and charging high prices to customers based on their ethnicity.

The story featured in all the morning bulletins on national and local media, both television and radio. There were longer reports on BBC Breakfast, the One and Six and on the News Channel. Radio 1 Newsbeat, 5 Live Wake Up to Money and Tik Tok also covered the story.

Only one guest was interviewed for the piece, who agreed with the claim. The Association of British Insurers declined to appear and its statement, which provided important context, was selectively quoted.

This story caught my eye simply because I found its central claim to be so unlikely. For me, it was hard to imagine UK FTSE Boards or executive teams conceiving of or sanctioning a policy to charge ethnic minority customers higher prices. I also found it hard to conceive of a systems glitch across insurance companies giving rise to this supposed phenomenon.

I raised the issue at the EGSC and David Grossman was tasked with investigating BBC Verify’s findings. His report to the EGSC six weeks later cited “multiple serious editorial problems” with the coverage.

The central claim implied causation, (that being an ethnic minority resulted in you being charged more), but the reporting and commentary did not consider other issues that can affect insurance charges. The report was also based on old and unsuitable data. None of it was less than five-years-old, some of it was nine.

The report also relied on the Index of Multiple Deprivation, which does not cover many of the issues that might concern insurance companies, such as the claims’ history of the area or how many people charged with driving without insurance live there.

All the data was presented as if it was current and none of the limitations were explained.

The Executive realised these were substantive problems and the initial response was to remove the claim about an ‘ethnic penalty’ in the online article. An extra line was also added: “Overall crime levels of the type of accidents measured by the IMD do not capture everything used to calculate insurance risk.”

Yet the report was so thoroughly wrong that later, a stricter view was taken, and the entire report was taken down, which I understand is very rare.

It had taken six months for the BBC to take decisive action about a story that was not fit for purpose and spread damaging misinformation.

As far as I know, no one has ever been disciplined for this hugely embarrassing episode and worrying questions remain. Who commissioned it, where was the professional scepticism and what checks were made prior to publication and broadcast?

How could this piece go out unchallenged across so many BBC outlets and what does this say about BBC professionalism and governance?

Insecure jobs claim across BBC radio and TV

On August 13th, 2023, the BBC News website ran a story under the headline: “Ethnic minority workers in insecure jobs up 132% since 2011”.

The story was also covered on BBC News Channel, the One O’Clock News and radio bulletins on Radio 4, Radio 1 Newsbeat and the Asian Network.

It was based on research by the TUC, which concluded it was evidence of “structural racism in action” in the decade since 2011.

The report excluded other factors outside of race, such as the hugely increased number of immigrants, age, proficiency in English, educational qualifications or immigration status. It also failed to consider this was the decade when the ‘gig economy’ took off.

The TUC’s report framing had been accepted without question by the BBC, which led to concerns not just about impartiality but also accuracy.

Following an upheld ECU complaint, the story was later amended to concede the rise could simply be due to the numerical rise in ethnic minority workers in the workforce as a whole.

A subsequent review about how the BBC reports group level differences on issues such as race and sex, was carried out by David Grossman for the EGSC. It concluded that BBC reporters often accept the conflation of correlation with causation - just as with the insurance ‘ethnic penalty’ story. Lessons do not seem to have been learned and acted on, and here we have a clear example.

The EGSC was warned that BBC reporters should be particularly sceptical of data produced by groups seeking to lobby for policy or regulatory change. This information should never be accepted at “face value” the report concluded.

As we all know too well, Britain’s social cohesion is strained, and too many politicians seek to exploit grievances around ‘fairness’. The British public should be able to rely on the BBC for an impartial exploration of the challenges and opportunities we all face in society. This is rather less likely to happen if BBC reporters lack the skills to interrogate statistics and end up putting out stories such as the “insecure jobs” one.

I note that a recent Panorama has come under fire for potentially erroneous use of statistics in relation to the Lucy Letby case. That would make three recent occasions where serious errors have been committed by the BBC through misuse of statistics.

BBC Push Notifications system is an outlier in ignoring immigration issues

On March 7th, 2024, the EGSC were told of “selection bias” in favour of certain stories being sent out on the BBC’s push notifications (PN) to more than seven million users of the BBC News app.

An internal review of all notifications in September, 2023, considered the selection of stories sent out as PNs compared to stories on PA News and the internal BBC Quickfire wires.

The review concluded that it was “significant” that of 219 notifications, just four were about the issues of illegal migrants and asylum seekers. Of those, three centred on the poor conditions or mistreatment of migrants.

That month had seen the highest number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel in a single day – a fact covered by both PA News and BBC Quickfire but was not on the BBC PN alerts.

Among the other significant stories that September that were not covered by the BBC’s PN system but appeared on PA News and BBC Quickfire were:

The Government’s promise of new staff to cut the asylum processing backlog

The rejection of a possible EU asylum returns agreement

Issues about the Bibby Stockholm boat which was being used to house asylum seekers

New figures showing the £8m daily cost of housing migrants in hotels

An extension of the use of hotels for Afghan refugees

A warning from the then Home Secretary about the impact on social cohesion if boat crossings were not stopped.

The review concluded: “It is not clear why none of these stories were sent out at PNs, when perhaps less significant stories were extensively covered”.

For context, in the same month the BBC sent out 12 notifications about Russell Brand.

History Reclaimed asks BBC to use expert historians and is ignored

On December 29th, 2022, The Telegraph had an article about a report from History Reclaimed, a group of renowned historians, mainly senior post-holders at Oxford and Cambridge.

They had reviewed four factual BBC programmes containing historical content and found each wanting. The main conclusion was this was caused by producers seeking out non-expert academics who would give good quotes, primarily about racism and prejudice. This was producing an overly simplistic and distorted narrative about British colonial racism, slave-trading and its legacy.

History Reclaimed recommended that in the future the BBC should source the views of expert historians in their relevant fields.

The BBC’s response was dismissive. In its statement, the BBC said: “Cherry-picking a handful of examples or highlighting genuine mistakes in thousands of hours of output on TV and radio does not constitute analysis and is not a true representation of BBC content”.

This defensiveness when challenged over contested areas is something the BBC demonstrates time and time again and was an issue I had raised at the EGSC.

Following The Telegraph’s story, I suggested a meeting of relevant BBC commissioners, producers and editors to review what History Reclaimed was claiming and assess whether any of its recommendations might help improve future programmes.

My own forebears were indentured labourers in Guyana and I personally found the History Reclaimed report both fascinating and compelling.

An initial plan for one senior BBC executive to meet History Reclaimed was first offered and then withdrawn. The EGSC was later told a meeting was now judged inappropriate.

I remain slightly mystified by this. History Reclaimed seemed reasonable, were making limited claims and suggested an easy solution – why ignore the whole thing and allow the questionable practice, apparently identified, to continue?



Biological sex and gender

A BBC presenter contacted me about a month after I started working with the EGSC. He put me in touch with a reporter and a producer. All three were from different parts of the BBC but had shared concerns about BBC coverage of the trans issue.

The story that each person told me was what sounded like effective censorship by the specialist LGBTQ desk within News.

As virtually all shows had lost their own reporters, programme editors had to make requests to News if they wanted a correspondent to cover a story. I was told that time and time again the LGBTQ desk staffers would decline to cover any story raising difficult questions about the trans-debate.

The allegation made to me was stark: that the desk had been captured by a small group of people promoting the Stonewall view of the debate and keeping other perspectives off-air. Individual programmes had come to lack their own reporters as a counterweight.

What I was told chimed with what I saw for myself on BBC Online - that stories raising difficult questions about the ‘trans agenda’ were ignored even if they had been widely taken up and discussed across other media outlets.

There was also a constant drip-feed of one-sided stories, usually news features, celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity.

A typical example was the story of Gisele Shaw, a gushing tale of a transgender wrestler who felt “liberated” by coming out.

This story, posted on March 15th, 2023, glossed over how the wrestler, who is a biological male, had repeatedly won trophies by competing in women’s competition.

The Board might take note that the one undisputed run of ground-breaking journalistic excellence in this space was that of Newsnight’s Hannah Barnes, who went on to author the seminal book about the medical treatment and mistreatment of ‘trans children’.

Her work might well now not be possible at the BBC, given the culture I describe above combined with changes at Newsnight and the lack now of any programme-specific reporters.

