Off Topic The Politics Thread

And that right there is a perfect example of the bullshit people are fed up with. Somebody with zero knowledge for the job he finds himself in.
Scrap masks on the tube, just introduce yourself to everyone first then youre not strangers. FFS, its not surprising that nobody listens to anything these lot come out with.

 

I think it would be ignored by under 50's, and mostly adhered to by those older.

 

To be honest, I don't give a monkeys about GB News and if it becomes a roaring success or dies in a ditch, but I have seen a lot of you on here seem to care, so thought I would share the below. Saw Murdoch is launching a new channel to basically take over from what GB News was/is trying to do.

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DANIEL FINKELSTEIN
Failure of GB News is a warning to the right

An alternative to the BBC is welcome but the channel has turned into a humourless echo chamber for Ukip supporters
Daniel Finkelstein

When I worked as a computer trade journalist, some enterprising people in the same business decided to launch a television channel. It would be broadcast on satellite and target a commercial audience. Not long after they started, they invited a colleague to appear and I decided to accompany him to see how the new service was going.

It was all very professional and as we left I asked how many viewers they were attracting. “It’s good,” they said. “We are up to 150.” I was impressed: 150,000, I replied, is a lot of viewers. No, they explained, not 150,000. “We’re up to 150.”

Launching a new television station is hard, and I always thought GB News would find things tough. I was surprised they thought there were enough people wanting to watch programmes about cancel culture in the middle of the afternoon. How many viewers would be shouting through to the kitchen: “I’ll come to dinner in a minute darling, but Dan Wootton is on. He’s just talking to Ann Widdecombe about lockdowns and I want to find out if she’s for them or against them”?


I did, however, want it to succeed. Journalists pretty much always want new media ventures to succeed. More than this, however, I thought there might be something valuable they could add, a sort of right-wing counterweight to Channel 4 News: starting interviews about public spending from the perspective of a fiscal conservative, or basing debates on immigration on the proposition that we need better control. I think it is a reasonable criticism of the BBC, which produces a lot of excellent journalism, that it doesn’t do enough of this.

So a platform for Andrew Neil and other like-minded presenters and producers was something to welcome. And GB News set about hiring some pretty good people. I was impressed at the calibre of journalists who seemed to think the station’s prospects brighter than I did.


But on Monday Neil announced he was resigning as chairman of the station and abandoning his primetime show, which he hasn’t in any case been presenting since before the summer. With Neil has gone any chance of GB News being a serious journalistic enterprise. And I think the station will now struggle to keep even the small audience it has. I strongly suspect viewers will decide to take back the remote control.

Having thought there was a chance GB News might strengthen the right and enrich the country, I now believe it is only useful as a warning.

First, it is a warning against sloganising about woke ideas and cancel culture without thinking seriously about them. Possibly the most revealing moment in the channel’s short history came when one of its presenters, Guto Harri, decided to take the knee live on air. He was promptly suspended, being accused, rather vaguely, of breaching editorial standards. There was some waffle about him having simplified a complicated issue. In truth, what he had done was to offend a few of the station’s remaining viewers by making what many of them regard as a Marxist gesture. These people were watching GB News precisely in order to get away from the BBC and all its knee-taking on Match of the Day by Cristiano “Trotsky” Ronaldo and his Manchester United comrades.

On its launch day GB News promised to “puncture the pomposity of elites” and “expose their growing promotion of cancel culture”. Yet when one of their presenters expressed an offensive opinion, the station cancelled him. This episode will one day be taught in schools by English teachers instructing pupils on the definition of the word “irony”.



There is undoubtedly both a duty and a political opportunity for the right to defend diversity of thought and freedom of speech. But this needs to be done thoughtfully. You can’t “cancel” someone for saying Churchill is a racist and reasonably be furious if they try to “cancel” you back for saying he isn’t. Nor can you be an effective champion of free speech without considering where you might yourself wish to place its limits.

The second warning is of the danger to the right of speaking only to ourselves. Most of the time the channel features one right-wing person discussing right-wing opinions with another right-wing person for an audience consisting only of right-wing people.

The channel promised it would “not be another echo chamber for the metropolitan mindset”. It may have avoided being watched by anyone living in a city but it has not avoided becoming an echo chamber. The criticism of liberals with higher degrees is that they talk only to each other, becoming cut off from mainstream public opinion. It would be a disaster for the right to follow suit. Listening to other people and having your ideas challenged is essential to the health of any political movement.

And then there is the question of tone. While GB News promised a sense of humour and to cover good news stories, it increasingly demonstrates the danger to the right of a pessimistic view of the world and casting oneself as the victim.

Slowly the channel’s schedule is being taken over by people making straight-to-YouTube videos on behalf of Ukip. There is a uniformity to the view expressed, which is that the world is going to hell in a handcart due to stupid modern ideas and the people in charge aren’t doing anything about it. The voices of common sense are portrayed as a small beleaguered minority who would struggle for a platform if it were not for brave GB News.

The main problem with all of this is that it is nonsense. Farage does not struggle for a platform, nor was he cruelly excluded from appearing on the BBC. Britain has a Conservative cabinet in which sit Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel. One or two people who oppose cancel culture have even managed to secure newspaper columns in leading outlets.

