Invited to Rwanda by Suella Braverman and backed by wealthy Conservatives, the broadcaster’s ‘anti-establishment’ credentials are waning
Sign up for our weekly Behind the Headlines email and get a free copy of Byline Times posted to you
The newest addition to the parent company of GB News is a Conservative Member of the House of Lords and financier, Byline Times can reveal.
Recent Companies House filings for All Perspectives Limited, the firm that controls GB News, shows that Baroness Helena Morrissey was added as a director in November last year.
Baroness Morrissey was introduced to the House of Lords as a life peer in September 2020 after several decades as a financier, currently serving as the chair of AJ Bell – an investment platform whose co-founder Andrew Bell appears to have donated more than £600,000 to the Conservatives since 2019. Baroness Morrissey commands between £10,000 and £15,000 for speaking at conference events, according to her agent.
As previously revealed by Byline Times, All Perspectives Limited has received investment from two Conservative peers, Lord Michael Farmer and Lord Michael Spencer, the latter of whom is a billionaire.
This contradicts the supposed ethos of GB News, with the broadcaster claiming in its Editorial Charter to speak on behalf of “the real Britain”. In his opening monologue on GB News, its now-former chairman Andrew Neil claimed that the platform would “puncture the pomposity of our elites and politics, business, media and academia”.
However, GB News has developed a close relationship with the governing political and economic establishment. Several GB News presenters – Lee Anderson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Philip Davies and Esther McVey – are sitting Conservative MPs. Meanwhile, GB News received £60 million in funding last year from Sir Paul Marshall, a hedge fund manager, and Legatum, a Dubai-based private investment firm.
Recent filings show that GB News lost more than £30 million during its first year on air.
Baroness Morrissey was the subject of controversy for a tweet posted in March 2021, in which she claimed that “The data shows we are not in a pandemic”.
“[Chinese Communist Party] fake videos started this. It is ridiculous”, she added.
She continues to claim that there was a lot of fear-mongering around COVID, and a lack of political understanding of the impacts of lockdown, but that she has never denied the existence of the disease.
Baroness Morrissey made her comments while she was serving as the lead non-executive director of the Foreign Office – a role she resigned from in June 2022 after labelling then Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a “liability” and calling for him to step down.
GB News has recently been censured by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom for allowing one of its former presenters, Mark Steyn, to express “dangerous” claims about the COVID-19 booster vaccine. Other GB News presenters also have a history of lockdown and vaccine scepticism. Steyn left GB News after the channel reportedly tried to make him personally responsible for paying fines issued by Ofcom.
In another blow to its anti-establishment credentials, GB News was one the ‘friendly’ media outlets invited to join the Home Secretary Suella Braverman on a trip to Rwanda last week, designed to promote the Government’s policy of deporting asylum seekers to the east African country. GB News was joined by the Express, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Times, while the Guardian, BBC, Mirror, Independent and i Newspaper were barred.
GB News and Baroness Morrissey have been approached for comment.
OUR JOURNALISM RELIES ON YOU
Byline Times is funded by its subscribers. Receive our monthly print edition and help to support fearless, independent journalism.