Ms Barnes, with a proud track record at the BBC, elected to depart for the New Statesman.

Story selection and diversity of opinion

David Grossman’s report examining the BBC’s coverage of trans issues came to the EGSC in October 2024.

It found many shortcomings, in line with my fears and the concerns raised with me by BBC staff.

These included:

On story selection, his report warned of an “unintended editorial bias”

“Significant voices” were too often missing from the BBC’s coverage, including those who had transitioned and regretted their decision or those who had concerns about the process

The report couldn’t find a single example in the review period that reflected the experience of de-transitioners

It noted there were more stories about the waiting times for people to receive care than examining the quality of that care itself

It also noted a surprisingly high number of stories about drag queens considering it is such a niche group of people

Stories that raised concerns about the quality or safety of care given to gender questioning children and adults received “little or no coverage”

In March 2024, there was widespread media coverage of leaked documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health which raised concerns about the quality of care given to gender-distressed children. It was picked up by the Mail, Economist, Observer, Washington Post, the Times and others but not the BBC

There was also scant coverage of biological women campaigning to exclude biological men from sensitive spaces

The BBC failed to cover the story of Darlington nurses who took their employer to court for allowing their changing room to be used by biological males. This story was covered extensively by other news outlets including Sky News and GB News

Similarly, there was no coverage of claims biological male police and prison officers were being allowed to conduct strip searches on women and girls

The report warned that the phrase “assigned at birth” in relation to biological sex was appearing frequently in coverage, despite being advised against in guidelines

The report noted concerns with how the debate about the Cass Review was framed on Newsnight – the views of a doctor critical of the Tavistock Clinic were “balanced” with those of a trans woman, who said she had received excellent care. The report pointed out that if Newsnight was covering concerns about a maternity unit it would not seek to provide balance by interviewing a mother who was happy with her care

Gender identity

The concept of gender identity is contested but David warned the EGSC that “some of our coverage is presented in a way that suggests the concept of gender identity is an established fact rather than contested.”

He also warned there was a tacit acceptance of the concept of ‘gender identity’ in BBC guidelines that could cause impartiality problems and recommended a change.

The guidelines state: “for most people their sex and gender identity are the same”.

He suggested adding: “Others may reject the idea that they have a gender identity that is separate from their biological sex at all”.

My understanding is we are still waiting for the updated news style guide, nearly 12 months since David’s report was presented to the EGSC.

David’s findings highlight a cultural problem across the BBC – that too many of its staff have never considered the idea of “gender identity” to be either spurious or offensive to many people.

As an institution the BBC too often views issues of gender and sexuality as a celebration of British diversity rather than exploring the complexities of the subject.

Without anchoring stories in biological sex, they risk becoming incomprehensible to audiences. For example, they may not understand the concerns about a transgender woman being sent to a women’s prison.

David flagged one article, carried on BBC News in June, 2024, under the headline: “Transgender woman guilty of rape after night out”. Without adding that the offender was a biological man, this story would be confusing for many.

The review recommended BBC reporters and presenters should use language more “anchored in biological sex” – such as biological males and biological females.

“Otherwise, there is a real danger that audiences may not understand the stories we are attempting to cover.”

A prime example would be the case of Scarlet Blake - a transgender woman sentenced on February 26th, 2024, for the murder of Jorge Martin Carreo. When the story was reported on the One O’Clock News, Blake was not referred to as a trans woman, only a woman. On the Six O’Clock News, she was referred to as a trans woman.

In a statement, the BBC conceded that Blake should have been referred to as a trans woman in the lunchtime programme. It is interesting to ask how the lunchtime news got this wrong - it may well speak to capture by a particular lobby or a nervousness when reporting these subjects.



Israel-Hamas war

Story selection

In July, 2024, a Senior News Editor from the BBC World Service concluded an internal review of BBC Arabic which did not show up any editorial “red flags”.

Unconvinced by its findings, the EGSC pressed for a more thorough review of its output in relation to the Israel and Gaza conflict.

David Grossman was commissioned to review five months of coverage, from May 7th, 2024, to October 6th, 2024. That amounted to 535 articles on the English language website and 523 on BBC Arabic.

On January 16th, 2025, the EGSC received his report, which exposed stark differences in the way important stories had been handled by BBC Arabic and the BBC’s main news website.

For example:
On story selection, the BBC’s main news website posted 19 separate stories about the hostages taken by Hamas on the day of its terror attack. On BBC Arabic there were none

By contrast, every critical article about Israel that appeared on BBC News English website was replicated by BBC Arabic

The English language website had three times as many stories that primarily dealt with the suffering of Israelis. These included the horrors faced by hostages held captive in Gaza, how traumatised Israeli communities were coping, Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks on residential Israeli communities and growing antisemitism. These were all missing from BBC Arabic

There were no articles critical of Hamas on the BBC Arabic site and four on the English site.

Story treatment - Fawzia Sido liberation

BBC News’ English website covered the story of a Yazidi woman, Fawzia Sido, rescued by Israeli soldiers after a decade as a sex slave in Iraq, prior to her arrival in Gaza.

Kidnapped, drugged, raped and “sold off” for marriage to an ISIS fighter at the age of just 11, the story detailed her escape and rescue, with back up for her claims from the US State Department and the Iraqi authorities.

BBC Arabic ran the same story but with critical differences - starting with the headline: “Israel says ‘Yazidi prisoner returned to Iraq after ten years in Gaza,’ Hamas tells BBC ‘Israel narrative is fabricated’”.

The bulk of BBC Arabic’s story is taken up by a 582-word-long statement by Hamas disputing the woman’s terrible story.

Story treatment – Hamas attack on Jaffar

Similarly, there were major content and tone differences in stories covering an attack by Hamas terrorists on October 1st, 2024, which killed seven Israeli civilians in Jaffa.

The BBC News’ English website revealed how the victims included Inbar Segev Vigder, a young mother who died shielding her 9-month-old baby from harm.

BBC Arabic covered the story under the headline: “The Qassam Brigades claims responsibility for the Jaffa operation, what do we know about it?” The report presented the attack as a military operation and gave no information about the victims.

Similarly, the deaths of four hostages in Gaza on June 3, 2024, were covered with a dedicated article on the English language site but dismissed in four paragraphs in a BBC Arabic article that focused on Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

Story treatment – the Majdal Shams rocket attack

Another major story in the conflict, Hezbollah’s bombing of a football game in the Golan Heights on July 27th , 2024, that left nine children dead, was also given critically different treatment.

The English language version included Hezbollah’s denials that it was responsible for the Majdal Shams rocket strike but included evidence to suggest it had bombed other sites in the area.

The BBC Arabic story, posted four hours after the English language version, did not include evidence linking Hezbollah to the bombing of a nearby military compound, just two miles from the football pitch, and prominently included the terror group’s denials.

Its headline referred to “Israelis” being killed and injured in the attack, not children.

A day-two story covered on the Arabic website contained unsubstantiated claims from Iran and Syria that Israel faked the attack as a pretext for attacking Hezbollah.

It was clear from David’s extensive research in this report that BBC Arabic’s story selection, tone and focus were considerably different to the BBC News’ English website.

It is hard to conclude anything other than that BBC Arabic’s story treatment was designed to minimise Israeli suffering and paint Israel as the aggressor.

At the time, one very experienced person attending the EGSC meeting described the findings as the most “extraordinary paper” she had ever seen. It should have prompted urgent action by the executive but it did not.

Executive response to the EGSC report into BBC Arabic

The BBC has faced, and still faces, considerable criticism from the Jewish community and from cross-party parliamentarians across both Houses over its record in reporting the conflict in Gaza and, in particular, the coverage of BBC Arabic.

In spite of this, and the findings of the internal BBC report, there is no sign of an open admission by the executive about systemic problems within BBC Arabic.

There is no sign of any programme to correct the problems, other than making changes to senior positions at the World Service, a move in which the Director General appears to place a great deal of trust. But how is new management to wrestle with the problems unless there is first a genuine admission of just how deep-seated the problems are?

The Executive’s attitude can be judged by what happened at the EGSC on March 6”, 2025, when the Committee was told the management changes at the World Service did not arise “from any editorial problem specific to BBC Arabic”.

