ITV boss defends letting Ed Balls interview wife Yvette Cooper – but says it won’t happen again

Published

10 months ago

September 18, 2024

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ITV’s chief executive has defended allowing Ed Balls to interview his wife, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, but said it will not happen again.

Dame Carolyn McCall said the broadcaster got “very short notice” that the senior politician would be coming on Good Morning Britain on the day her spouse grilled her about rioting across the UK.

She said the interview on 5 August, which attracted thousands of complaints, was “fair and impartial” but the set up would not be repeated.

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Speaking at the Royal Television Society (RTS) London Conference, the ITV boss said: “It was a very, very tricky morning, there was a national emergency almost being called, and so we got very short notice that the home secretary was coming on the show.

“No one has picked up on the fact that Ofcom are not pursuing these complaints, because they believe it’s fair, balanced and impartial.

“So would we do it again? No. Was it impartial, fair and balanced? And did they behave professionally? Yes.”

Ofcom ruled on Tuesday that it would not be investigating more than 8,000 complaints about Mr Balls questioning Ms Cooper, with some complaints also relating to an exchange with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana.

The media regulator said the nature of the married couple’s relationship was made clear twice, a range of views about Labour’s handling of the riots were included, and the vast majority of the interview was conducted by co-presenter Kate Garraway.

However, while it will not be pursuing the matter further, Ofcom said it issued guidance “warning ITV to take particular care over the compliance of such interviews in future”.

Mr Balls, a former Labour minister, is now a regular GMB presenter.

He and Ms Cooper have been married for more than 25 years and have three children together.

Critics said it was “baffling” he was allowed to interview his spouse, given the requirement for broadcasters to be impartial in their reporting.

Before the interview, the former shadow chancellor said he had “genuine questions” for Ms Cooper, as he has “rarely seen her at all in the last week” because of the disorder on the streets.

Ofcom also said it would not be pursuing complaints about a separate interview on the same show with Ms Sultana, who previously sat as a Labour MP before she had the whip suspended in July.

She was interrupted several times while discussing why the riots should have been called Islamophobic specifically, rather than just racist.

Ofcom said: “In our view, Ms Sultana was given ample opportunity to express her views and respond to the questions put to her, while we consider the robust line of questioning would be consistent with regular viewers’ expectations of interviews with political figures on this programme.”

Politics

Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

Published

8 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

The CARF regulation, which brings crypto under global tax reporting standards akin to traditional finance, marks a crucial turning point.

Politics

Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

Published

8 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

The nascent real-world tokenized assets track prices but do not provide investors the same legal rights as holding the underlying instruments.

Politics

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

14 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”