UKLFI: Supporting Israel with legal skills

OFCOM fails to uphold own regulations

OFCOM has decided to take no further action about the Bristol Radio Politics Programme  which will be able to continue spreading hate and misinformation on a weekly basis despite being in clear breach of the OFCOM code.

The terms of the complaint, which UKLFI supported, can be seen in an earlier post.

OFCOM do not explain their decisions but according to the Politics Programme presenter Tony Gosling himself – writing here – they only considered three issues:

  1. the peddling of conspiracy theories, which I explained is a meaningless term used to smear investigative journalists”

Gosling explains that he told OFCOM the term was invented by the CIA to cover up their own role in the murder of President Kennedy. There is no more perfect example of a denial proving what you seek to deny; using a conspiracy theory to attempt to debunk the very idea of the existence of conspiracy theories.

  1. “lack of balance with regard to the state of Israel”

He explains his balance on the issue by stating that Jihad in Islam is much discussed and there is a lack of discussion on the issue of “extreme fundamentalist Zionist doctrines”. In order to establish what he considers balance, on the show in question he interviewed David Livingstone about his new book on “nihilistic Zionists” seeking war “to bring the Messiah” but who may accidentally bring about “the antichrist instead”.

Livingstone believes that Chabad is a “criminal Jewish doomsday cult“, that “Chabad-Lubavitch” in conjunction with the Russian Mafia created the alt-right in America to support Trump to benefit Israel. Apparently; “The Chabad are now hailing both Putin and Trump as the possible messiah.”

And here is what David Livingsone believes:

“Muslim terrorist organizations are the creation of western Illuminist intelligence agencies: CIA and MI5/6 chiefly. They are owned/controlled by the western Illuminati ie. the Synagogue of Satan! America, western Europe and Zionist ‘666’ Israel (the Satanic counterfeit) are all controlled/ruled by the western Illuminati ie. the Synagogue of Satan.”

Remember the views of this man are being aired unchallenged on a publicly regulated radio station and internet stream. As Gosling put it:

“a balanced look at the extremes of Zionist as against Islamist pseudo-religious doctrine. Which I’m pleased to say – this station – and last week Ofcom too – stood by”.

  1. “The final comment Ofcom decided may have merit was that the programme was biased against MI5”

This related to Gosling’s suggestion that MI5 may have been behind the bombing of the Ariane Grande concert in Manchester in 2017. He notes that his programme was aired at a time where MI5 was being criticised in newspapers. It is unlikely newspaper opinion included the suggestion that MI5 are behind domestic terrorism.

To put this in context Gosling runs websites which seek to expose the ‘truth’ behind both 9/11 and the 7/7 London Bombings. According to him the security services were behind them. It’s difficult to keep up with who he believes is behind what; the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the Boorman Network and behind it all the Rothschild Family.

The other difference between newspaper opinion and his show is that they are not regulated; they are free to give their opinions essentially as they like. He is on a regulated platform which requires neutrality and impartiality.

The inexplicable, failure of OFCOM to uphold its own legislation-backed regulations is deeply troubling. It appears to mean that publicly-regulated media platforms can be used to promote whatever dangerous nonsense they like, without any limits.