Jonathan Munro responded to David Grossman’s review by dismissing or diminishing its findings.

He wrote: “While no service is perfect and all of us can make mistakes, we believe BBC Arabic delivers against (its) responsibilities with the vast majority of its reporting and analysis”.

Its reporters were an “unrivalled source of knowledge and editorial content for the wider BBC” and the team had delivered “exceptional journalism during this period”.

There had been “incidents where we have fallen short” and the BBC had looked to correct and clarify and in some cases, “relating to the conduct and social media conduct of some of our members taken decisive action”.

The report dismissed concerns about story selection by arguing that “journalism created for one part of the BBC should not be assumed to travel to another”.

“Stories which do not appear on BBC Arabic online are not necessarily ‘missing’. Rather they may not appear for good editorial reasons,” Jonathan argued.

On the discrepancies of coverage on the Yazidi sex slave story, Jonathan said the headline in BBC Arabic was not “complete enough in its attempts to summarise the story” but added “no headline is designed to be read in isolation”.

On the Majd al-Shams rocket coverage, Jonathan said: “The EGSC report questions why a BBC Arabic article on 28th July did not mention ‘evidence that Hezbollah was responsible’. Culpability was, and still is, disputed. Hezbollah denied responsibility, which is rare....”

David’s report had highlighted that there were far fewer stories from an Israeli perspective over the five-month review period than from a Palestinian perspective.

Jonathan’s response was to ignore the review period and find stories outside the scope of the review. Jonathan cited two stories “covering the story of Ada Sagi”. This was a curious comparison to make.

She was only mentioned on BBC Arabic in the aftermath of October 7th, in a list of hostages taken by Hamas. I have seen no evidence that BBC Arabic, at any point, has told the harrowing story of her kidnap and captivity despite it having been reported elsewhere on BBC, including on the main News website.

As for BBC Arabic’s reporting of Hamas? Jonathan argued the high prominence given to Hamas’ lines “helps understanding of what Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza may be hearing”.

He also added “other data points” were helpful for “audience perspective”. Incredibly,this included an audience survey which revealed BBC Arabic was almost as trusted as Al Jazeera. Is Al Jazeera the new gold standard the BBC wants to aspire to?

All this is to entirely miss the main reasons for having a taxpayer funded World Service - to provide impartial news coverage and to reflect British values on the world stage.

Gaza ‘journalists’

Media stories about the antisemitic and pro-Hamas views of journalists appearing on BBC Arabic forced another internal review into the channel in June, 2025.

In April, 2025, The Telegraph reported that BBC Arabic had given a regular platform to the journalist Samer Elzaenen, who had posted a string of antisemitic comments – including suggesting Jews should be burned “as Hitler did”.

At the time it was reported he had appeared “a dozen times” on BBC Arabic reporting from Gaza. However internal research showed Elzaenen, who was consistently introduced as a journalist on BBC Arabic, actually appeared 244 times between 13th November 2023 and 18th April, 2025.

BBC Arabic regular, Ahmed Qannan, who described a gunman who killed four civilians and an Israeli police officer as a “hero” , appeared 217 times on the channel between 8th February, 2024 and the 27th April, 2025. Introduced as a journalist from Gaza, he appeared both on BBC Arabic radio and Gaza Today.

Ahmed Alagha, who described Israelis as less than human and Jews as “devils” appeared 522 times between 21st November, 2023, and 26th April, 2025, across BBC Arabic television, radio and BBC Gaza Today. He was consistently introduced as a journalist.

Revelations about the views of these journalists prompted calls by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch for wholesale reform of BBC Arabic.

In its public statement, the BBC downplayed their contributions to the channel, even going so far as to claim they were just “eyewitnesses”.

On 26th April, 2025, the BBC in a statement said: “We hear from a range of eyewitness accounts from the strip”.

In a separate statement the BBC also said: “These are not BBC members of staff or part of the BBC’s reporting team”.

Most viewers would consider hundreds of appearances on the BBC, reporting on developments, to amount to a journalist being almost a part of the Corporation’s reporting team.

Death toll in Gaza

A separate review into BBC coverage of the conflict’s death toll was commissioned and reported back to the EGSC on 2nd July, 2024.

The review was commissioned after the UN revised its figures and admitted the percentage of women and children being killed in the conflict was less than previously thought.

In the 2014 conflict, the Hamas-run health ministry reported casualty figures based on deaths recorded in hospitals. This matters because the majority of hospital-recorded deaths are men.

However, in this war, Hamas has based its figures both on hospital records and on “media reports” from the Gaza Government Media Office. Hamas, which runs the GMO, has never explained how this number has been calculated but the majority of deaths from “media reports” are women and children.

Despite growing concerns that this new methodology was unreliable, the UN and media outlets, including the BBC, reported that 70 per cent of all those killed in Gaza were women and children. Eventually the UN reviewed and revised down the figure to 52 per cent.

In the report to the EGSC, we were warned that for too long the BBC had given “unjustifiable weight” to the 70 per cent claim, even though concerns about its credibility were well known.

Mass graves

In April, 2024, and again in June, the BBC covered two stories relating to the discovery of mass graves in Gaza. The first was discovered at Al Nasser hospital and the second at Al Shifa.

The strong implication in the coverage was that Israeli forces had buried hundreds of bodies at both sites prior to withdrawing from the area. The source for both stories was the Hamas controlled Gaza Civil Defence Agency. This was not reflected in the coverage.

The internal report to the EGSC flagged: “There was no independent corroboration of allegations of war crimes, including alleged evidence of summary executions, torture and bodies found with their hands tied together”.

One online story incorrectly implied a UN official had corroborated the reports of hands being tied.

It seems that the most likely explanation was the graves at both hospitals were dug by Palestinians and the people buried there had died or been killed prior to the arrival of Israel ground forces.

The EGSC was reminded that the BBC had itself reported extensively on Palestinians digging these graves at the time. These reports had topped its bulletins.

How could this then be forgotten in the subsequent BBC coverage that suggested something more sinister had occurred? The EGSC was offered no explanation.

The question becomes even more pressing when you learn the journalists responsible for the first set of stories were the same journalists who wrote the second set of stories suggesting the graves were evidence of Israeli war crimes.

Executives were presented with the evidence about how badly the BBC had got this wrong but it remains unclear what measures were taken with regard to personnel or training.

Newsnight

In May of this year, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, made a claim that an IPC report had warned 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of starving to death within the next 48 hours.

The claim, made during Israel’s aid blockade, sparked worldwide attention and concern.

Yet the UN quickly distanced itself, refusing to repeat the claim at a press conference.

Accordingly, the BBC updated its online articles to reflect the actual findings on the IPC report in question – that 14,000 children could starve in a year if the blockade was not lifted.

Despite this, Fletcher’s inaccurate claim was put to Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon on Newsnight. Why, when the BBC knew the suggestion was wrong?

The same programme also featured images of baby Siwar Ashour who suffered from allergies and required specialist formula. She also had a congenital oesophageal condition, which had been reported in The Guardian.

By the time of broadcast, the BBC already knew the story was out of date and that baby Siwar had received the necessary formula a week earlier, she was maintaining weight and had been discharged from hospital. None of that was revealed in the programme - meaning the BBC had broadcast another inaccurate story.

Twice in the same programme the Newsnight team broadcast stories that were inaccurate and it is not entirely clear why.

This was not the first or last time the BBC has reported stories about starvation in Gaza without telling audiences that the person highlighted has pre-existing medical conditions that might explain their emaciated appearance.

As recently as last month (August, 2025), the BBC had to correct a headline which stated: ‘Malnutritioned Gaza woman flown to Italy dies in hospital’. It was replaced with ‘Gaza woman flown to Italy dies in hospital’ after it became clear she had serious preexisting conditions. The correction was only made two days later after the questionable version had been shared around the world.

A tale of two letters

In an internal report presented to the EGSC on May 14th , 2024, the Committee was again warned of problems with the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas.

This included a BBC News article about Nasser Hospital that appeared under the headline: “Gaza medics tell BBC that Israeli troops beat and humiliated them after hospital raid”.

Under international law hospitals are exempt from military targeting – except in certain circumstances, which might include the use of a hospital as a military base. The BBC article did not make those circumstances clear and did not cover the evidence Israel had uncovered of Hamas operating there.

