'People don't want it!' BBC's 'fiasco after fiasco' torn apart in blistering takedown

The White House has continued its row with the BBC after Donald Trump's Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt hit out at the broadcaster's doctored footage, branding them "100 per cent fake news".

Debating whether the BBC should be privately funded, Ms Cundy told GB News: "People want choice, people want freedom, and people certainly don't want to be misled and lied to, especially when they're having forced to pay £174.50.

"Is the BBC worth that? People don't want it. Let me tell you, 300,000 are failing to pay, and we've got 50,000 prosecutions going on. People don't want this anymore."

Criticising the company for facing "fiasco after fiasco", Ms Cundy added: "We've had fiasco after fiasco after fiasco. What's happening with Trump at the minute that is humiliating globally for the BBC. It's so damaging to be doing that fake news.

"We've had the Gaza documentary, in Panorama, where they featured the son of a Hamas minister. I mean, how many more mistakes?"

Noting the scandals revolving their own presenters, she stated: "And don't forget all the presenters that are being paid astronomical fees, and we've had all of that with the Savile case, with Gary Lineker, Martin Bashir, Rolf Harris, the list goes on and on and on.

"But Gary Lineker, there's one who time and time again, they let him get away with it. The BBC are supposed to be impartial. That was what they dined out on, the highly respected, telling us the truth.

"And it's being shown so blatantly, so many mistakes they're making. I'm saying that we the people have had enough of that."

Weighing in on whether the BBC should be self-funded, commentator James Schneider told GB News that although what they did was "clearly wrong", privatisation of companies normally "works out badly".

He explained: "Regardless of the BBC clearly doctoring this clip, it was clearly wrong shouldn't have happened, and I am not remotely surprised. I spent five years doing basically daily battle with the BBC and all other broadcasters over bias, misusing of clips, misrepresentation of policies, misrepresentation of people.

"So I'm not remotely surprised and I'm not defending that particular very dodgy piece of editing. But let's look at how badly what privatisation has done to all of our utilities, things that we have invested lots of money and lots of time in as a country.

"So rather than just selling it off, I think actually we should look at what is it that we want. We want to have a media organisation that is free from government control and corporate influence. And right now we've got a kind of halfway house that has if it has a political bias, it's a status quo bias."

Mr Schneider concluded: "So I think what we should do is we should democratise the BBC, which means, for example, the Government shouldn't be able to appoint the chief executive and appoint people onto the board. I think that we should have greater say.

"I think you should be able to say through some democratic means for the BBC to address funding going in this way rather than that way. So I think we should democratise, save, preserve the BBC and prevent it being able to be controlled by Governments or influenced by Governments, or by corporate interests."

A BBC spokesman said in a statement: "While we don't comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback it takes it seriously and considers it carefully.

"Michael Prescott is a former adviser to a board committee where differing views and opinions of our coverage are routinely discussed and debates."