GB News is owned by All Perspectives Ltd, a holding company backed by hedge fund millionaire Sir Paul Marshall and investment firm Legatum, amongst others, with Marshall pumping millions into the channel.
Right-wing channel GB News is reporting a 40% increase in losses to over £42 million.
Pre-tax losses at the broadcaster hit £42.4m for the year to the end of May 2023, up from £30.7m a year earlier.
It comes as GB News continues to splash the cash on a number of high-profile presenters, including the likes of Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees Mogg and Boris Johnson. The channel’s wage bill soared to £21.2m last year, from £12.7m in 2022 as the average number of monthly employees rose to 295, up from 175 in 2022.
The government is withholding all information about the nine Israeli military jets that have landed in the UK since the bombing of Gaza began, raising suspicions about further British complicity in war crimes.
The UK government admitted last month that nine Israeli military aircraft had landed and taken off in Britain since 7 October.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) had initially refused to give any information on the number of flights, but Declassified independently found six Israeli Air Force (IAF) operated planes landing in Britain.
Soon after the Declassified revelations, the MoD reversed course and admitted the nine flights, in response to a parliamentary question from Kenny MacAskill, the Alba MP for East Lothian.
But MacAskill recently requested further information about those flights.
When he asked what the IAF planes were carrying, when they arrived and departed, and which British airports they landed at, the MoD refused to answer.
Defence minister James Heappey told him: “It is standard practice for the Ministry of Defence to routinely authorise requests for limited numbers of allies and partners to overfly the UK and use UK air bases.”
But he added: “For operational security reasons and as a matter of policy, the MoD does not offer comment or information relating to foreign nations’ military aircraft movements or operations.”
‘No comment’
MacAskill also requested information on the next destination of the nine IAF planes that took off from Britain. The MoD again refused to answer.
Heappey said: “It is our longstanding Defence policy to not comment on third country flight information.”
He added: “The Diplomatic Flight Clearance policy is a robust practice and the basis on which a foreign partner may or may not be granted permission to utilise UK air bases is dependent on the nature and purpose of their activity, which is assessed in line with Defence internal policy.”
This position, which has also been applied to US Air Force flights related to Gaza using British territory, means UK bases operate as effective ‘black sites’ for foreign militaries.
Michelle Donelan had launched an ‘outrageous attack on academic freedom’
Science secretary Michelle Donelan has had to eat her words and retract false allegations she made about an academic for the sake of “another Tory anti-woke headline”, following a lengthy legal process.
The cabinet minister smeared Professor Kate Sang as an ‘extremist’ after falsely suggesting she supported Hamas, and had attempted to claim the academic had breached principles on how public officials should behave.
Donelan has now retracted her claim and the government has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum, at the expense of the taxpayer, following a months-long investigation by an advisory group on equality, diversity and inclusion at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which cleared the academic of any wrongdoing.