On another occasion ,a letter, signed by 600 lawyers, argued the UK Government was breaching international law in selling arms to Israel.

This letter received extensive coverage across BBC television and radio programmes as well as online.

A second letter, written by UK Lawyers for Israel and signed by more than 1,000 lawyers, argued the opposite was true. It was not covered at all online or on television and was referred to on just four bulletins on Radio 4.

An internal investigation by David Grossman into coverage also flagged the description of Hamas tunnels in one BBC report as being used to “move goods and people”.

David warned that while this was factually accurate it hardly told the whole story of what the tunnels were really for and laid the BBC open to the charge of “aiming to in some way to sanitise Hamas’s terror infrastructure”.

Did the ICJ say there was a “plausible risk of genocide” as the BBC reported?

The BBC’s coverage of the International Court of Justice’s interim order on January 26th, 2024, was also reviewed by David Grossman in his report to the EGSC.

Former ICJ President Joan Donoghue told BBC’s HardTalk programme the media had widely misinterpreted its findings. She said it was not correct to say the ICJ had ruled there was a “plausible case of genocide” in Gaza.

But a report to the EGSC flagged “numerous instances” of the phrase being used on BBC reports, analysis and live two-ways on both television and radio. It was also cited by International Editor Jeremy Bowen and on Newsnight.

The report said there were too many instances of the BBC misrepresenting the ICJ’s ruling to be listed in full.

The ICJ report runs to just 26 pages and was written in non-technical language. Had no BBC reporter troubled themselves to read it?

The internal review concluded: “It is very clear and explicitly states that the court is not making any determination on the merits of South Africa’s case. The ICJ said it was only assessing whether what South Africa had alleged was potentially covered by the genocide convention.”

Despite the HardTalk interview, it would take months for the BBC to make a clarification.

The BBC is prone to downplaying criticism by saying it receives similar numbers of complaints from both sides. Looking at the evidence set out above, it seems very hard for any pro-Palestinian observers to make a compelling case the BBC has a pro-Israel bias.

Claims against Israel seem to be raced to air or online without adequate checks, evidencing either carelessness or a desire always to believe the worst about Israel. The errors come thick and fast, sometimes with “eyewitness” testimony from locals who have Tweeted in praise of the October 7 killings and worse. The BBC needs to accept it has systemic issues with the coverage. Only then can the process properly begin to fix the problem.


Conclusion

Apologies again for the length of this note but I thought Board members who do not attend EGSC on a regular basis might find this summary helpful.

There are clearly worrying systemic issues with the BBC’s coverage in the areas set out above. From what I witnessed, I fear the problems could be even more widespread than this summary might suggest.

As I indicated at the start of this note, I have been surprised just how defensive Deborah and Jonathan in particular have been whenever issues are raised. Firm and transparent action plans to prevent the recurrence of problems are in short supply – and so, as you can see, errors are repeated time and again.

My hope is that the BBC Board may be able to begin a process of getting these issues properly addressed.

Michael Prescott

What is the UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC)?

The UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) is a free card issued by the NHS Business Services Authority that allows eligible UK residents to access medically necessary state-provided healthcare in the European Economic Area (EEA)—which includes all EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway—plus Switzerland, Montenegro, and some British Overseas Territories. It provides treatment on the same terms and at the same cost as a local resident (which may still involve fees like co-payments). The GHIC replaced the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) in 2021, but valid EHICs can still be used until they expire.

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Where Can You Use It?

• EEA countries: All EU nations + Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway.
• Other countries: Switzerland, Montenegro, and select British Overseas Territories (e.g., Guernsey). Check GOV.UK's country-specific guides for details on accessing care. For non-covered countries, rely fully on travel insurance.

If your GHIC is expired, damaged, or you're unsure about eligibility (e.g., as a student or dual national), visit the official NHS GHIC application page or contact the NHS Business Services Authority for personalized advice. Safe travels!

筆戰反BNO居英人士節錄

實在寫過太多，但覺得值得留個紀錄

宜家連英文水平要求都無backdated...我怕工黨唔敢backdated所有PR applicants (全世界5年改10年) 喎.... 民意係反移民我同意，但民意之外都要合法，否則就變民粹。

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我俾個建議啦

咁反對BNO HOLDER居英 最最最應該係叫英國政府要求中國 (或又大家咁有心自己去做)按 中英聯合聲明 去管治香港 香港仲係符合 中英聯合聲明 要求，英國咪大條道理取消埋BNO VISA ROUTE都仲得。

我補多一句。 那怕BNO走得甩唔包括起10+1度安全 但大把skilled workers都一定會同Labour Gov打官司，呢個一定會發生。 我都想睇下到底柏拉圖自己一句 Praliment Supremacy，同埋佢個無法律背景下作出既"法律觀點"有幾真。 講真，以宜家事請發展已經愈來愈明顯睇出柏拉圖睇英國政治好片面。佢個條HSMP法律片...我真係好擔心又被打臉。 佢5月起白皮書出左到7-8月出既片都好寸，講到好盡，講到以為自己一定啱咁。但最近氣焰已經無咁寸，都會講戴返頭盔。我表示支持兼尊重。

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按昨天的發展, NIgel Farage澄清不包括Bno & Ukarine route 今天到Labour幾個channels都"透露"同樣不包括Bno & Ukarine route 當然還未最終定案，我在想這裡的人要開始認清事實沒有? 為何英國各黨派都不包括Bno & Ukarine route? 到底是你們不了解英國政治自己大放厥詞，還是就是單純看BNO不順眼有私怨? 我知道柏拉圖本人支持英國的極右翼立場，你唔係支持中共 但同時這裡有不少人是支持中國的人因為柏拉圖的反BNO言論加入抽水，呢個都好明顯。 兩邊出發點不一樣但言論都相同: 就是不認同BNO holders是英國公民的一份子，覺得BNO和非英藉人士完全一樣。 不認同英國對BNO HOLDER英藉人士有歷史責任，BNO HOLDER今天的情況，是因為英國1984年代表當時殖民地香港人民交回中國的決定"負起責任"。 亦不認同香港"有問題"，根本"沒問題"又何來責任。 我係同意英國咁收合法同非法移民的確係會有問題，呢個我唔幫保守黨(合法移民問題)或工黨(非法移民問題)。 你唔好話我雙重標準，我係企起BNO holder呢邊，純粹因為英國的確係要付返呢個歷史責任，呢個責任係超出"移民"呢個層面。 英國對任何合法/非法移民都無責任，但BNO HOLDER係有，所以BNO HOLDER其實唔係咁表面睇係移民，你都唔會叫Ukrainian叫移民，係走難。 BNO visa route都係撤離香港呢個地方既一個措施，撤離既唔係一般人而係英藉BNO holders，根本唔係一般理解下既移民。

你地同意唔同意都好 堂堂中英聯合聲明，英國會選擇honour，呢個正正係西方民主的核心價值 - 民主契約論。 如果一個政府唔honour自己承諾，係無公信力，呢個聲明既另外一方就示範左。 當然你地大可以舉出英國史上多宗無恥行為，例如今天以巴問題正是當時英國兩邊都promise所致。 而BNO講到底係英藉，而BNO VISA係撤出香港為目的，就唔應該如外國國民般變10+1。 呢D認知，你地同唔同意都好，我相信英國各政黨都知道，所以點解我判斷唔會包括BNO VISA，所有針對BNO VISA都係NOISE。

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Why would Labour have any incentive to call a general election before 2029? With a comfortable majority of MPs in Parliament this session, they have no apparent reason to end their governance early. The worst-case scenario in response to public pressure would likely be replacing the Prime Minister, not risking their mandate. Personally, I’m skeptical of Labour’s ideology, but I don’t believe they would easily cede power to Reform UK. If Labour can effectively address public concerns on immigration, four years is ample time to shift societal sentiment in their favor.

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Clock is clicking. Time is running out for you guys to make noise before BNO holders getting ILR next year, cherish it when you have the opportunity. If it proved me wrong, I shall shut up, otherwise so are you guys.

