The worst crime the BBC committed with the Panorama programme that aired the week before last year’s US presidential election was that it gave Donald Trump a good reason to criticise it.
Mr Trump has built his career on untruths and wild exaggerations. He launched his presidential ambitions in 2011, casting “real doubts” about Barack Obama’s birth certificate – and he has debased the terms of the political debate ever since, mainly in America, although that contagion has spread.
