Right-wing Channel GB News, which has made a mockery of broadcasting rules, has had over 20,000 complaints made about it since its launch in 2021.
The shocking figures were revealed after a freedom of information request from the i, which found that in 2021, the year GB News was launched, Ofcom received 3,481 complaints – an average of around 290 complaints a month.
Between 2021 and until 12 March 2024, GB News has had a total of 21,671 complaints made against it.
The paper reports that overall, ‘complaints about news broadcasters have soared almost seven-fold since the launch of GB News and Talk TV’.
GB news is no stranger to controversy and has had a number of high profile incidents which have resulted in complaints being made against the channel, having platformed bigoted and racist views and conspiracy theories.
When England’s water industry was privatised in 1989, we were told it would lead to ‘shareholder democracy’. Instead, what we’ve seen is a monopoly which has resulted in consumer bills soaring, while infrastructure deteriorates and the debt of water companies soars.
Since the 1990s, investment by the 10 largest water and sewage companies has fallen by 15%. Now new research published by the Financial Times has found that 16 water monopolies have paid out a total of £78bn in dividends in the 32 years since privatisation.
The paper states: “The £78bn payout is nearly half the £190bn the companies spent in the same three decades on infrastructure. The utilities meanwhile chalked up more than £64bn net in debt over the same period, despite being sold at privatisation with no borrowings.”
The FT also finds that water companies in England and Wales paid £2.5bn in dividends and added £8.2bn to their net debt in the two financial years since 2021.
New video footage released on April 11, 2024 shows that bleached corals on the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef extend to greater depths than has been reported during the current mass bleaching event. Australian Marine Conservation Society / Facebook screenshot
The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) has released video footage showing that the southern portion of the Great Barrier Reef is suffering from deep-sea coral bleaching, reported The Guardian.
The footage shows that the bleaching extends at least as far down as 59.1 feet — the deepest reported during this mass bleaching event, a press release from AMCS said. Some of the corals have begun to die in the face of record marine heat waves.
“I feel devastated. This bleaching event is the worst I have seen. It’s a severe bleaching event,” said Dr. Selina Ward, University of Queensland’s former academic director of the Heron Island Research Station, in the press release.
Ward reported extensive coral bleaching at all 16 southern Great Barrier Reef sites she had visited, saying it was the worst she had seen in three decades.
“I’ve been working on the Reef since 1992 but this [mass coral bleaching event], I’m really struggling with. The diversity of species involved has been hard to deal with. Look at bleached areas, there are many different species that are bleached – many of which are pretty resistant to bleaching so it’s not a pleasant one,” Ward added.
Last week, aerial survey data showed that 75 percent of the reef had experienced bleaching during the current bleaching event, with much of it classed as “high to extreme bleaching.”
During climate change-driven marine heat waves, extended periods of warmer ocean temperatures cause corals to become stressed, which leads them to expel the algae that live in a symbiotic relationship with them. These algae not only give corals their colorful appearance, but they are also their main source of energy, so long periods without them can lead to starvation.
“This new footage shows extensive coral bleaching in southern reefs, but there are images from the central and northern parts that show bleaching is extensive and severe in some of those areas too. Although in-water surveys will take months, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has completed the aerial surveys but only released the data. The authority must urgently release the maps to show to the public the extent and severity of this bleaching event,” said Dr. Lissa Schindler, campaign manager with AMCS, in the press release.
Nearly 4,000 British Airways customers were affected by the protest
Just Stop Oil activist Cressida Gethin pictured with naturalist Chris Packham.
A Just Stop Oil protester who disrupted thousands of journeys at Heathrow by scaling a gantry above the M25 has said she would repeat the stunt.
Cressida Gethin, 22, climbed the gantry in July 2022 to protest the UK reaching its hottest temperature on record, 40C (104F), the day before.
As a result of the protest by the climate activist group, 3,923 British Airways customers were affected by cancellations and delays, a court heard in February.
The protester faces being sent to prison when she is sentenced next month.
In an interview with environmentalist Chris Packham, Gethin said she would like to speak to some of the people affected by the protest as she said that she would have no hesitation protesting in the same way again.
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Gethin added that she faced a “very real moral dilemma of knowing that people would be stuck in their cars and missing important events”.
She continued: “I heard one person missed their parent’s funeral, which I would never want. It doesn’t sit easy with me.”
The aftermath of Israel’s air strike on Iran’s consulate. (Xinhua via Alamy)
Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria was a grave violation of diplomatic protocol. Should the RAF have shielded Benjamin Netanyahu from Tehran’s inevitable retaliation?
Rishi Sunak’s decision to deploy RAF warplanes to shoot down Iranian drones heading for Israel raises serious questions about international law and the spectre of Britain’s involvement in a widening conflict in the Middle East.
The contents of Britain’s military cooperation agreement with Israel signed in 2020, and a defence pact signed a year later, are secret but they are not believed to require Britain to protect Israel if it comes under attack.
A more recent “2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations” vaguely commits London to “tackle shared threats” with Tel Aviv.
Sunak justified the RAF’s deployment as “saving lives not just in Israel but in neighbouring countries like Jordan as well”.
His defence secretary, Grant Shapps, went further and described Iran’s combined drone and missile attack on Israel as posing “a threat to civilian lives in the Middle East”.
They delivered these sweeping justifications of British military activity seemingly unaware that this rationale would also oblige them to intercept Israel’s air strikes into Gaza, which have killed many thousands of civilians.
