Impartiality is a state of grace to which you aspire
In the aftermath of his departure from Ofcom, Michael Grade has stepped forward to defend both his stewardship of Britain's media regulator and the channel that most tested it. His argument is not merely procedural but civilisational: that a society unwilling to broadcast unfamiliar perspectives to its own majority has already foreclosed the conversation it claims to want. The dispute over GB News, in this reading, is less a technical question about impartiality rules than a contest over whose discomfort counts as a problem worth solving.
- Grade's defence arrives with the force of a man who believes the verdict against him was written before the trial began, framing his critics as a liberal consensus protecting its own airspace.
- Former colleagues and media observers counter that Ofcom under Grade looked away while GB News presenters tilted the dial rightward, week after week, without meaningful consequence.
- The Trump interview — unchallenged claims on climate, Islam, and immigration broadcast to a national audience — sits at the centre of the argument like an exhibit neither side can fully explain away.
- Grade's regulatory philosophy offers a way out: impartiality is an aspiration, not a checklist, and if the government wants harder rules it must write harder laws.
- The debate is now landing not as a settled question but as a live fault line — over free speech limits, the purpose of public broadcasting, and whether plurality can be regulated at all without becoming its own form of censorship.
Michael Grade, the Conservative peer who stepped down as Ofcom chair, has offered a pointed defence of his oversight of GB News, dismissing critics as representatives of a "liberal, Islington consensus" unwilling to accept genuine plurality. His argument is not that GB News is beyond reproach, but that its detractors object to it for the wrong reasons — namely, that it gives airtime to political perspectives long excluded from mainstream British broadcasting.
Grade's tenure, which began with his appointment by Boris Johnson's government in 2022, drew sustained criticism from media observers and former Ofcom colleagues who argued the regulator failed to enforce impartiality rules with sufficient rigour. Grade rejects this entirely, framing the controversy as a clash between those who understand broadcasting regulation and those who do not.
At the heart of his defence is a claim about representation. Citing Tony Sewell's controversial report on racial disparity, Grade argued that meaningful social integration requires giving voice to the white majority in national debates — a prerequisite, he said, for harmony rather than a partisan position. He suggested Reform's polling success reflected public hunger for a perspective the BBC had historically missed, trapped as it was in a metropolitan bubble that failed to register Thatcherism as it happened.
On the specifics of regulation, Grade argued that Ofcom's rules permit broadcasters to distribute viewpoints flexibly across their schedules, and that the real line is preventing politicians from reading news bulletins — a standard GB News meets. The Trump interview, in which the US president's claims went unchallenged, he conceded was not journalism's finest hour, but noted it was followed immediately by a critical discussion programme. If stricter rules were wanted, he said, Parliament should legislate them.
His closing argument was philosophical: impartiality is "a state of grace to which you aspire," not a condition that can be objectively verified. The implication was that his critics are not neutral arbiters but partisans defending familiar ground — and that the real question is whether Britain's media establishment will tolerate a voice that unsettles its assumptions.
Michael Grade, the Conservative peer who recently stepped down as chair of Ofcom, Britain's media regulator, has mounted a vigorous defense of his oversight of GB News, the right-leaning news channel that launched five years ago. In an interview, Grade dismissed critics of the broadcaster as representatives of a "liberal, Islington consensus" opposed to genuine plurality of opinion. He argued that the real problem with GB News, in the eyes of its detractors, is simply that it gives airtime to political perspectives that have been systematically excluded from mainstream British broadcasting.
Grade's tenure at Ofcom, which began in 2022 after his appointment by Boris Johnson's government, has drawn sustained criticism from media observers and former colleagues at the regulator itself. They contend that under his leadership, Ofcom failed to enforce its impartiality rules with sufficient rigor, allowing GB News presenters and guests to maintain a consistent rightward political slant without meaningful intervention. Grade, however, rejects this characterization entirely. He frames the controversy as a clash between those who genuinely understand broadcasting regulation and those who do not—placing himself squarely in the former camp.
Central to Grade's defense is an argument about representation and social cohesion. He cited Tony Sewell, a Conservative peer whose government-commissioned report on racial disparity proved controversial, as having articulated a crucial insight: that meaningful integration requires giving voice to the white majority in national debates. Grade presented this not as a partisan talking point but as a prerequisite for social harmony. He suggested that the success of Reform in recent polling reflected public appetite for this missing perspective, and that the BBC had historically failed to capture the national mood—missing Thatcherism entirely, he claimed, because it remained trapped in a "metropolitan-elite Westminster bubble."
When pressed on the specifics of broadcast regulation, Grade adopted a more technical defense. He argued that Ofcom's rules require due impartiality but grant broadcasters flexibility in how they distribute different viewpoints across their programming schedule. The real regulatory line, he insisted, should be preventing politicians from reading news bulletins—a standard he said GB News respects. He dismissed the notion that regulators should have power to determine which guests appear on programs, calling such an approach fundamentally incompatible with free expression.
The Trump interview loomed large in the discussion. Last year, GB News broadcast a conversation with the US president in which his claims about climate change, Islam, and immigration went unchallenged. Ofcom rejected complaints about the original airing but is investigating a repeat broadcast. Grade conceded the interview "wasn't journalism's finest hour" but noted it was immediately followed by a discussion program where Trump faced sharp criticism. He suggested that if the government wanted stricter rules—such as banning politicians from presenting news—it should change the law rather than expect regulators to enforce standards beyond their mandate.
Grade's final point was philosophical. Impartiality, he said, is "a state of grace to which you aspire." As long as a broadcaster appears to be trying to be fair, that should suffice. What one person calls impartiality, another calls bias. The implication was clear: his critics were not neutral arbiters of broadcasting standards but rather partisans defending their own ideological turf. The debate over GB News, in Grade's telling, is not really about whether the channel follows the rules. It is about whether Britain's media establishment will tolerate a voice that challenges its assumptions.
Notable Quotes
The fact is, what people don't like is the fact that there is a television station giving voice to a strong body of opinion in this country which has been ignored for years— Michael Grade
Impartiality is a state of grace to which you aspire. And as long as you're aspiring and seem to be trying to be impartial, that's fine. One person's impartiality is another person's bias.— Michael Grade
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say critics represent a "liberal consensus," aren't you yourself making a political judgment about what counts as legitimate regulation?
I understand the tension. But there's a difference between acknowledging that a viewpoint exists and saying that viewpoint should determine regulatory policy. The question is whether Ofcom's job is to enforce the rules as written or to enforce what critics wish the rules said.
But the Trump interview—where major claims went unchallenged—doesn't that suggest the channel operates under a different standard than, say, the BBC's Today programme?
Grade would say the follow-up discussion program provided the challenge, and that you can't judge a broadcaster's impartiality by a single segment. Whether that's convincing depends on whether you think impartiality is measured across a schedule or within individual programs.
He mentions giving voice to "the white majority." Doesn't that language itself suggest a political project rather than neutral plurality?
It does sound that way. But Grade's argument is that this perspective has been genuinely absent from mainstream broadcasting, and that absence itself is a form of bias. The question becomes: is acknowledging a missing voice the same as promoting a particular politics?
What about the accusation that Ofcom simply didn't enforce its own rules?
Grade's answer is that the rules allow more flexibility than critics admit. He's saying his critics misunderstand what due impartiality actually requires. That may be right or wrong, but it's a substantive disagreement about what the rules mean, not about whether he followed them.
Does he ever acknowledge any legitimate concern about GB News?
He calls the Trump interview not journalism's finest hour. But he frames it as a single moment in a larger schedule, not as evidence of systematic bias. He's not really conceding the underlying point his critics are making.