GB News

Of course, there was the odd (in every sense of the word) self declared communist that showed up for some humiliation on This Week. It will be curious to see how many of the Far Left show up with the editors that get appointed to pick and book guests for this new channel.

For what its worth, my idea of the Right and Left extremes are sort of like this.

Dictatorship<<<<Communism<<<Socialism/Democracy<<Neo Liberalism>Free Markets>>Nationalism/Racism>>>>Murdering Minorities/Dictatorship/Fascism

Neo Liberalism mostly centred - and I am personally of the Social Democrat position

With the horseshoe theory, you could argue the far left won't be too far off what the channel is aiming for. Look at what George Galloway's turning into these days.

I suspect the linear GB News channel, will effectively be seen as the engine that generates content for their social channels, where the majority of their content will ultimately be consumed.

Have we established what the GB stands for? Great Britain (in which case I'm assuming they'll be ignoring Northern Ireland and the Democratic Federal European People's Republic of Kent), or Gammony Brexiteers?

GB News could just be the trading or business name, with a different brand name used for the output.

I assume it is Great Britain, but I am not aware of any confirmation

I remember seeing a Youtube clip of the BBC Daily Politics interview that Andrew Neil a few years ago did with Alex Jones of Infowars.

When Neil heard of the things from Alex Jones had his huge rant about immigration & Islam being a huge problem and the role of the mainstream media particularly with the BBC in the UK; Neil tended to blatantly ignore those statements from Jones instantly. Neil wasn't too kind to Jones either when the programme was finished.

Now that Andrew Neil is going to be the star of GB News, as soon as he leaves the BBC after the US Presidential Election coverage in November, I would find it quite bizzare, in these crazy times, that he could just glaringly accept to hear more opinions being said from people who follow far-right politics when it is the main show of the day coming from the likes of the Trump crew & when talking about other things like Brexit affecting the UK.

Now when he is doing a news programme on this new news channel; can he be told by the channels management team straight off the bat that he can just accept lots of far right opinions coming in from various people within that political sphere as he tries to adhere to the strict news broadcasting requirements from Ofcom in the UK? I know that Ofcom has had a lot of recent influence from the Tories in making the rules more strict for the BBC & the like. However; it wasn't being too kind to the likes of RT who had been ruled to have broken the terms of their UK Broadcasting licence on lots of occasions.

I don't necessarily think Andrew Neil will be a Right leaning or a Hard Right leaning commentator, but that he clearly thinks that everyone is entitled to a platform to air their views, regardless of what those views are. And is of the belief that conservative voices are being dismissed, despite evidence to the contrary.

The description of the channel as right leaning come from those news outlets I labelled.

Andrew Neil on twitter comes across as of the Status Quo, praising Rupert Murdoch, a history editing/working for Murdoch papers, dismissive of modern Progressive "Woke" political discussions.

He also seems to be unequivocally pro armed forces, and unprepared to entertain people who point out perceived military mistakes or wrong doing.

A belief in all sides being equal, even when the language used offends intentionally and with malice.

Andrew Neil


Great British Bake Off, Britain's Got Talent, Good Morning Britain, Little Britain........

Thanks for proving my point entirely.

But you're confusing satire with an opinion. Where was the uproar when HIGNFY did the 'letterbox' joke, as did SpecSavers years before Johnson, but he's a racist for doing it, but they're not?

Absolutely. And this audience are very much the sort complaining that their views barely register on the mainstream media and last night celebrated this channel as though it will finally see their opinion get a platform, which is of course total nonsense. It's never been easier to hear these views on TV, radio and online than in the last few years.

Its all fascinating stuff but i fear the mods may be watching and start wiping all the non tv press posts. If anyone wants to open a thread on Metropol then I'll be happy to join in



Its depends what's meant by "balance" If and I emphasise if (because we don't yet know for certain what GB News will actually look or sound like) that's the case then I think OFCOM will be watching them like a hawk:

5.9 Presenters and reporters (with the exception of news presenters and reporters in
news programmes), presenters of “personal view” or “authored” programmes
or items, and chairs of discussion programmes may express their own views on
matters of political or industrial controversy or matters relating to current public
policy. However, alternative viewpoints must be adequately represented either
in the programme, or in a series of programmes taken as a whole. Additionally,
presenters must not use the advantage of regular appearances to promote their
views in a way that compromises the requirement for due impartiality. Presenter
phone-ins must encourage and must not exclude alternative views. (*)

So based on that rule let us assume that Neil appears as on a show. What role does he have? Is he a presenter or a proponent or a view? Will he be part of a round table discussion where he takes one side and an opposing guest takes the other or will he be a British Bill O' Reilly?

It will be interesting to see.

(*https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/132080/Broadcast-Code-Section-5.pdf