GB News: Tory MPs on the payroll mean the right-wing channel is just propaganda

It was the worst kind of locker-room banter - it would have been embarrassing enough had it been overheard in an actual locker room but to be broadcast on a national television channel is disappointing indeed.

However, that's no reason to ban a channel. One - or in GB News' case several - cock-ups do not equate to pulling the plug. If you stand by free speech in principle, you have to stand by free speech in reality, even if the words are spoken by morons.

Short-lived controversy over shag-gate, as no-one has called it, disguises a much bigger and more worrying picture at GB News. And that's the word News in its name. 

It may report current affairs, it may feature the events of the day, but it also has on its roster a number of very prominent MPs, among the Jacob Rees-Mogg, Philip Davies and Esther McVey.

Last night Lee Anderson, the deputy chairman of the party, interviewed the Home Secretary Suella Braverman. 

On the programme, she said: “Whether it is New York City, whether it is the border with Texas, whether it is Italy, whether it is the Channel, we need to look again at whether these international rules are fit for purpose.

“And what I said in my speech is that there is a lot at stake. There is democratic legitimacy which is at stake.

“People want control of their borders and they want government to get a grip on this and if we don’t it will lead to a disintegration in our society.

“And we need to change — we need to change some of the definitions relating to refugee persecution. It needs to be a high bar if someone is coming to our country fleeing persecution, not a low bar.”

She said it was “reasonable” to question whether accords such as the Refugee Convention, which 149 states have signed up to, are still fit for purpose.

“I don’t think they are,” she added.

People may take aim at the views of newspapers, radio stations and the BBC - and everyone should be entitled to their opinion - but don't tell me that a man interviewing someone who is effectively his boss will lead to clear-headed, probing, and potentially embarrassing questions. It won't. It's not journalism, it's propaganda. It is not holding power to account.

Less right-wing Tory MP Caroline Nokes is right to be appalled by Fox and Wootton's juvenile behaviour this week, but wrong when she advocates taking the station off air. You can't legislate against ignorant people.

But whether you love Darren Grimes, Mark Dolan, Neil Oliver and the rest of them - or would cross the street to avoid their blustery populism - they have as much right to exist and broadcast as anyone else. But don't, whatever you do, mistake these culture war foghorns as a trusted source of news.