GB News has paid Conservative MPs more than £660,000 in appearance fees and salaries since it launched, against just £1,100 to Labour MPs, Guardian analysis shows.
The payments, recorded in the parliamentary register of interests, come amid growing concerns among centrists about the channel’s sway over the Tory party’s direction.
Some Conservatives also say they have worries that if Paul Marshall, the hedge fund owner who has a 41% stake in GB News, gains control of the Telegraph titles in a process that is due to resume next month, this could entrench a populist echo chamber for the party’s MPs and supporters.
“It would be a worry if we ended up with what you might call a monopoly of opinion in the Conservative media – as a party we’re not fans of monopolies,” one former cabinet minister said.
The amounts paid to MPs give only part of the story in that many other parliamentarians, including from Labour, regularly appear on the channel without payment. But the £660,262 handed to Conservative MPs in the past two years illustrates the way GB News has transformed UK political broadcasting by routinely using sitting Tories as presenters or contracted pundits.
The biggest single beneficiary was Jacob Rees-Mogg, with the former business secretary paid nearly £325,000 in the last year. He currently receives slightly more than £29,000 a month as a presenter for 40 hours of work, or £729 an hour.
Lee Anderson, who was hired as a Tory MP but is an independent since losing the whip at the weekend over alleged Islamophobic comments, is on a salary of £100,000 a year, plus £50 extra a month to display a GB News logo on his X profile page.
The other big earners are the husband and wife MP team of Esther McVey and Philip Davies, who have been paid just under £130,000 and slightly over £60,000 respectively as presenters.
The only two Labour MPs to have been paid for appearing are Rosie Duffield and Barry Gardiner, who were paid £500 and £600 respectively as one-off guests.
While Ofcom has investigated GB News on a number of occasions, a group of senior broadcasting veterans said last week that the broadcast regulator was failing to properly enforce impartiality rules for a channel that sometimes uses Conservative MPs to interview parliamentary colleagues.
Aides to Marshall say he has no editorial input into GB News and would not seek this if he were to buy the Telegraph titles. But some Tories worry that common ownership could see populist voices such as that of Nigel Farage – a GB News presenter who also writes a Telegraph column – increasingly dominate the Conservative discourse.
Marshall’s views came to prominence last week when the campaign group Hope Not Hate reported he had used a personal X account to like or repost messages including a post about potential “civil war” in Europe because of migration. A spokesperson for Marshall said this “small and unrepresentative sample” did not represent his views.
One centrist Tory MP said: “In theory, if Paul Marshall was going to become the Rupert Murdoch of the Conservative right, that would be a worry. But in real life I’m not sure him owning the Telegraph would particularly change what is there anyway. The Telegraph is already the broadsheet newspaper version of GB News. I’m not sure he would pull them much further to the right. I struggle to see how much worse it can get.”
The Barclay brothers, who ceded control of the Telegraph titles to Lloyds Bank last year after failing to repay a debt, are trying to sell the papers and the Spectator magazine to a consortium backed by the UAE.
The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, triggered inquiries by Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority into the bid, which is led by the investment firm RedBird IMI. These are expected to report back from about 11 March and Frazer could make a decision soon after, with options including approval of the plan or more scrutiny.
If the Redbird plan is blocked, as has been advocated for by a number of Conservative MPs including Rees-Mogg on GB News, Marshall has been mooting a bid alongside the US billionaire Ken Griffin.
Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London and historian of the Conservatives, said the notion of Marshall helping shape Conservative views would in part simply mirror the party’s long history with supportive press barons. But there were some new factors at play, he said.
“The advent of the social media world, which, if you like, GB News is part of, has completely blown up the deference that once existed in the party. It provides an alternative route to fame and fortune for MPs, who probably we would never have heard of,” Bale said.
“In this attention economy, various platforms and outlets have to outbid each other for clicks. So if GB News becomes even more radically rightwing populist then the Telegraph, whether or not it’s owned by Marshall, will have to catch up in order to compete. So there is a kind a ratchet effect.”
A spokesperson for GB News said the lineup of presenters was “entirely a matter for the discretion of the editorial team”, adding: “For the avoidance of any doubt, Sir Paul Marshall has no involvement in editorial decisions.”