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呢個Channel成日話BNO居英人"攞著數"，明明早在Home Office 2020年做BNO VISA impact Assessment寫左如下: Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa Impact Assessment - Home Office (2020/10) - IA No: HO0381 裡面已經寫左起如果批BNO VISA既話當時評估係收益 (benefit) > 成本 (cost) The monetised benefits of migrant spending modelled in this IA covers the proportion of spending that accrues to the Government. There may be wider indirect benefits, including to businesses that are not monetised but are considered qualitatively. 成日講BNO去英國"攞著數"，唔信自去上網搵自己睇。 政府計數點都好過鍵盤戰士個別咁睇吧?

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你真係好叻， 清一色支持，你就話係吹水大會 最尾個個唔係Mike Tabb而係Alex Norris 佢只講"重覆講個幾句官話"你就當highlight，但明明佢講skilled working visa同BNO visa用詞好唔同差好遠，你完全唔提 你真係搏人唔睇定唔識英文? 你要講露口風，佢讚BNO visa holder contribution, 同佢講skilled working visa既差異先係有價值既口風。政府會做consultatation，MP現階段代表既民意就唔使拗，仲有幾個月自然知結果。 我唔可以唔QUOTE返呢個channel之前講交稅係責任，唔係貢獻。宜家自己出片都承認政府係指交稅係貢獻因為會攞benefit啦。 "講交稅係責任，唔係貢獻。"呢個論述已經係錯晒啦。 我唔打算回應任何re我既人，唔想睇你條片多一眼。 後補多一句俾片主: 有MP起個debate度引述網上有人帶風向，唔只一個MP咁講，放心，我絕對會同我個MP講下貴頻道，一個在Scotland既"真 . 香港人"

我見Parliament有新文件，我就貼出黎回應下拍拉圖佢話Alex Norris咩都無講 Alex Norris文字transcript: 呢一段係官話 (正是柏拉圖片中quote): It is a long-standing point of consensus across this place that settlement is a privilege and not a right. We know that settlement in the UK brings significant benefits, so the proposals that we have set out in the immigration White Paper reflect our view that people who benefit from settling in the UK should at first make a proportionate contribution. We have heard much about the valuable contributions that hon. Members’ constituents are making. That is why, although we are setting a baseline qualifying period for settlement at 10 years, we will allow those who make meaningful contributions to reduce that period, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) referred to. 呢段起講skilled workers visa: I turn to skilled work, the subject of the first petition. Skilled worker visa holders make an important contribution to our economy and public services, filling essential skills and labour market gaps, but for too long, sectors have become reliant on them to fill those gaps and have not sought to invest in our domestic workforce. The reforms that we have set out in the immigration White Paper are addressing the balance and reversing the long-term trends of overseas recruitment increasing, at the same time as reducing investment in skills and training and increasing levels of unemployment and economic inactivity in the UK, which I know we are all concerned about in our communities. We implemented the first of the reforms in late July, lifting the threshold for skilled workers to RQF level 6, and we have commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee to advise on future changes to salary requirements and a temporary shortage list. We have established a new labour market evidence group, which met at the end of July and will continue to meet quarterly, to support our aim of tackling the underlying causes of workforce shortages and ensuring that growth-driving sectors have access to the skilled workers that they need now and into the future. I speak as someone who, until a couple of days ago, was the local growth Minister: we must support our children and schools with the same vigour, so that they get brilliant opportunities and the training that they need first. 呢段起講BNO visa: Colleagues have talked with great passion about the Hong Kong British national overseas visa route. I want to take a moment to reflect on what the BNO route means, not just for those who have made use of it but for this country more generally. Our country has a long-standing and unique connection to the people of Hong Kong. As Hong Kong is a former British territory, many Hongkongers hold BNO status, which is a recognition of that shared history, as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) said. I commend the previous Government for launching the BNO route in January 2021—I supported it in this place—as a direct response to the imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong. Through that, the UK honoured its historic and moral commitments to the people of Hong Kong by creating a bespoke immigration route for those seeking safety, stability and a future rooted in those shared values. Since it launched, close to 225,000 people have been granted a BNO visa, and over 160,000 have arrived in the UK. Like many of the migrants across the immigration system, Hongkongers have quickly become an integral part of both our economy and local communities, with high levels of employment, education participation and community engagement. They have made their homes in key cities and regions across the UK. In Nottingham, Hongkongers have made an extraordinary contribution, whether it is in our public services, the private sector or the community and voluntary sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) takes a great interest in this area, and a year ago we met organisations representative of the extraordinary contribution Hongkongers are making. I will stop short of saying whether I consider them to be from Nottingham now; due to local government reorganisation, that is a very sticky point, as it is for my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Juliet Campbell) and possibly for my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), who mentioned Long Eaton. I am not going to go anywhere near that question. The presence of those people is not just valued; they are making a huge positive and lasting contribution to our national life. As a Government, we recognise the significance of that community, not just for what they have done so far but for the role that they will play in the years ahead. I assure Members that this Government remain steadfast in supporting members of the Hong Kong community in the UK and all those who will arrive in the future. We remain fully committed to the BNO route, through which we will continue to welcome Hongkongers, but I do know how important the ability to obtain settled status is to the Hong Kong community. That is why I can assure them that we are listening to their views about the route to settlement, and we will continue to do so. In the meantime, the current rules for settlement under the BNO route will continue to apply. Alex Norris對2個visa態度既分別顯而易見...做channel可以有立場, 但唔好講d唔講d 交稅係責任亦係貢獻 (有交稅呢個行為就係貢獻，多有多交少有少交) 支持BNO既MP唔係只得 "無晒號召力"既Chris Patten同埋HK Watch 英國人的確唔會話情操特別高尚, 但英國對BNO人士既有歷史責任, 亦對英國社會有好處, 係今次MP反映出黎既共識 呢度一直起度攻擊在英BNO群體, 但英國政界唔buy你地個套

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一個月前，主片不停出片起度放負。 今日, 2025年9月8日, 英國時間16:30 國會正式合拼辯論working/BNO visa ILR 10+1聯署 我聽到左大半個鐘到宜家，所聽到既國會議員都係支持BNO維持5+1。 片主對英國政治了解似乎唔多啱，支持既議員絕對唔係佢講到咁少，做議員係要熟書 (唔熟都要去了解)，唔係好似片主自己亂咁UP，以個人對部分港人唔順眼就要反晒成個BNO VISA HOLDERS群體。 我無睇佢最近一個月既片，因為唔睇都知道佢講乜。起無重大新發展事件之前出片講BNO無他都係講D謠傳既野，慌死在英港人唔夠驚。 人在做天在看，片主的片都無乜views 當然事件仲係發展緊，我會繼續觀察英國政府，同時呢個片主。 如果事發展係符合佢預期既方法，我係歡迎佢打我臉，否則我會一定追住佢咬，承受返佢反晒成個BNO VISA HOLDER既行為。 原本如果佢只係講下個別人士點衰點衰，我都無乜反應，但後期佢係明顯變成打晒全部人，我就一定要追住佢咬。 未來幾個月就睇下邊個睇法正確。

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if you review your videos, you have published 24 videos since May 17, 2025, One video in "2 months" ago, and then the next one was 7 months ago. It's good for you making a wave of attention through publishing videos in the recent weeks. Maybe you earned views and subscribers, and also spread your message to BNO visa holders. Statistics also tells something extra, mate.

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Thank you. I don't see any problem. He has the right to keep making repetitive videos discussing the same points. I can also leave comments without viewing his videos.  @ButchCassidyAndSundanceKid  Permit me to proffer an additional observation: it is unnecessary to employ abstruse or sesquipedalian terminology, as such "volition" & "eschew" are seldom utilized in quotidian discourse and does not inherently evince superior proficiency in the English language.

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你唔係第一個咁講，見到香港人仲返去香港就話香港唔危險。但英國定出BNO Visa嘅睇法唔係咁睇，你睇返個文件佢係講明因為第一香港國安法。第二國安法限制人權及自由及嚴重違反中英聯合聲明同破壞一國兩制。 你同意或唔同意都好，國安法一日存在香港一日都危險，英國定義就係咁簡單。 香港人仲返香港，或仲留起香港唔走，只係佢無視危險，但唔代表危險不存在，希望你明白。 Rationale for intervention The UK Government’s decision to introduce a new Hong Kong BN(O) Visa follows the imposition by the Chinese Government of a national security law on Hong Kong. This legislation and its strict implementation restricts the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong, constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and undermines the “one country, two systems” framework.

