Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

My understanding is that @ofcom rules prohibit the issuing of TV licences to any entity whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature.

Last August, the founding investor in GB News, Discovery, sold up. The current investors are demonstrably highly political.

https://twitter.com/mac_puck/status/1638840604544122880

Existing shareholders (Brexiter hedge fund tycoon) Paul Marshall, & Dubai-based investment company Legatum, founded by NZ billionaire Christopher Chandler, took control.

sarawakreport.org/2023/03/who-in…

The other major investor in the holding company of GB News, is All Perspectives Ltd. The persons with significant control over All Perspectives Ltd are cited as being Marshall & Richard E Douglas - a Cayman Island lawyer with offices in the same Dubai centre as Legatum Group.

The controlling individual behind this off-shore trust manager is accepted as being the billionaire owner of Legatum Group, Christopher Chandler, who is now effectively bankrolling a loss-making concern.

At the very least, the British public surely have a right to expect that full scrutiny ought to have been undertaken into the origins of Chandler’s immense wealth and possible political motivations for taking on a UK TV station by @Ofcom.

Clear transparency rules need to be established to ensure that heavily financed lobbying think tanks & media organisations, such as those funded by the Chandlers, do not possess hidden political or corporate agendas that might secretly conflict with the public interest.

Whilst @Ofcom rules prohibit the issuing of TV licences to any entity whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature, there are numerous further indicators that the overriding purpose of Legatum Group in acquiring the loss making GB News is indeed political.

This is evidenced by the sudden & dramatic increase in sitting Tory MPs becoming sometimes highly paid presenters, on a channel which is clearly profoundly political in content & intent. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

That GB News is an explicitly political project is further evidenced by the often expressed purpose by senior executives & directors of Legatum of connecting with & influencing working class voters to switch to or stay with the @Conservatives based on a nationalist agenda.

At the same time, the Legatum Institute think tank has continued to lend its well funded support to the wing of the party that supports hard Brexit, the removal of trade barriers and the deregulation of environmental protections.

Take for example the statement published in the Telegraph & on Legatum Group’s website by the Maltese passport holding director of GB News, Mark Stoleson: “why we invested in GB News, free speech in the U.K. and Legatum’s global mission.”

legatum.com/news/article/g…

In this he accuses the UK ‘establishment’ media corporations of “displaying an intolerance for the views of Brits who live beyond the M25“. Does a Dubai based US/Maltese passport holder together with Australian CEO, Angelos Frangopoulos, really better understand & relate to this?

Stoleson adds 41% of voters think the @BBC is biased, reflecting the popular Tory complaint that the public funded broadcaster is left wing, despite copious evidence that it is currently effectively controlled & influenced by Tory donor Chair Richard Sharp & Tory DG Time Davie.

Finally, Stoleson explains that Legatum has a mission to “set people free across the UK and the world” as the “only way” to “drive us all towards prosperity“. He says “GB News is one integral part of our [Legatum’s] mission to deliver freedom.”

Speaking recently to the Guardian, Angelos Frangopoulos himself pushed an even clearer party political approach. The article details how screens around the newsroom show live graphs of audience trends & breakdowns.

theguardian.com/media/2023/mar…

Though only measured in the low tens of thousands, there is data to suggest that GB News now routinely outperforms @SkyNews & the @BBCNews channel in the former “red wall” seats of the north-west and the north-east, where the next general election will probably be contested.

This elates Frangopoulos, according to his own admission and for that very reason, telling his interviewer you can best measure GB News’ effect in those constituencies by the fact that Labour politicians, who initially steered clear of the channel, now appear on its sofas.

“They come on because they have the same data we have,” Frangopoulos says. “They know that whole patch is going to win or lose them government.”

It is a somewhat devastating admission of political intent by a TV channel that the left-leaning @guardian points out uses “a sketchy network of lone regional correspondents, aims to reach that audience not by close local reporting, but by feeding it divisive lines from London.”

Given its £31 million loss “The losses – & the nature of recent appointments – point to the idea that the owners are measuring the progress of the channel not by its bottom line but by its influence in shifting debate to the right – more as a political than a media organisation”.

In a functioning democracy, in an age characterised by #misinformation, such indications of explicit political intent, apparent deception, & lack of transparency surrounding the new ownership ought to be sufficient to trigger an @ofcom investigation.

If @ofcom refuse, it will be clear to everyone - not only those who have long argued for lobbying transparency - that this is one of the very many areas of secret influence mongering which needs to be urgently addressed by a reforming government to keep this country safe.