The BBC’s international editor has called Donald Trump a liar in a lengthy on-air monologue.

In an 11-minute essay on Radio 4’s flagship Today programme, Jeremy Bowen was given free rein to warn that the US president is “making it up as he goes along” in his war on Iran.

He said: “Perhaps analysts and commentators have let their distaste for Donald Trump cloud their judgment. Maybe it doesn’t matter that he insults allies whose soldiers fought and died alongside Americans in other Middle Eastern wars, or that sometimes he tells lies.”

He referred to the US president’s claim that Iran could have been responsible for a deadly missile strike on a girls’ school in the south of the country.

“He claimed that Iran could have fired a Tomahawk missile in the attack on a school that Iran says killed more than 165 people, including many schoolgirls. Iran doesn’t have Tomahawk missiles,” Bowen said.

He went on: “Donald Trump might learn that starting wars is much easier than ending one. It is hard to know when to stop if you don’t know exactly where you’re going.

“It is even harder to do that when the US, the world’s most powerful country, seems to have gone to war without a coherent political strategy under a president who, the evidence suggests, is making it up as he goes along.”

Mr Trump is currently suing the BBC for $5bn (£4bn) in damages, claiming that the broadcaster defamed him in a Panorama documentary, which edited one of his speeches to give the impression that he directly urged supporters to storm the US Capitol in January 2021.

The edit, revealed by The Telegraph, led the US president’s press secretary to describe the BBC as “100 per cent fake news”. Karoline Leavitt dismissed the corporation as “a leftist propaganda machine”.

Bowen previously accused Mr Trump of lying in 2025 after the US leader accused Volodymyr Zelensky of “starting the war” against Russia.

Speaking after his report on the Oval Office showdown between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky, Bowen said: “I made a point on air – on the Today programme, the 10 O’Clock News, the website and other places – I made this point to the management, saying we have to use the right language.

“I said it’s very important to use the word ‘lie’… what he says matters and it’s our job, if he comes up with something that’s not just an exaggeration but a barefaced lie, to say that.

“It was actually rather liberating. I was quite gobsmacked when I started doing it, that I got tons of messages from people – members of the public and people who are in the media business – saying, ‘Well done, Jeremy, for saying that.’”

A BBC spokesperson said: “Our international editor is an experienced journalist who was providing analysis of the ongoing situation, using his professional judgement as set out in the BBC’s editorial guidelines, and the piece covered a range of viewpoints.”