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thanks for bringing this up. I could give more supplementary information on it. According to recently declassified British cabinet documents, the UK government repeatedly pressured Portugal not to grant Portuguese nationality to Macau residents before the 1999 handover to China. This was done to prevent Hongkongers from demanding similar citizenship rights ahead of Hong Kong’s 1997 handover from Britain to China. The British were concerned that if Portugal granted full citizenship to Macau residents, it would set a precedent for Hong Kong residents to claim the same rights from the UK, which London was reluctant to do. In contrast, Portugal did offer Portuguese citizenship and passports to many Macau residents born before 1981, allowing them full citizenship rights and the possibility to emigrate to Portugal after the handover. This policy was different from the British approach to Hong Kong residents, where only limited rights were granted through the British National (Overseas) passport without full residency rights. So, while Portugal offered citizenship to a significant portion of Macau’s population, the UK actively discouraged Portugal from doing so to avoid similar demands from Hong Kong residents.

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你唔係法律出身呢，就唔好講好d 法律係有好多個打官司既切入點既，你今日就講到 "勝算係零"，只能表示尊重，但未來先知。 修正下你講話除左二位上議院議員支持香港人 下議院最少唔止一個Tory, Lib Dem MP, even Labor MP都有支持BNO Visa維持原況。你係完全當無回事。 不過我明你立場，唔提係無問題。 又好似你講review date 10/2025個份文件 FULL ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT Cost & Revenue明明寫住係透過BNO VISA英國政府係有錢賺，你又係無提到 一直起度話香港人無貢獻，攞英國著數，幾咁差，都係立場。

Charles Russell Speechlys (16 May 2025): Retrospectively changing Indefinite Leave to Remain rules for those currently on the 5 year route to a 10 year route is unlawful and unfair Paul McCarthy. This week has been mostly about reassuring clients that the Immigration White Paper is not yet law and we will have to wait and see what the proposed new rules will be. This has been particularly daunting for clients who may be applying for indefinite leave to remain in 2026 and are being told that the rug will be pulled from under their feet and they will have to wait until 2031. It seems from media responses from Government Ministers this week that memories are short on this settled issue. In 2006, the then UK government introduced changes to the rules for a now-defunct visa programme called the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP). This affected the criteria for extending the visa and obtaining indefinite leave to remain. These changes were applied retrospectively to individuals already in the UK under the HSMP scheme, which led to significant concerns and challenges for those affected. In the case of HSMP Forum Ltd, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] EWHC 664 (Admin) (08 April 2008), the High Court ruled that: Retrospective Application: Applying the new rules retrospectively to individuals who had already been granted leave was unfair and unlawful. Legitimate Expectation: The court recognised that migrants had a legitimate expectation that the rules under which they were initially granted leave would continue to apply to them. Outcome: The High Court ruled in favour of the HSMP Forum, preventing the government from applying the new rules retrospectively to those already in the UK under the scheme. This decision ensured that affected individuals could continue to apply for indefinite leave to remain under the original terms of their entry. The case was significant because it upheld the principle of legitimate expectation and fairness in immigration policy, ensuring that changes to immigration rules should not disadvantage those who had already made life-changing decisions based on the existing framework. It highlighted the importance of transparency and consistency in the application of immigration rules. Should the current Government decide to go ahead with the proposed retrospective application of the 10-year route to those currently on the 5-year route, I strongly suspect there will be a U-turn once the Courts apply this 2008 judgment. UK immigration law is constantly changing. It is important to take timely legal advice to reduce the risk of friction at the border and to ensure compliance with the UK immigration rules. If you have immigration questions, please contact Paul McCarthy. 最少起碼人地係英國律師行，你就肯定唔係法律出身就發表偉論.... 我祝你係啱啦，唔係真係好樣衰...鬼叫你幾個月前咁高調

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樹大有枯枝，人多有白痴。 呢個channel成日捉住d枯枝白痴講話全部香港人點低質，一d都唔公平。 最過份係佢攞住有人話搞一次倫敦遊行要用政府幾多十萬鎊，直頭扭曲晒成個遊行既正當性同為英國著想既立場。 英國defense review都承認中國係一個threat，多人參與同本地人一條心都可以話搵位入香港人係咩心態? 呢個正正係公民參與融入當地既表現。 以下係我估既姐，無任何証據既。 柏拉圖佢本身係香港人，多年前黎左英國已經入左藉但無BNO VISA ROUTE啦當然。 佢宜家係站起英國人角度去睇香港人，尤其係呢個數量，覺得數量少質數唔好影響都未必大，但宜家咁大量所以佢以一個好高準標去衡量香港人，會睇唔順眼。 當然留言區有唔少附和者，有D係留港派抽水，有D就都睇得出佢地覺得英國要既係富豪，專材，其他都應該死開。 我當然唔會同意呢D睇法，因為富豪同專材人數從來都唔會好多，世界都搶緊 一般移民apple-to-apple，香港BNO visa holder真係一d唔失禮，真係唔明做咩有人要為枯枝白痴而起個channel日日帶風向。 我之前都回應過 "UK’s historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong"，英國唔會對烏克蘭，敍利亞，阿富汗有"historic commitment"，我再一針見血咁講係"香港人從來無話過要回歸中國，係英國代香港人回歸中國"，你唔會見到獨立左既國家(印度, 馬拉, 新加坡等)仲有任何形式既英國護照。如果當初係香港人要求歸中國，你想英國發本BNO俾你都咪諗！攞住BNO就係英國子民黎。BNO holder搞成咁英國有責任架。英國政府睇既係住起香港既人權自由，睇既係中國仲有無honour中英聯合聲明。呢D因素唔會同一般既移民相比到，因為BNO holders係英國子民黎，係有得起英國投票，英國本身都要honour返BNO holders。我只係知道香港有危機，國安大法無遠弗屆，最受影響既就係留起香港 (包括BNO holder)既人，黎生呢D企得最前既BC有生之年仲出唔出到黎都無人知。理論上就算英國本地人一樣可以犯國安大法，咁都唔叫危機係咪要肥彭俾國安通輯先算？你用移民用幾多福利同一條咁惡既法相比會唔會睇野格局太細? BNO visa route係救香港人離開香港，而你(地)呢就不停帶風向想在英港人離開最令我氣憤。

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PR前攞唔到福利就緊既 PR後可以攞福利，而攞唔攞一來係要睇條件，二來亦睇香港人本人想唔想攞 後生既 - 就話香港人要求local fee讀大學係攞著數，但呢個係只要就學年齡同埋有PR身份就entitle架喎，唔係"攞著數"。佢地係本地人畢業後係成為英國工作骨幹喎 (唔係外地生讀完可能回國)，只睇呢三年就話攞著數? 退休老既 - 就話攞英國福利。第一，如果係已退休，連最少供左NI 10年都無機會多數唔會攞到State Pension，所謂福利來來去去都係NHS為主姐。香港人普通比英國本地人有錢呢個應該無乜好爭辯。 壯年既 - 多數都搵錢架啦，呢D係香港人入晒血，你估好似平地人咁躺平咩

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我預左你會講呢個點。 所以我先講香港人有錢帶過黎英國，退得休個D多數都係最有錢個批。你可以話佢地都會睇NHS，只不過佢地都有能力睇私家醫生。NHS呢個睇法只要係人口有增長自然需求就會大左，唔限於退休人士/長者。本身NHS個制度已經係unsustainable要改革，人口再多的確係會差左，但唔係香港人本身有咩問題。

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 @plato6833  我最唔鍾意你既片對香港人既態度 好似香港人有原罪咁，得罪左你。 你既咀臉好差。我無subscribe你但有bookmark你，就係要入黎反駁你既睇法。 同埋到底係咪會係你日吹夜吹成10+1，我都會放長雙眼。

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 @Cchan1230  我都講左, 一個PR讀大學係會留起英國打工做野，成為未來英國既勞工人口。點同international student黎英國讀書後係回國 (假設都係咁，唔會大部分都留到英 graduate visa) ，咁一個PR身份畢業後都係回饋返個社會，同本地英國學生係一樣架喎。 要求HOME FEE唔算攞著數吧?

