On the 12th February of this year at exactly this time, GB News hosted an episode of the People’s Forum with the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, presented by our own Stephen Dixon.
Because GB News is the People’s Channel, GB News created a new broadcasting format that put the people at the centre of the programme, with questions coming from members of the public and not from journalists.
GB News hired an external and independent organisation to select the audience which consisted of roughly one hundred undecided voters.
Neither GB News, nor the Prime Minister knew what the questions were in advance.
The programme’s format gave complete freedom to the people to ask their questions.
But apparently, the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, doesn’t believe in putting voters at the heart of government scrutiny.
Today, Ofcom released its decision that found GB News to be in breach of the broadcasting code and is now considering sanctioning GB News.
Ofcom has made three main claims for the basis of its decision:
1.That a wide range of views were not presented.
2.That due impartiality was not preserved.
3.That there was a problem with the Prime Minister promoting policies in a period preceding a UK General Election.
To the first two points of a wide range of views not being heard, and a lack of due impartiality, I can give you evidence right here and now to debunk these points.
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Here’s an example:
Why should LGBT people vote Conservative?”
Quite clearly, this was a left-wing criticism of the government’s stance on LGBT matters, and the presenter Stephen Dixon pushed it on the Prime Minister further.
It was a clear occasion of a question being asked, an answer being given and then pushed back onto the Prime Minister.
He was also held to account on all sorts of other policies. For example, on the Rwanda plan:
Why are you so adamant about Rwanda when public documentation shows that it isn’t working and that it’s not going to work, so can you be open and honest with everybody today and tell us what the next steps are?”
And here we had a questioner saying to the Prime Minister he wasn't being open and honest. If that's not a challenge I don't know what it is.
And here’s another example on the question of social care:
Social care is chronically underfunded and government has abdicated responsibility to the local government, effectively making a postcode lottery for many. Do you agree that it needs radical reform and if so, what?
In each of these instances, the questions challenged the Prime Minister and Stephen Dixon interjected to further the challenge.
And you must think Ofcom is like the deaf adder that charmed GB News ever so nicely it stoppeth up its ears.
But to address this bizarre claim about a Prime Minister promoting policies in a period preceding a UK General Election - every point in English and then British history since the middle of the 13th century precedes a UK General Election.
And since the Fixed Term Parliament Act was abolished inevitably you’re always in a pre election period and that’s been our normal state of affairs for hundreds of years.
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If the programme had been hosted two years ago, it would have preceded a UK General Election.
There is nothing in the broadcast code that says anything about “preceding a UK General Election” other than when Parliament has been dissolved and we are in an official election period, which we were not during the programme, and still are not now. We're not even in the electoral commission's pre general election early spending period which starts in July.
This decision is quite sinister. GB News was and has continued to be completely transparent about this broadcast structure that stays true to its values. But Ofcom seemingly wants apparatchiks to ask the questions.
This chilling decision gets to the heart of what the media ought to be. For decades, journalists seem to be on the side of the elite against the people: they know what is best. But at GB News, we believe the people know what is best. Ofcom begs to differ.
GB News is the newest addition to the broadcast ecosystem and is doing quite well. This programme has reasonable figures and most days we’re a bit ahead of Sky and sometimes ahead of the BBC, too.
But the establishment doesn’t like this. Who could forget the time not too long ago when a journalist called for GB News to be taken off air on BBC Newsnight and went entirely unchallenged. There were Ofcom complaints about this, but we didn’t hear anything about threats of sanctions.
Speaking of the so-called ‘delicate broadcast ecology’ that ought not to be disrupted, it’s about time it was said that you, the public, own a broadcaster that poses as impartial news but in reality, pumps out left-wing propaganda. And no, for once I’m not talking about the BBC which has its own problems, I’m referring to Channel 4 News.
I’m hardly surprised that people like Adam Boulton, who it must be said has some degree of interest to declare, along with other establishment journalists, would like us shut down. But for Ofcom to behave like this represents a threat to freedom of speech. It’s about time its antiquated and nonsensical regulations were removed for privately funded broadcasters, not least because it can’t seem to apply them fairly.
This is a dark day for freedom of expression. It is time we had an equivalent of the United States First Amendment that protected freedom of speech from left wing bureaucrats.
But I’d like to make it clear that both GB News and I whole-heartedly reject this ruling and refuse to back down on our foundational principle, whether Ofcom likes it or not - that we are here to represent you, the British people.
GB News is in a way an easy target for the left, but we aren’t going anywhere.
