When GB News first launched in the summer of June 2021, it quickly divided opinion. Before a single show had aired, there were warnings from figures on the left that it would mean the Foxification of news in the UK, heralding in a new form of Conservative extremism. In the end, its first weeks saw it gather more column inches over TV gaffes, bloopers and low ratings than anything else.
Fast forward to the present day and the broadcaster has seen its ratings rise alongside its controversy, with Laurence Fox axed from the channel in a misogyny row. However, in the majority of the cases, it’s the presenters who have ended up being cancelled by the channel rather than their targets. Ministers regularly appear on the programme, with some preferring the GB News treatment to that of the BBC.
These days, the broadcaster is best known in Westminster for its tendency to employ Tory MPs as journalists. This has been particularly apparent in the past week when it comes to the Lee Anderson debacle. This is a row born on GB News, with Anderson making his now infamous claim that “Islamists have got control” of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has given the city away to “his mates”. The comments led to Rishi Sunak suspending Anderson the following day.
While that news got much attention, the general hope of the Government in such a scenario is that the MP who said the controversial thing goes to ground and disappears from the media for a few weeks. Not so for Anderson: the former Tory deputy chairman was back on GB News by Monday night with his first tell-all interview. He has since spoken to other outlets – but it was then GB News that carried the news that he had met with Reform leader Richard Tice over a possible defection. As one Tory MP puts it: “It’s like our own personal echo chamber.” One government figure takes the view that the Anderson story would have likely died out by now were it not for the channel.
The episode demonstrates how GB News is slowly but surely changing the Conservative landscape. Anderson is one of a host of Tory politicians to be in paid contributor roles for the broadcaster, where he earns £100,000 a year from his GB news show Lee Anderson’s Real World – more than his MP salary. Others include former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, Philip Davies and Michael Portillo, while Boris Johnson is expected to start on the channel later this year. Then there’s Nigel Farage, who fronts his own show.
The broadcaster is adding to the sense that the Tory party is on a rightward trajectory. Some of it is accidental. For example, when Farage attended Tory party conference last year with a media pass, for GB News, there was much commentary about how it marked the Tory party getting closer to Farage’s style of politics without much mention of why he was there. That said, there are senior Tories who think CCHQ should have seen the risk and said no to the pass request for these very reasons.
But there are two more serious ways in which GB News is changing the Tory party. The first is that a number of Tory MPs now have an incentive to say controversial things, or at the very least keep politics entertaining. Whether it’s a desire to be asked on in the hope of an eventual paid gig or simply working out interesting topics of discussion for an established news show, GB News is getting Tory MPs to make news in a regularised way that is somewhat different to an occasional appearance on Newsnight. The whips complain that some of the current flock of MPs seem more interested with winning a future paid presenting job on the channel than keeping their marginal seat.
Second, its increased influence and viewing figures mean the channel has the potential to influence any Tory leadership following electoral defeat later this year. ConservativeHome reported earlier this year that over half of its panel of Tory members now watch the channel.
The website’s editor, Paul Goodman, described the broadcaster’s political position as having settled “somewhere to the left of Reform UK (Richard Tice is a presenter) but well to the right of, say, the Conservative Parliamentary Party’s centre of gravity”. A sign of its reach to a certain type of Tory voter can be found in Sunak’s recent appearance in a “People’s Forum”. No 10 were delighted when he won the support of 50 per cent of undecided voters in their audience – even if it led to an Ofcom investigation over a possible impartiality breach (one of the risks to the channel is that some other broadcasters see it as not playing by the rules and are looking for ways to limit its reach).
It means the debates the channel would lead in a Tory contest could benefit those Tories – such as Suella Braverman – who want to move the party to the right in terms of immigration or tax. Imagine the scene now as GB News presenter Nigel Farage interrogates each Tory candidate about their plans for the party – as Tory members watch on.
It’s why the scenes this week with Anderson are likely just the beginning when it comes to the GB Newsification of the Tory party.
GB News is changing the Tory party in three serious ways
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28.02.2024
When GB News first launched in the summer of June 2021, it quickly divided opinion. Before a single show had aired, there were warnings from figures on the left that it would mean the Foxification of news in the UK, heralding in a new form of Conservative extremism. In the end, its first weeks saw it gather more column inches over TV gaffes, bloopers and low ratings than anything else.
Fast forward to the present day and the broadcaster has seen its ratings rise alongside its controversy, with Laurence Fox axed from the channel in a misogyny row. However, in the majority of the cases, it’s the presenters who have ended up being cancelled by the channel rather than their targets. Ministers regularly appear on the programme, with some preferring the GB News treatment to that of the BBC.
These days, the broadcaster is best known in Westminster for its tendency to employ Tory MPs as journalists. This has been particularly apparent in the past week when it comes to the Lee Anderson debacle. This is a row born on GB News, with Anderson making his now infamous claim that “Islamists have got control” of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has given the city away to “his mates”. The comments led to Rishi Sunak suspending Anderson the........
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