Gotcha! The BBC’s enemies have taken two scalps and inflicted maximum damage. The shock resignation of the director general, Tim Davie, and the head of news, Deborah Turness, make it look as if the BBC accepts that it does indeed suffer from “serious and systemic” bias in its coverage of issues including Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights. But in this political coup, only the BBC’s sworn ideological foes think a cherrypicked sample of journalistic errors amounts to “systemic” bias.

It was indeed a bad mistake to splice together two bits of Trump’s speech; but it needed a quick apology, not a decapitation. The BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, I’m told, tried to persuade Davie to stay to avoid this apparent capitulation to critics: Davie should indeed have stood his ground, not weakened the BBC by walking away.

How right Nick Robinson was on Saturday’s Today programme: “There is also a political campaign by people who want to destroy the organisation that you are currently listening to,” backed up by the veteran broadcaster John Simpson, who said Robinson was “exactly right”. Many more need to speak up everywhere. Boris Johnson said he’d stop paying the licence fee until the BBC grovelled. Bravo again for Robinson’s retaliatory tweet: “Hands up all those who think Boris Johnson is well placed to lecture anyone else on upholding standards & admitting mistakes.” (Attackers calling the BBC a bunch of lefties should remember Robinson is a former chair of the Young Conservatives.)

The plotters are in a strong position to wreck from within. Robbie Gibb, a self-described “proper Thatcherite Conservative”, was appointed to the BBC board by Johnson’s government in 2021 and, according to even BBC News, is seen as a driving critical force within the institution. As for........

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