A left-wing Conservative MP appears to have had a big change of heart about GB News three months after calling for the popular channel to be “taken off air”.
Caroline Nokes made the demand in the wake of Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton being suspended over sexual comments made about the journalist Ava Evans.
The comments sparked something of a civil war within the Tory party, given many of her colleagues not only like the channel but have second jobs on it as presenters.
Ms Nokes, long seen as one of the most left-wing Conservative MPs, told the BBC: “I don’t go on any of their shows because, to be frank, from my perspective, if you’re an MP you have a day job to do getting on with the work that you have in the House of Commons and not swanning off, in some cases several times a week, to present a show on a television channel”.
She claimed Ofcom should have the “time and space” to investigate complaints related to the Laurence Fox scandal, but added the channel “should be taken off air”.
Just three months later, Ms Nokes has raised eyebrows by appearing on GB News for an interview about next week’s key Rwanda vote.
Following her comments last September, Ms Nokes’s Tory MP colleague Philip Davies questioned why she had never called for the BBC to be taken off air when they faced scandals.
He said: “Caroline is perfectly entitled to her opinion. However, I can’t recall her saying the BBC should be taken off air after Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s pre-recorded disgusting message to Andrew Sachs, nor after the Jimmy Savile scandal which led to the resignation of Director General George Entwistle.
“I think that rather startling lack of consistency somewhat undermines her argument.”
Her demand was further undermined when the Express revealed Ms Nokes had earned £6,300 from rival channel TalkTV in the year to September 2023, leading to her being branded a “hypocrite”.
A month after the Newsnight broadcast that saw Ms Nokes make her demands for GB News to be taken off air, the BBC admitted the discussion had been “biased” due to no voices on the panel defending the channel’s right to broadcast.
The BBC conceded: “We do understand that you might feel the item was therefore unbalanced, considering the way the discussion unfolded on air, and are happy to accept that in this case this item could have worked better if we had managed to find someone to robustly defend the channel”.
This afternoon, Ms Nokes appeared on GB News to defend the Government’s Rwanda Bill.
She told viewers that Rishi Sunak is “trying very hard to bring both parts of the party together” ahead of next week’s crunch debate and vote.
She said it was “unusual, a bit odd” that Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt had informed MPs of the date of next week’s vote two days before she would usually set out the timetable.
Following Ms Nokes’s surprising interview, GB News’ political editor Chris Hope joked: “Great to see Caroline Nokes on GB News today…!”
