The BBC is now in "its last stages" because budget cuts will make it increasingly difficult to maintain standards, the corporation's world affairs editor has warned.
John Simpson, one of BBC's longest serving news reporters, said the corporation's future is bleak as the world service was paying the price of the licence fee being "chopped away".
"The future? Well, I don't think that it's going to look very good for the BBC. I think the BBC we have known, for good or worse, is now in its last stages," the veteran correspondent, whose career at the BBC spans more than 40 years, told an audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.