GB News being punished to appease Left-wing activists, says co-owner
Sir Paul Marshall accused the regulator of unfairly targeting the start-up broadcaster with a string of investigations as it struggles to fend off an 'onslaught' of complaints from pressure groups such as Stop Funding Hate.
In a speech at Oxford University on Tuesday evening, the media tycoon was expected to say: 'Understandably, Ofcom find it difficult, just like other corporate and institutional boards, to resist the pressures from Left-wing campaigning groups and this has led them to initiate many more enquiries into GB News than could be justified.'
Ofcom has found GB News in breach of broadcasting rules a dozen times since its launch in 2021, taking issue with alleged misinformation and its use of politicians as presenters.
Sir Paul, a hedge fund tycoon who co-owns GB News alongside Dubai-based investment firm Legatum, has argued that many of the investigations against the channel stem from complaints orchestrated by campaign groups.
Even before its launch, the broadcaster was targeted by an advertising boycott led by Stop Funding Hate, which resulted in brands including Ikea and Nivea pulling their campaigns.
The boycott continues to hit GB News's bottom line, although other brands such as Marks & Spencer have started to advertise on the channel.
'Constructive relationship' with Ofcom
Sir Paul said GB News intends to have 'as constructive a relationship as possible with' the broadcasting regulator.
But he added: 'They sit within a framework full of anomalies and they are steadily assailed by invective from Left-wing activists, so it is not easy for them to resist the biases of metropolitan opinion.'
Sir Paul has weighed in on the debate after Angelos Frangopoulos, chief executive of GB News, accused Ofcom of having a 'jailer' mentality that was harming Sir Keir Starmer's growth plan.
Writing in The Telegraph earlier this month, the TV boss said Ofcom's plans to crack down on the use of politicians as presenters would make it 'even harder for budding newcomers'.
Sir Paul, a self-styled 'accidental' media owner who also owns UnHerd and bought The Spectator magazine for £100m last year, urged Ofcom to instead focus its attention on the BBC.
He argued that the public service broadcaster is held to lower standards of impartiality as it is permitted to review complaints first before they are escalated to the regulator.
Sir Paul accused the BBC of 'egregious bias' in its Arabic service and said the broadcaster had 'failed spectacularly' in its coverage of the grooming gangs scandal.
He also branded bosses 'weak, weak, weak' over the Gary Lineker anti-Semitism scandal and called for the corporation to be broken up.
The BBC has said the Match of the Day presenter made a mistake after sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat, but it has repeatedly denied allegations of bias in its reporting.
An Ofcom spokesman said: 'As an independent regulator, we enforce our rules fairly and proportionately. All regulated broadcasters must comply with Ofcom's rules.
'The 'BBC First' process for complaints about BBC content is set out in the BBC Charter and Agreement and was approved by Parliament.'
In his Pharos lecture, Sir Paul also took aim at tech giants.
He said Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg should be forced to publish their algorithms and said platforms such as X and Meta should face tougher regulation to ensure they are held accountable for material posted on their sites.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
11 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Hilary Weston, businesswoman who helped build Penneys and Brown Thomas dies aged 83
Hilary Weston, the Dublin-born businesswoman who helped build Penneys and Brown Thomas as part of her husband Galen Weston's family retail empire, has died aged 83. As The Irish Times reports, Ms Weston died in England, where she lived in recent years. Advertisement She was prominent in the early days of Penneys after the family business bought the ailing Todd Byrne's department store and established the budget fashion chain. She is said to have personally overseen the production of clothing for the in-house brand the company introduced early on, Primark, which would ultimately give its name to the wider chain outside Ireland. She was later prominent in running Brown Thomas for a considerable time after her husband purchased the long-established retailer. In the years that followed she served as vice-chair of Holt Renfrew, the group's luxury retail chain in Canada. Advertisement Ireland 'It is a terrible deal': UCD economist says EU was... Read More She held a variety of other positions in the wider family's interests, which included the conglomerate Associated British Foods (ABF), of which Penneys was a subsidiary; Fortnum & Mason; and Loblaws, the largest food retailer in Canada. She also oversaw a major property development in Florida. Born Hilary Frayne in Dún Laoghaire in 1942, she was the eldest of five children and attended Loreto Abbey, Dalkey. She started to work as a model in the 1950s and was successful at it, working extensively in Ireland and internationally. She met her future husband after he saw her on a billboard advertisement and had auctioneer Corrie Buckley arrange an introduction. The couple married in 1966. Having initially settled at the Roundwood Park estate in Wicklow, the family moved to Toronto in 1971 and Ms Weston later became a Canadian citizen.
