GB News has won a “landmark” victory over Ofcom after a High Court judge ruled the watchdog was wrong to accuse Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg of breaking the broadcasting code on his show. The Telegraph has the story.
GB News mounted a legal challenge after Ofcom concluded that GB News had breached regulations about the use of politicians as presenters in two programmes fronted by Sir Jacob.
In her judgment on Friday, Justice Mrs Collins Rice said the decisions were “vitiated by error of law” as the regulator had failed to distinguish between a news programme and a current affairs show.
She quashed the verdicts and sent them back to Ofcom to be reconsidered, adding: “I take no view of the merits or the possible outcomes of any such investigations or reconsideration either way.”
Ofcom will now be required to pay GB News’s legal costs.
Angelos Frangopoulos, Chief Executive of GB News, branded the judgment a “landmark decision that vindicates GB News’s position as the fearless defender of free speech in the United Kingdom”.
He added: “Our court victory is hugely significant for the entire British broadcasting industry. We are proud that we were the only media company prepared to have the courage of our convictions.
“Ofcom’s actions are unfair not just to television and radio licensees but to the people who Ofcom is ultimately supposed to serve our nation’s viewers and listeners.
“I call on the Government and Parliament to consider the seriousness of this fundamental failure by Ofcom.”
It marks the first time Ofcom has lost a legal challenge against one of its decisions relating to broadcasting standards.
The regulator will now look at widening rules to ban politicians from presenting current affairs shows. It may also launch a fresh investigation into the programmes, though it is understood no decision on whether to do so has yet been made.
A spokesman for Ofcom said: “We accept the court’s guidance on this important aspect of due impartiality in broadcast news and the clarity set out in its judgment.
“We will now review and consult on proposed changes to the broadcasting code to restrict politicians from presenting news in any type of programme to ensure this is clear for all broadcasters.”
The rulings related to two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation. In one, Sir Jacob interrupted the programme to cover the breaking verdict in a civil trial against Donald Trump. In the other, he interviewed a GB News reporter about a stabbing in Nottingham.
Ofcom ruled that these programmes, alongside two others presented by Esther McVey and Philip Davies, breached rules banning politicians from being used as news presenters.
However, lawyers for GB News argued that the regulator had wrongly interpreted its own rules in relation to Sir Jacob’s shows.
Worth reading in full.
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Reality, Dear Shirley, is what remains after you’ve stopped believing in it.
These people are ignorant, arrogant, dictatorial swines.
To be a scientist is to be naïve. We are so focussed on our search for truth we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants. It doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl; where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask, “what is the cost of lies?”
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Until the site policy changes, I still feel unable to say anything about Khan.
How to say something without saying it. Excellent
W
?
Yes, that’s a good one.
She soesn’t look British either.
https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-mayor-does/mayor-and-his-team/shirley-rodrigues
Up to her neck in the climate scam.
https://www.c40.org/our-team/shirley-rodrigues/
Another traitor.
Oh look, she’s a WEFfer too. One of Klaus’s little helpers.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/london-gets-second-indian-origin-deputy-mayor/story-MDyeozEaCrejcITNTGxs0J.html
And she’s not British.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/_ee0VX_tfT92JJKu6sdqIAvACm8/appointments
Born August 1961 apparently but the day of birth not given and born in Nairobi but Indian origin.
As well as being Deputy Mayor on £130k plus she also holds three Company directorships.
See below LM.
Don’t give observers of this site ammunition, LM; I couldn’t give a rat’s arse which mafia claims her.
Until people realise that the rot started with the windrush, we don’t have a hope.
And which mafia is to blame for windrush?
Labour ….. blame the voters of 1945.
What? She’s an archetypal Londoner, as any leade of the GLC will tell you.
“Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection”, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.
Let’s admit it: ULEZ policy has almost nothing to do with environmental protection or health protection. The next :London budget will actually be an economy summit during which the distribution of Londoners’ wealth will be imposed.
@LeeHirstComic on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/LeeHurstComic/status/1690662796160122880
”
According to Sadiq Khan, your old diesel cars are causing such bad pollution in London that each year you are literally killing thousands of people.
You absolute bastards.
However…
If you give him £12.50 each time you drive in, the dying people can go fuck themselves.
“
I wrote that in comments here a couple of times already: If Khan is so worried about the health of the population of London, why is a license to poison them available for less than 13 quid?
Once you understand that “illegal” really means “legal for a price”, a lot of things start to make a lot more sense.
My personal theory, as with all indirect so-called sin taxes, is that Khan wants the money and that the health-babbling is just a (thin) justification for fining relatively poor people (with older cars) for doing something which is free for relatively rich people (with current cars).
You do need to remember that the Tube is very polluted and well over the legal limit. But that problem is pout on one side to get the fare money from millions of Londoners, and b***er their health. He should be prosecuted, and TfL!
““These further emails show an industrial scale conspiracy with leading scientists to manipulate the debate on the Ulez expansion by inappropriate requests to reword independent scientific reports,”
Boy wait till the penny drops on carbon emissions and their relationship to climate change….
“The correspondence comes to light just days after the Telegraph revealed how Mr. Khan’s deputy tried to discredit and ‘silence’ Imperial College scientists, who found that the ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) had little impact on pollution.”
Now now, Ms Rodrigues. Their contract was to make ridiculous predictions about covid deaths, not fabrications about ulez. Another contract will be necessary – if you can find the funds from council tax payments that are diminishing as the populace wake up.
Khan must still resign because he’s still politically responsible for members of his staff publically claiming that white people cannot be real Londoners.
I think real Londoners need to kick the others out.
It’s very simple. If you are prepared to change the health research data to push a measure through regardless of the impact, you are prepared to kill people to meet your own political ends. Children, the elderly, across the board. It isn’t just some minor political wrangle, it’s a knowing criminal conspiracy to further political ends.
Strange, that sounds exactly like the vax scam. The World has become a disgusting place.
Well it was the wrong kind of science.
Expect much more of this under a Labour Government.
Stealth tax.
It’s worth reading up about C40 cities and Sadiq Kahn’s involvement.
https://www.c40.org/about-c40/
C40
Who We Are
Mayors of C40 cities are committed to using an inclusive, science-based and collaborative approach to cut their fair share of emissions in half by 2030, help the world limit global heating to 1.5°C, and build healthy, equitable and resilient communities. C40 supports mayors to do this by:
Raising climate ambition through 1.5°C climate action plan support, high-impact accelerators and fostering innovation.
Building equitable and thriving communities via global and regional programmes.Building a global movement through robust international advocacy and diplomacy.
Scaling up climate action and sharing best practices across high-impact sectors.
Facilitating access to finance for investment in green jobs and projects that improve resilience in cities
None of this shyte makes any sense and I mean that literally. This is truly just a random collection of words.
A dangerous man would only employ other dangerous men or women
“Ah yes science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact” ——-Mark Twain