The Tory MP in charge of scrutinising the British media hosted a parliamentary drinks party for GB News, the Guardian has learned. Caroline Dinenage sponsored an event for the rightwing television channel in a room on the parliamentary estate earlier this month. Dinenage is chair of the House of Commons culture select committee, which is examining the government’s proposed media legislation, including changes to impartiality requirements. In recent weeks her committee has questioned whether GB News should be allowed to employ four serving Conservative MPs as presenters. The Tory deputy chair, Lee Anderson, is under investigation for filming some of his £100,000-a-year show on the roof of parliament.
In a sign of GB News’ growing influence over rightwing politics in the UK, the summer drinks event was attended by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and her predecessor in the post, Priti Patel. According to Politico, other MPs in attendance included Chris Heaton-Harris, Mark Francois, Graham Brady, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Jo Gideon. They were joined by GB News presenters including Dan Wootton. Dinenage, the MP for Gosport, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether hosting an event for GB News in parliament raised questions about her impartiality as committee chair. Disclosure data suggests that she has hosted no events for other broadcasters in recent years. Although the MP sponsored the event and helped book the room in parliament, the cost of hosting it was borne by GB News, a parliamentary spokesperson confirmed. Dinenage, who was elected chair of the committee in May, has a family background in the news industry. She is the daughter of Fred Dinenage, the longstanding regional news presenter and former host of the ITV children’s show How. She has appeared on GB News to criticise other broadcasters and cross-examined the ITV boss, Carolyn McCall, in parliament. Although GB News has faced financial challenges during its first two years on air, the channel now has a small but steadily growing audience for its mix of culture-war reporting and news discussion, with Tory MPs increasingly seeing it as a key way to reach a receptive audience. Viewing figures for evening programmes such as Nigel Farage’s evening show can top 100,000 viewers. Although this is low by the standards of mainstream television channels, GB News sometimes beats traditional rolling news channels run by Sky and the BBC, and it is well ahead of Rupert Murdoch’s better-resourced TalkTV. To get to this point, GB News has pushed the limits of the broadcasting code. So far this year it has been found to have breached broadcasting rules over Covid disinformation on two separate occasions, been accused by Jewish groups of stirring antisemitic conspiracies, been investigated over its policy of employing Tory MPs as presenters on large salaries, and has had to pause a petition against a “cashless society” over a potential rule breach.