Free speech row af ter watchdog probe into TV climate sceptics
THE media regulator was accused of an ‘Orwellian’ assault on free speech yesterday after starting investigations into alleged climate scepticism for the first time in almost a decade.
Ofcom originally decided not to investigate complaints over remarks about climate change on two programmes aired by TV channel Talk last year.
But it announced a dramatic U-turn after being lobbied by the Good Law Project (GLP), a pro-transgender rights and climate activist campaign group.
One complaint related to comments made by a Talk guest who said in November that climate change ‘was a deliberate effort to create fake anxiety … out of something that is false’.
In the second case, also in November, another guest said Labour’s energy policies were ‘suicidal’, ‘driven by pseudoscience in many cases’ and ‘a kind of cultish behaviour’.
On one of the programmes, a UK Health Security Agency report into the potential mental health impacts of concerns about climate change was being discussed alongside the Government’s messaging over the issue.
The other featured a discussion relating to the potential impact of climate change and Net Zero policies on the UK population.
After the GLP wrote to Ofcom in January asking it to justify its initial ruling not to investigate, the regulator said a potential breach of rules of the broadcasting code around ‘due impartiality’ and ‘material misleadingness’ required ‘reconsideration’.
It also began investigating a new complaint over comments made about Labour’s energy and Net Zero policies on the Morning Glory With Jeremy Kyle programme in December. The three probes are the first the regulator has launched into alleged climate-sceptic comments on TV and radio since 2017. Ofcom stuck by its decision not to investigate complaints about climate comments on three other programmes.
Lord Young of Acton, head of the Free Speech Union, said: ‘These are clearly complaints submitted by climate activists seeking to weaponise the regulator to silence people with opposing points of view.
‘The pretence that the science of global warming is “settled” and anyone who challenges any aspect of the environmentalist agenda, including Net Zero, is a “denier”, has long been a tactic of climate alarmists to silence dissent.’
Tory peer Lord Mackinlay of Richborough said: ‘Ofcom runs the risk of becoming an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” – truly
Polar opposites: Activists took issue with climate discussions
dangerous ground in a supposed democratic society.’
According to the Guardian, Ofcom has received 1,221 complaints related to climate change since January 2020, with none resulting in a ruling that the broadcasting code was breached.
The GLP, a not-for-profit group founded by Jolyon Maugham KC, has previously attacked the Labour Government over its climate and Net Zero policies, saying they don’t go far enough.
It has also tried to frustrate last year’s landmark Supreme Court judgment that the words ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 referred to a biological woman.
A GLP spokesman said: ‘Rightwing channels have been allowed to spout dangerous climate lies, unchecked, for too long.
‘We’re glad Ofcom is finally listening and await the conclusion of the investigations. Should it fail to take action against Talk’s misinformation, we will not hesitate to hold them to account.’
Ofcom said: ‘In re-examining the programmes, we concluded that they raise potentially substantive issues under the broadcasting code. We have, therefore, opened investigations [on] whether they breached our rules on due impartiality and material misleadingness.’
A Talk spokesman said: ‘We, as we always would, will co-operate with Ofcom in these matters.’
‘Weaponising the regulator’
‘We will hold them to account’
WHO remembers the days when we could all agree to differ? It seems a long time ago now.
The news that Ofcom is to investigate complaints about climate change denial is a worrying indicator of where Britain could be headed if we are not careful.
In a cowardly U-turn, the broadcasting watchdog has bowed to campaigners’ demands and agreed to revisit objections that were previously dismissed out of hand.
One of the complaints was about a Talktv guest who accused the climate lobby of ‘a deliberate effort to create fake anxiety’. Another related to a contributor who said the Government’s energy policies had been influenced by pseudoscience.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of those observations, it ought not to be forgotten that we live in a free country where everyone should have the right to say what they like.
Singling out people for simply having an opposing point of view to the current orthodoxy is both uncivilised and unacceptable. Do any of us really want to live in a society where a difference of opinion across the dinner table could result in a hefty fine or an official reprimand?
Joking aside, it doesn’t need to be spelt out that all manner of danger lies ahead when the powers-that-be start stifling debate and silencing voices.
The fact is we are seeing it on an increasingly widespread basis.
The Daily Mail reports today on a school that used AI to weed out ‘inappropriate’ reading material from its library. Meanwhile, anyone daring to raise of murmur of concern about the baleful influence of hardcore Islamism on Britain will face the inevitable wrath of the mob.
After foisting their dogmas of political correctness and wokery upon us in quick succession, the so-called liberal Left are determined to have everyone singing from their hymn sheet.
Most of all, they are hell-bent on signing Britain up to the sacred creed of diversity. They’re just not so keen on it themselves when it comes to matters of opinion.