Ofcom has issued updated guidance clarifying how its due accuracy and due impartiality rule should be applied to politicians presenting.
The regulator says the move reflects a modern news landscape where bulletins and “news in whatever form” can appear within mixed-genre and current affairs programmes. However, it’s backed away from an outright ban on the genre popularised by GB News.
Following its consultation launched in May – prompted by the High Court’s GB News judgment in February – Ofcom has decided not to amend the wording of Rule 5.3 itself. Instead, it has refreshed its Guidance to spell out the boundaries when broadcasters use politicians as presenters in programmes that include news items.
The revised Guidance to Rule 5.1 now makes explicit that if, for example, an MP presents news within a non-news programme, their political status is a relevant factor when Ofcom assesses whether the news was presented with due impartiality. The updated Guidance to Rule 5.3 also explains “exceptional circumstances” – when a politician could be used as a newsreader/interviewer/reporter in a news programme – as situations outside a broadcaster’s control, which Ofcom expects to be rare and backed by contingency plans. Ofcom has also updated its definition of “politician”, adding members of the House of Lords and party “representatives” while removing “activists.”
The regulator’s move follows a period of intense scrutiny of politician-fronted output, not least on GB News. A string of investigations were launched, several of which were subsequently quashed or withdrawn after GB News’s successful judicial review in February 2025, which clarified that as drafted Rule 5.3 applies to “news programmes,” not current affairs shows.