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 @kwokyinwong1219  所以按你咁講 英國唔好有人口流入最好? 要流入後生 (未來社會新力軍), 壯年 (現在搵錢有貢獻), 老年 (有錢帶入黎) 都唔得，你要外星人? 我想指出，如果以移民質素黎講，唔好同富豪比，香港人移民質素同財力已經算高，呢個channel成日起度唱香港人幾差，我係唔同意既。

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 @Cchan1230  你要印度，烏克蘭，敍利亞人同香港人比，你覺得一樣財力同可以回饋到社會就一樣啦 (講緊平均) 我的確對英國吸納香港人唔會視為負擔，而係多左對英國勞動人口，對未來工作人口，對"填補走左好多既百萬富翁"既財政，對英國係正面多於負面既 specific回應埋你話我assume會留啫。咁我都同樣講就算英國人都可以去異地打工。所有野都係講平均計。有citizen, 有pr多數都留起本地做野，咁local fee有咩問題?

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@kwokyinwong1219 回應1: 貢獻。交稅固然係責任，但就算你睇埋10+1文件指既貢獻都係指交稅為主。我個人覺得既係責任亦係貢獻，咁你話唔算貢獻咁你地(包埋柏拉圖)就繼續啦 回應2: 又買車又買樓係個人需要。呢個的確又係事實，咁又係你地講多左人口多左社會支出，咁多人口多左起英國消費又點解唔計推動英國經濟呢? 回應3: 大部分港式茶餐廳收現金9折。呢個呢，你可以睇返柏拉圖最早期既片，佢叫新黎既香港人起唐人街打工唔好要求出糧時出足，做野唔好咁急促要融入當地，老唐人個套係咁。所以你指"大部分港式茶餐廳收現金9折" 個老細係咪新來英香港人都未知呢? 而且係柏拉圖指既"行規"喎，而且你指既舖頭咁做咪就代表個個老細避稅，代表佢一個人何來代表性? xxxxx

 @Cchan1230  我唔介意柏拉圖拍片鬧 " 有太空人帶住仔女唔做野等入籍既又有; 做food truck 收cash 唔交稅又有; 申請左BNO 之後同公司申請work from oversea 繼續出香港糧係香港交稅既亦有, " 呢D人 只不過呢D人就係呢D人，係咪佔多數定少數? 我係好唔同意佢係鬧"香港人"而套晒呢D行為落"香港人"度

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@kwokyinwong1219  就算係咁，EU學生都只係讀書，唔會係未來本地就業人口呢個唔會改變，而得到PR身份既人係多數會係未來英國勞動人口。 呢個分別依然起度。我睇唔到點解支持會成為未來勞動人口用local fee既問題。 EU學生讀完書都係會走，就真係對"英國社會無貢獻"啦

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 @kwokyinwong1219  唔知係咪YOUTUBE刪左我呢個留言, 我再POST 過 回應1: 貢獻。固然係責任，但就算你睇埋10+1文件指既貢獻都係指交稅為主。我個人覺得既係責任亦係貢獻，咁你話唔算貢獻咁你地(包埋柏拉圖)就繼續啦 回應2: 又買車又買樓係個人需要。呢個的確又係事實，咁又係你地講多左人口多左社會支出，咁多人口多左起英國消費又點解唔計推動英國經濟呢? 回應3: 大部分港式茶餐廳收現金9折。呢個呢，你可以睇返柏拉圖最早期既片，佢叫新黎既香港人起唐人街打工唔好要求出糧時出足，做野唔好咁急促要融入當地，老唐人個套係咁。所以你指"大部分港式茶餐廳收現金9折" 個老細係咪新來英香港人都未知呢? 而且係柏拉圖指既"行規"喎，而且你指既舖頭咁做咪就代表個個老細避稅，代表佢一個人何來代表性?

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 @kwokyinwong1219  你錯啦 我係唔同意你指 "無大陸人起香港消費，香港經濟死得啦" 既意思，我只係指出的確香港外來人口係多左英國本地消費呢個事實而已。 啱呀，英國佬係睇錢，咁你話印度，烏克蘭，敍利亞人同香港人平均邊D人有錢d? 邊d人最少機會用社會福利? 一直起度數落香港人，但移民人口中香港人真係咁差咩? 仲要以個別例子就套落所有香港人度，公平咩?

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 @kwokyinwong1219  你地D邏輯又好奇怪 攞錢入黎英國 (例如MPF) 又唔係俾英國政府，唔係貢獻 起英國洗錢，又話係個人需要，唔係貢獻 打工交稅，又係責任，唔係貢獻 (10+1文件無指個point-based systems係點，但你估下貢獻同有無納稅有關?) 你又話英國政府睇錢喎，咁政府點從人民攞錢呢? 咪係交稅囉，係咪消費既VAT間接稅囉，個邏輯講唔通既。 最得意係，從來無define咩叫貢獻喎

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 @kwokyinwong1219  明白。 你講緊既係投資移民同專才移民既人，根本唔係BNO visa route可相比既野。 我真係同意係earn, 唔係特權喎，真係同意。咁咪俾人知點先earn到，點先有貢獻。 一味ban一咪話香港人差，直白啲講啦，起你眼中BNO visa route直頭應該cancel先啱吧?

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 @kwokyinwong1219  Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa Policy Statement (2020) Forward寫: BN(O) citizens in Hong Kong are in a unique position, which is why I have designed a policy which is specific to them in the wider immigration system. It will not set a precedent. My offer to BN(O) citizens is a very generous one. I am not imposing skills tests or minimum income requirements, economic needs tests or caps on numbers. Overview 寫: This is in recognition of the unprecedented circumstances in Hong Kong, the UK’s historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong through the Joint Declaration, and our unique obligations towards those who elected to retain their ties with the UK through obtaining BN(O) status. 以上係英國政府立場，最少係當時保守黨既立場 (不過BNO VISA係跨黨派支持當時) 多謝你正名BNO Visa唔係人道簽証。係呀，我search "human"呢隻字起個policy statement真係搵唔到架。我都覺得唔係，佢係"not set a precedent(不會作為前例)"，指咁做係特殊唔會再有。後來俾英國政府歸入人道簽証又唔係我地叫既。 先指出你覺得香港無危機但"唔代表英國政府咁睇" (原句俾返你回應我老中青個個留言)。BNO Visa開首已經確立左香港係有危機 (unprecedented circumstances) 先要開放呢條route。而我可以好負責任咁講呢個危險係無變過仲愈來愈差。英國政府睇既係住起香港既人權自由，睇既係中國仲有無honour中英聯合聲明。我都想反駁柏拉圖好耐架啦。佢覺得香港無問題叫佢返香港大叫打倒XX黨。佢話香港人仲返香港多次呢D我都唔鼓勵既，一個係對面政權做d乜，而香港人返香港唔代青個危機不存在。根本柏拉圖就唔識政治，中國一打台灣，香港海空立即封鎖，陸路只能返大陸。其實係有戰爭風險，英國承唔承受得起少則幾十萬BNO多則二百萬BNO英國子民救唔到 (最壞情況)? 開個BNO visa router從頭到尾都唔係從經濟出發 (公黨都支持架)，policy paper寫得好明白。你宜家工黨因為移民太多，柏拉圖就起度大吹特吹香港人幾唔值得黎英國。我之前都回應過佢一個點 "UK’s historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong"，英國唔會對烏克蘭，敍利亞，阿富汗有"historic committment"，我再一針見血咁講係"香港人從來無話過要回歸中國，係英國代香港人回歸中國"，你唔會見到獨立左既國家(印度, 馬拉, 新加坡等)仲有任何形式既英國護照。但香港人有咪係原因囉，你地識唔識架? 攞住BNO就係英國子民黎。BNO holder搞成咁英國有責任架。

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 @kwokyinwong1219  我好理性，認真。 我睇唔到我地點"目標一致"法。 我係知道BNO visa route係救香港人離開香港，而你(地)呢就不停帶風向想在英港人離開。

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​ @kwokyinwong1219  我講既野都係來自英國BNO VISA policy statement，唔係一張廢紙英國唔算數。唔只英國要中國honour中英聯合聲明，英國自己都要honour，好合理。 BNO visa route係英國如何起呢個情況下可以honour到BNO holder既措施，佢既意義係遠遠大過移民帶來既問題。 你只有起呢個高度去睇政府點諗，點面對國際社會，點面對對子民承諾，你先會起一個啱既角度去睇問題。 我明白起一般英國人眼中對香港人係一無所知添，覺得移民多唔鍾意我都明白。 但歷史責任係事實，好多MP都知道，當然同一般英國人考慮會唔同。

