‘Free of the shackles’: Michael Grade’s GB News defence raises concerns over relaxing of Ofcom rules

Regulators are not generally known for courting controversy. When the day job involves making delicate, legally fraught decisions, they tend to be a circumspect bunch. However, since stepping down as chair of Ofcom, one of Britain’s most scrutinised watchdogs, the Conservative peer Michael Grade has been doing his best to buck that stereotype. “I’m free of the shackles,” he recently said. Despite disquiet among many broadcasters over Ofcom’s alleged lack of challenge to GB News , the rightwing network that has brought a partisan brand of broadcasting to Britain, Lord Grade opted to give a series of interviews provocatively pushing back. BBC Radio 4’s Today programme could “absolutely” have a politician presenting it, he said. “Why not?” Later, he went further . GB News’s critics were “embarrassed” because the channel “speaks to the agenda of the majority”, he said, citing Brexit and immigration. Tony Blair is interviewed on the BBC’s Today programme. Grade suggested that a politician could ‘absolutely’ present the show. Photograph: BBC “They’ve actually got better and better [in meeting broadcasting rules],” he said. “It’s not difficult to comply; sometimes it’s only a sentence in a script.” It was a punchy departure. There is a problem, however. Figures involved in drawing up the impartiality rules that apply to Britain’s broadcasters think Grade has misunderstood the rules his regulator was tasked with enforcing. …