BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has hit out at parts of the press “where regulation is risibly weak and blatant propaganda can be passed off as ‘news'” in defending his colleagues against claims of political bias.

Edwards, who led the BBC’s 11-hour election night coverage on Thursday, said “dealing with relentlessly vitriolic attacks” made reporting the results “doubly challenging” for its journalists.

The BBC’s election programming reached a total of 26.5m viewers across TV, radio and digital, the corporation has reported, with a record 27.3m browsers of the BBC News website in the UK.