What it’s like being a GB News token leftie

There are a few things that people on the left or centre know about GB News. It’s one of Nigel Farage’s many employers, it’s the channel of Britain’s right (it prefers “The People’s Channel – Britain’s News Channel”), it’s the subject of scores of complaints to Ofcom and now it’s the subject of a New World investigation accusing it of several breaches of the regulator’s code.

But one thing you probably don’t know is that it employs, on a freelance basus, several token left wingers. I hold the improbable honour of being one of them.

Thanks to a delightful quirk of British broadcasting, Ofcom rules mean a handful of us every week are called upon to provide the “balance” required of any current affairs show. Rachel Reeves should be delighted – it’s a rare example of a regulator creating growth in the economy, a cottage industry of lefty tele-masochists.

And what awaits the lefty who enters the lion’s den?

Well foremost of all, you better get used to basements. For some unknowable reason, GB News in all its infinite wisdom has sited both of its London studios underground – most bafflingly, its Westminster studio is nestled many levels below the QEII conference centre, and only accessible via the security entrance. The temptation of course is to assume some far-fetched doomsday-prepping rationale for a decision that was almost certainly taken on value-for-money grounds.

To be a regular on GB News is to often be confronted with such examples of money-saving, a fact which contributes to the overall ramshackle, chaotic vibe of the place.

Who could forget the memorable period in early 2025 when junior producers started to be put up for newsreading shifts? Or indeed the phase later on in the year, when the evening’s news bulletins would simply be a repeat broadcast from an hour prior? Such cost-saving innovations – both since jettisoned – are legion.

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Other measures are more mundane – skimping on producer salaries after the early honeymoon period’s sugar-rush spending spree. The refusal to buy replacement mics remains a persistent problem.

Is the penny-pinching obvious to the audience? Well, yes. “Technical errors” do still happen. Autocues go haywire, leaving some presenters struggling for words.

On rare occasions – though I’d bet more often than, say, the BBC – the channel has accidentally gone off air completely, with the presenter in the studio flailing around not sure when they had stopped airing to the nation.

But does the audience care about the low-level chaos of it all? To that question, an emphatic “no”.

The mainstream channels would kill for the type of unflinching loyalty that GB News inspires amongst its most trusty viewers. Their comments are constantly read out on air, live studio audiences are oversubscribed, and the regulars are known to the presenters.

All the viewers I’ve met have reacted exactly in the way you would hope from a so-called free speech channel – “I don’t agree with anything you say, but I enjoy the debate”. Left wing MPs (who still wear their rejection of the channel as a badge of honour) would do well to take note.

As long as you’re up for a barney, the on-air experience is an enjoyable and unpredictable ride. Most of the presenters and commentators play the game – hamming up their views and using dollops of exaggeration and faux outrage.

That’s not to say it’s all an act – I don’t think I’ve met anybody who doesn’t believe what they say – but they know their role. The debate rarely continues in earnest into the (very regular) ad breaks.

We lefties do bear the brunt of collateral damage. Your views will definitely be mischaracterised in some way, and you will be made to answer for the sins of the amorphous yet malign “British left”. You will be called a communist, despite the fact that most of us GB News lefties are standard issue Blairites.

We are certainly not the most prevalent political tribe at the channel, however. The Venn diagram of GB News talent and Reform’s orbit is a perfect circle, and it’s an effective staging post to test Reform messaging. Following GB News assiduously certainly means you have your finger on the pulse of the British right’s flavour of the month.

Moral qualms? I have some. The inability to fact-check in real time means you have to let some suspected falsehoods slide – while your own stats might be disregarded.

I’ve lost count of how many times my references to YouGov polls have been dismissed as “made up”. There have been times when the debate has been cut short just as I’ve been close to nailing my opponent down on the logical conclusion of an extremist argument, only to be stymied.

Am I a useful idiot? I know I’d much rather that people get a semblance of balance on GB News, rather than a one-sided diatribe on any number of YouTube channels that are growing in popularity and that don’t need to care.

And care, GB News does. For all their flaws, the channel’s producers work hard to cultivate their lefties. You can always tell when one of us has dropped out for some unforeseen reason, prompting a flurry of increasingly frantic texts and calls from the unlucky producer for whom an unbalanced panel is a near-sackable offence.

The biggest worry I have is about my own rightward drift. The debate requires a thick skin, but it also asks that you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.