The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
Senior judges reveal regret at handing out ‘unfair' indefinite jail terms and call for scandal to be ‘put right'
Senior judges who imposed 'unfair' indefinite jail terms, which have left scores of inmates locked up for minor offences languishing in prison for decades, have revealed their regret for their part in the 'injustice'. Former High Court judge Sir John Saunders said he would apologise to offenders he handed imprisonment for public protection (IPP) jail terms, which were scrapped in 2012, but not retrospectively, leaving thousands already jailed incarcerated with no release date. Now the very judges who dished out the punishment have joined calls for the government to take urgent action to help more than 2,500 prisoners still trapped under the abolished jail term, which has been branded 'psychological torture' by the UN. Victims of the scandal, whose tragic cases have been highlighted by The Independent, include Leroy Douglas, who has served almost 20 years for stealing a mobile phone; Thomas White, 42, who set himself alight in his cell and has served 13 years for stealing a phone; and Abdullahi Suleman, 41, who is still inside 19 years after he was jailed for a laptop robbery. Sir John, 76, who served as recorder of Birmingham before he was appointed to the High Court, told The Independent that if he met an IPP prisoner he had jailed who was years over tariff, he would apologise. 'I should say I'm really sorry this has happened, it's extremely unfair,' he said. 'I didn't want to be party to unfairness. I would feel very bad about it, I would apologise to them.' He said that when the sentence was introduced in 2005 by New Labour in a bid to be tough on crime, it appeared there was a 'certain degree of sense' to plans to ensure offenders completed rehabilitation courses before they were approved for release by the Parole Board. But judges had no idea those prisoners would find themselves trapped in prison indefinitely, often without access to the courses they needed to be released. He added: 'I think the essence of the job of a judge is to be fair. And we really do all try to do that. So when we conduct criminal trials, we attempt to be fair. In passing sentences, we attempt to be fair. 'If we have been party to something which has been accepted by everybody as unfair and we have been part of it… it's a bit of an affront to the job.' He and Simon Tonking, the former recorder of Stafford, have lobbied prisons minister Lord James Timpson to help those still trapped under the jail term. Both have backed a package of proposals put forward by an expert panel convened by the Howard League for Penal Reform, calling for IPP prisoners to be given a release date within a two-year window at their next parole hearing. Mr Tonking recalled imposing an IPP sentence with a minimum tariff of just six months for a relatively minor offence after a man was caught following a woman in an alley. 'Now I wonder what happened to him,' he told The Independent. 'He was in his late twenties. For all I know, he may still be there [in prison]. 'And when I look back at that case, I think I should have tried harder not to impose it.' Although he was doing his best to administer the laws in place at the time, he is now determined to be part of the solution. 'I don't feel guilty, but I do feel, having been part of that, I should be doing all I can to put what has turned out to be an injustice right,' he added. 'And I am driven in part by the fact that I was part of the administration of justice at a time when these sentences were being passed. 'I have been a part of the system that is wrong. I feel that I ought to be part of the system to put it right.' Successive governments have resisted calls to resentence IPP prisoners, claiming they cannot risk letting prisoners out until they have passed the Parole Board's release test. However, at least 94 inmates have taken their own lives in custody after losing hope of being freed, according to campaigners, with many struggling as their mental health deteriorates in prison. Mr Tonking urged the Labour government to use its majority to finally end the injustice by taking up the Howard League's proposals, adding: 'Virtually everybody who has had any professional dealings with IPP knows that it's unjust and now is the time to act.' The proposed reforms also include providing a package of mental health support for released IPP prisoners and tightening up the criteria for recalling them. Currently, many find themselves hauled back to prison indefinitely for minor breaches of strict licence conditions, despite committing no further offences. Paul Glenn, who last year retired from his role as the most senior judge in Stoke-on-Trent, also backed the charity's proposals. He told The Independent: 'Nobody envisaged that 10 years after they should have been released, they would still be in custody. The injustice there is pretty obvious. 'It's undoubtedly right that we should be sentencing people for what they have done, rather than what they might do in the future.' Prisons minister Lord Timpson said: 'It is absolutely right that the IPP sentence was abolished. 'As the IPP annual report shows, we have significantly improved support for these offenders, with greater access to rehabilitation and mental health support. 'There is more work to do as we reduce the number of IPP offenders in custody, but we will only do so in a way that protects the public.'
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Concrete sales plunge to 62-year low as hopes for Labour's building boom fade
Demand for concrete has fallen to its lowest level since 1963 in a serious blow to Labour's hopes of building more houses. Sales of ready-mixed concrete fell by 11.5pc in the three months to June against the previous three months, according to data from the Mineral Products Association (MPA), which represents producers. The product is widely-used in housebuilding to lay foundations, and provide the base for flooring and driveways. The figures suggest that Labour will miss its target of building 1.5m new homes by the end of this Parliament 'by a significant margin', the MPA said. Concrete sales have fallen by a third in 10 years, and more than halved over the last 20 years. The drop means that annual sales have not been this low since 1963 – before the nationwide housing and infrastructure building boom that transformed Britain. The MPA said that sales of other building materials, such as mortar and sand, also fell, with demand for most products at 'historically low levels'.
