GB News critics want to limit free speech to ‘liberal, Islington consensus’, Grade says

Critics of GB News are part of a “liberal, Islington consensus” bent on limiting freedom of expression, Michael Grade, the recently departed chair of Britain’s media watchdog, has said.

The Conservative peer, whose time at Ofcom has been criticised over the handling of the rightwing news channel, said he welcomed the arrival of the broadcaster five years ago in the name of “plurality”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Lord Grade also said a long-term failure to give “the white majority a voice in the debate” would damage social integration in Britain.

“The fact is, what people don’t like is the fact that there is a television station giving voice to a strong body of opinion in this country which has been ignored for years,” he said. “They just don’t like the idea that there’s any voice or any agenda, news agenda, which is different from the kind of liberal, Islington consensus.”

Ofcom’s approach to regulating GB News under Grade has faced a series of complaints. He was appointed to the role by Boris Johnson’s government in 2022. Former Ofcom figures have questioned the watchdog’s lack of intervention, given the persistent political slant to the right among GB News presenters and guests.

Defending Ofcom’s approach to GB News, Grade cited a recent interview by Tony Sewell, the Conservative peer who oversaw a controversial report on racial disparity ordered by the Johnson government.

“If you want integration, which we all do, and we want everybody to live happily ever after, irrespective of their background or their race or religion or anything, [Sewell] said that you have to give the white majority a voice in that debate,” Grade said.

“I hung on to that and I thought: ‘That is so brilliant. That’s why Reform is doing well in the polls.’ Of course it’s right.”

He added that it “certainly hasn’t” been the case that the voice of “the white majority” had been heard properly in recent times, and claimed that the BBC had a history of being out of sync with the public mood.

“It’s the London, metropolitan elite argument again,” he said. “The BBC missed Thatcherism, when [Margaret] Thatcher happened … They were so buried in this traditional, metropolitan-elite Westminster bubble. They couldn’t see it and they missed it completely.”

Grade dismissed accusations that he had failed to understand the impartiality rules that was tasked with upholding. He claimed it was his critics who did not understand the rules.