The media regulator Ofcom has received more than 8,000 complaints after an episode of Good Morning Britain in which the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was interviewed by her husband, Ed Balls.
Balls, a former Labour cabinet minister and a regular presenter on the ITV breakfast programme, questioned his wife’s response to far-right riots during Monday’s edition of the programme.
Ofcom said it received 8,201 complaints relating to the programme. Some of them related to the husband-and-wife interview, while others related to an earlier interview with the leftwing Labour MP Zarah Sultana, in which Balls defended Cooper and the government.
A spokesperson for the media regulator said: “We are assessing the complaints against our broadcasting rules but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.”
The issue of politicians hosting current affairs programmes has been highlighted in recent years, after the decision by GB News and the now defunct TalkTV to pay a number of serving Conservative politicians to host shows. Yet Ofcom had declined to ban politicians from hosting current affairs programmes – and ITV argued that Balls has not been an active politician since losing his seat in the 2015 general election, which is when he started pursuing a media career.
Cooper was taking part in a morning media round, appearing on all major broadcast outlets in turn, including on her husband’s programme.
At first she was questioned by co-host Kate Garraway before Balls stepped in to ask about the role of social media, saying “we’ve talked about this a few times in the last few days”.
Cooper responded: “Well you’re right, Ed. We have seen things appearing online that are clearly criminal. Social media has put rocket boosters under far-right extremist organisations and also some of the violence we have seen. Things that are criminal offline are also criminal online.”
ITV defended the exchange as “balanced, fair and duly impartial”. The broadcaster could argue that it did not breach any broadcasting rules because there was sufficient challenge in Balls’ questions and due impartiality was achieved thanks to alternative viewpoints presented by Garraway.
Some of the complaints relate to the cross-examination of Sultana, who demanded that the government brand the riots Islamophobic in a testy back-and-forth with Balls. She said after the broadcast: “The sneering contempt of ‘journalists’ will never stop me from calling out racism and Islamophobic hate.”
The sneering contempt of ‘journalists’ will never stop me from calling out racism and Islamophobic hate. pic.twitter.com/cQoNKDzJ78
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) August 5, 2024
A spokesperson for Good Morning Britain said after the broadcast: “Following a weekend of rioting and national unrest, GMB featured a range of interviews and discussion around this national emergency on [Monday’s] programme which included James Cleverly, shadow home secretary, and Yvette Cooper, home secretary. We are satisfied that these interviews were balanced, fair and duly impartial.”