The challenge for the right is to ensure that the dominant institutions and ideas it supports — consumer capitalism, for instance, or immigration control, or Brexit — actually work, rather than pretend that the world is really being controlled by a charity boss who has put up a plaque about slavery or an academic writing a paper on critical race theory.

Powerful people commiserating with each other about how powerless they are isn’t much of a basis for a political movement. Or even, as it turns out, for a niche TV channel.

 

Speaking as someone who is definitely not from ‘the right’, I really don’t know where this article gets its info from. I put it on in the background most mornings and find it far from an echo chamber for UKIP supporters.
It’s teething problems are in the past and looks a whole lot more professional than before. Definitely beats the repetitive stories you keep getting from Sky, churning out the same interviews and stories every 30 mins or so.
As a channel it seems to be more than happy to give voice to lefties like me, like GG and Paul Embery. Maybe I’m missing the right wing stuff

 

First, lets remind ourselves who's writing this. It's the same Danny Finkelstein who was adviser to Hague (that's William Hague who wants to decriminalise drugs). They can both be described as from the liberal side of the Conservative Party. And Finkelstein was not in favour of Brexit.

Losing Neil is a blow for GB News (although for the time being he is a commentator on a weekly basis), but having watched quite a bit of the output, they have young and able replacements coming up, and it's not all right wing. Ex Labour MP Gloria del Piero has the important midday slot as a presenter, sometimes sharing with Liam Halligan who is worth listening to on matters of money and economics. Caroline Flint presents on a Saturday. Kate Hoey was on last night. As Stainsey says, George Galloway and Paul Embury appear, the latter co-hosting a programme.

Nor do I agree with Finkelstein that setting aside Gutu Harri after he very ostentatiously took the knee was ironic. Sure, he has the right of free speech, but that can be properly curtailed contractually if he's being well paid to present a programme that the audience approves of and sends viewing figures up.

I hope GB news stays and thrives, and continues to reflect a range of views. My perception is the presenters there both left and right are more likely to be outspoken than on the formulaic BBC and Sky. OK, GB News does appear a bit amateur at times. In some ways, that's part of it's appeal.

 

Never liked Hague, however now I know his position on the unwinnable war on drugs…….he’s gone up in my estimation.

 

His view on drugs are worthy of consideration, particularly as there are countries like Portugal where decriminalisation has apparently been a success. You're right, the current situation is unwinnable. Addiction is an illness and should be treated as such.

 

Been saying it for many years…it’s an unwinnable war and only goes to put profits in the accounts of smugglers and criminals.
We as a nation need to be brave and confront the inevitable and take a different approach.
It’s good to see that many more people in higher places are thinking the same

 

It’s interesting that, given that GB News has a dodgy commercial footing, though probably funding to keep it on air for a year making a loss, Murdoch chooses now to announce talkTV which seems to have the exact same purpose/branding. It’s first signing, Piers Morgan, says
"I want my global show to be a fearless forum for lively debate and agenda-setting interviews, and a place that celebrates the right of everyone to have an opinion, and for those opinions to be vigorously examined and challenged*."
Isn’t that what Neil was saying?
It’s global because his show will be shown on Fox in the US and Sky in Australia.
I suppose the Murdochs have more experience in this area, though they don’t own Sky here or in Europe any more.
All these news channels seem to exist on small audiences and presumably small revenue streams. I don’t know who watches them, who needs 24 hour news and opinion from people paid to have opinions? If something truly momentous is happening, it’s wall to wall on the ordinary channels anyway.

Weird scenes inside the goldmine. Again.


* do I recall correctly that the last time Piers was challenged live on air by a weatherman on his own show he stomped off and resigned? Mind you, if free speech is curtailed contractually (rather than by the law of the land) and only justified if it pleases the audience and improves viewing figures, and nobody actually challenges him, he’ll be fine. Speech is free if it’s commercially attractive. Apparently.

 

I like 'The Fink' but I've never watched GB News so can't comment on the article. Just sharing as I know others on here have opinions on it so may appreciate seeing it

 

Who knows. Probably some mass tax avoidance scheme. I guess Murdoch will be able to advertise through all of his current channels / other media which will help growth a lot.

 

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look at all those gammons
what absolute mugs
going to work to pay the bills
muppets

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Richard Tice
@TiceRichard
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12h

SELFISH obstructive eco zealots again being protected by woke police from furious drivers. Get a grip Chief Constables or this will end in violence as understandably angry drivers will clear the streets if coppers will not.

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why are they allowed to block the roads without being shifted on

 

Andrew Neil on QT tonight. More people in the physical audience than some GB News shows get……

 

Huge Brexit win.

 

****ing hell, when I've got a spare couple of days I'll read through that!!

 

I guessed GBN would have no interest for you! The article was interesting. Thanks for putting it up.

 

I've never watched GB News, but the fact that it seems to get under the skin of our liberal left friends on here tells me they must be getting something right.

 

Ah it's a delight to be such a monumentally backwards country. Boris and his populist government Kowtowing once again to the Rule Britannia knuckle draggers.

 

Never watched GB news either but then again i dont tend to watch any news. I wont comment on any new channel without watching it so will hand this over to those that do.