GEORGE Galloway’s talkRADIO show breached rules with comments that aired after the Skripal poisoning, Ofcom has said.
The watchdog found the three-hour programme, which aired 12 days after the incident involving Yulia and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, did not maintain due impartiality on a major matter of political controversy.
“It failed to give due weight to a sufficiently wide range of significant viewpoints about the political aftermath of the events in Salisbury in March 2018,” an Ofcom spokeswoman said.
The watchdog said it was “minded to consider the imposition of a statutory sanction” over the breach, which could include a financial penalty.
On three occasions, when contributors’s opinions differed to the former MP’s position, he joked the listeners were in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.
Ofcom investigated a complaint that the programme, broadcast on March 16, contained “biased and unbalanced views” about the response of the UK and Russian governments to the poisoning.
Galloway, pictured, described Ofcom’s investigation as a “transparently politically motivated attempt at censorship”.
Galloway, and the vast majority of messages from guests and listeners which were read out by him, were highly critical of the UK Government’s response to the poisonings, the investigation found.
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