Labour’s Balls Could Interview His Home Secretary Wife Again Under Proposed Ofcom Rules – Guido Fawkes

Labour’s Balls Could Interview His Home Secretary Wife Again Under Proposed Ofcom Rules

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As Ofcom announced its eye-catching new consultation into the use of politicians as TV presenters, Guido suspects one former Labour Cabinet Minister (turned GMB anchor), Ed Balls, slept soundly. Tucked up next to the, uhh, Home Secretary…

Ofcom chose not to investigate Ed’s soft-ball(s) interview with his wife back in August of last year, despite receiving a whopping 16,000 complaints from members of the public. The regulator thought that a former Labour minister interviewing his wife – a serving Labour Home Secretary – was not a breach of impartiality…

As Ofcom has a statutory obligation to have due regard to maintaining “proportionate and consistent” regulatory activities, Guido has taken a look at programmes the regulator did deem worthy of investigation for lack of impartiality:

• GB News‘s ‘People’s Forum: The Prime Minister’ was investigated, which consisted of Rishi Sunak talking to a public audience in an election campaign. Rather more impartial than having your wife interview you…
• The channel’s ‘Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil’ was probed for interviewing Jeremy Hunt. Ofcom are content to investigate married Tory presenters, but give the all clear to the Labour cabinet couple interviewing each other…
•  The same programme was also investigated for interviewing Howard Cox, a Reform UK mayoral candidate. They’re from different parties…

The pressure on Ofcom’s two-tier approach is only mounting. No wonder Brits are turning to different formats..