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 @Cchan1230  我無all or nothing. 我都話人多有白痴。但白痴既人多定正常既人多？而且柏拉圖屌既對象只係話「遊行浪費倫敦政府31萬」個個人咩？佢係鬧晒在英群體喎！好似成個群體都係諗。到底係我似大陸人咁覺得係香港人一定好，定柏拉圖鬧香港人一定衰？ 我真係忍左佢好耐架啦。佢唔係專登拍多條片用個別例子黎鬧成個香港人群體，我無咁火滾。佢啲片2022年時都無咁明顯敵意。係後期好似得罪左佢咁條條片起度數，針對成個群體。 同埋個重點係BNO visa救人離開英國，英國對BNO子民負起歷史責任。柏拉圖呢啲人就起度講好多「少數白痴小事」，對比起會坐牢坐終身既嚴重程度視而不見。英國普通人佢未必會理咁大局，但英國政府唔應該無大局觀。 係上面D人話交稅唔係貢獻，問我交幾多稅有咩意義? 我可以話你知我交緊Higher Rate (40%)既，起英國黎講已經唔會係低薪就夠。我一個人黎英國無仔無女。我問埋Perplexity AI, In the 2024-25 tax year, about 6.31 million taxpayers are liable to the higher rate of income tax (40%) or above, which is approximately 16.2% of the income tax-paying population。 我都係同一句，我一個人無代表性。柏拉圖專登搵差既例子都唔係一個普遍香港人現象，就係我不滿佢既主要地方，以偏概全。

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 @kwokyinwong1219  我再深思你話 "重有真係唔好成日講話BNO visa係人道簽証，人道簽証嘅定義係申請人喺原居地受到政治迫害，會有坐監，限制出入境或死亡嘅風險，但好多香港人過嚟三年都唔知返左幾多次香港，又去日本，但又可以喺香港自由出入境，咁呢啲人有咩人道危機呢請問？你有冇見烏克蘭人得閒返去基輔shopping探親㗎" 成條國安大法放起你頭上，已經斬左部份人頭，對你黎講都唔係危機，睇唔到係危機 對唔住，我真係忽然想問，你唔係因政治原因而申請BNO VISA，你係咩原因申請呀? 似乎你先係全心攞著數個D人喎。 只要係因為政治原因，只要係感到害怕已經足夠合理申請BNO VISA，除此之外申請既人，唔係正正你地口中 "見有著數就攞埋佢"咩? 本住人道救人立場，我原本都唔會去過問原因。係呢度成人話香港人攞英國著數，你又係BNO VISA holder，但又唔意識香港有危機，咁你做咩離開香港黎英國呀?

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 @Freeman-g7g  按柏拉圖標準，CoCo哥都唔值得PR 佢有setup公司，去避稅少貢獻，唔應該俾PR 佢英文又唔係好，唔應該俾PR 佢仲係成日香港前香港後，YOUTUBE對象都係香港人，唔融入，唔應該俾PR 佢帶埋一家大細，個女又免費讀英國學校攞免費著數，同埋佢都懶醒講走精面，唔應該俾PR

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吓，成個回應只係重覆返白皮書既野 講impact又只係繼續potential 其實真係答左等於無答喎。 尤其片主指"最重要個兩句".....明明個回應只係重覆緊白皮書官腔...又唔係針對BNO，佢就講到係咁 我唔係話無可能收緊，但片主睇法就明顯覺得係想收緊，仲要話出左好多片話俾人話會 我睇左唔少片，片主係對"新來英香港人"係反感/敵視。 用詞好難聽，講到好似人人都無貢獻/漏稅/唔融入/當自己係英國衣食父母等等，我真係唔清楚片主係見到D咩。 參與示威遊行有咩問題? 明顯係表達對英國本土議題，英國國家安全既關注。咁又有問題? 咁都話"多花英國政府錢"既話? 我直接懷疑片主係咪中共間碟好了。 我既立場係可會可唔會，點到即止。工黨現階段都係答左等於無答，無咩重磅。

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今次我覺得片主批評在英港人過分左 過分在於佢引述既在英港人"交稅係恩典，做左英國人衣食父母"，我唔覺得呢個係主流。 在英港人的平均財富比本地人高，呢個只係事實陳述。有帶錢來英國生活同消費，既係需要同時亦的確帶動左經濟活力都係事實。我無見到香港人有出口話"無左我地英國等死"呢D言論。 片主要咁講我都想聽下出處。 5+1變10+1起法理上站不住腳，唔係片主講"一開始文件第一頁就寫住可以進行修改"，一開始係講明第五年會做review review唔等同修改咁簡單，更唔會backdate，可以既話不如第4年364日黎講BNO visa scheme作廢，又叫合理?

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@plato6833 可能片主見到既野同我見到既野有區別 片主會咁講我係相信，最少以佢所見所聞，係"主流" 個別人會咁諗我唔會反對，但如果要講成係主流咁講呢個我係點都唔會同意 我睇埋片主個呢LINK，改變BNO scheme的確唔使立法，但同樣過去有打到上high court係話英國政府咁做係敗訴。 法理上片主講既唔一定係啱，最少我相信咁做會有人會有法律行動。 xxxxx

 @plato6833  有過往官司案例在前，我看不出何以咁肯定地說勝算是零。但我都對此表示尊重。 既然大家都係建設性留言，我都俾出更多有關BNO Visa看法。 Hong Kong British National (Overseas) Visa Policy Statement (July 2020): Overview Section: This is in recognition of the unprecedented circumstances in Hong Kong, the UK’s historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong through the Joint Declaration, and our unique obligations towards those who elected to retain their ties with the UK through obtaining BN(O) status. 以上係截自BNO Visa Policy Statement既一段，要了解咩叫"historic committment" 同埋 "unique obligations"既意思，就要睇埋BNO Passport既出現同歷史背景 1. The British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status and passport were created in 1987 specifically for Hong Kong residents who were British Dependent Territories citizens (BDTCs) by connection with Hong Kong. 2. The main reason for issuing BN(O) passports was to allow Hong Kong BDTCs to retain a form of British nationality and maintain a connection to the UK after the handover, since they would lose their BDTC status on 1 July 1997. 以上可以睇出 1. BNO holders都係曾經既BDTC，都係英國既子民 2. 攞得BNO passport既人都係自願去keep住同英國既聯繫，最少起法理上有咁做。呢個係第一個英國對BNO holders有obligation同historic commitment既切入點 另外，要知道香港離開英國時 1. 有部分人係無法得到中國籍又但起香港出世，呢D人唔可以無國藉，最後亦係按法理安排直接得到英藉。 2. 香港人係無選擇過離開英國 (唔似印度, 馬來西亞, 新加坡等等要求獨立)，而英國係假定中國會遵守中英聯合聲明而決定"放棄"香港，先會催生出廢BDTC而出現BNO。獨立左既國家既人唔會再同英國有關係(除左仲叫Commonwealth)，佢地唔會仲有本British National Passport，但香港係英國方面放棄既，香港人無話過要獨立或歸中國，呢個係有一個好根本性分別做成obligation & historic commitment. 現在中英聯合聲明已成歷史文件，BNO holder其實係應該要變回BDTC才合理 (現在大部分BDTC已轉成BC)。 雖然道理上英國係理虧 (的確係英國放棄了自己子民搞到今日咁)，我明白主導權在英國手中，所以唔好話BNO5+1變10+1唔合理，其實係應該要平權先啱。呢個係真真實實一個要還既債黎，尤其如果香港情況繼續惡化到一個點直頭已返唔到去, 例如開戰 同樣係humanitarian category, 但對烏克蘭係唔會有obligation OR historic commitment，按比例BNO visa應該只會比其他人道簽待遇更好，唔會更差才對。BNO is British National，唔係片主講到同其他既無分別，obligation, historic commitment已經說明左。個人係覺得片主矮化左BNO呢個身份。我地係選民可以見MP，可以透過voting同BC一樣一票既影響力。 我明白片主出發點係想警惕在英港人要做個平常本地人，在地生活。我明既。大家都係議事論事。