3 months ago
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ITV's chief executive has defended Ed Balls' interview with his wife, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, on Good Morning Britain - but said they would not do it again.
Dame Carolyn McCall was speaking after media regulator Ofcom announced it will not investigate more than 16,000 complaints about an episode of the ITV breakfast show on 5 August.
That morning, Balls and co-host Kate Garraway interviewed Cooper about the government's response to violent unrest in parts of the UK.
"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," Dame Carolyn said.
"She was doing a whole round [of interviews], but it was unexpected, and we believe that it was fair and impartial," she told the Royal Television Society London Conference on Tuesday.
"And actually Ofcom just ruled, but amazingly 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.
"I mean, he asked her a few questions, but I think Kate was leading on that wasn't she? And so I do think you've just got to say, if Ofcom have looked at it and they're not pursuing this any further because they thought it was fair balanced and impartial, you know, that's it."
Balls, a former Labour minister, is now a regular GMB presenter; Cooper, his wife, was appointed home secretary following the general election in July. They have been married since 1998.
Ofcom said it carefully considered the complaints of a conflict of interest.
But a spokesperson said: "Taking into account that their relationship was made clear twice, that a range of views about Labour's handling of the riots were included in the programme as a whole, and given the vast majority of the interview was conducted by co-presenter, Kate Garraway, we will not be pursuing further."
Ofcom added that it had issued guidance warning ITV to "take particular care over the compliance of such interviews in future to ensure due impartiality".
Some of the complaints about the episode related to how Balls and Garraway questioned Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana in a separate interview.
In response, 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."
In the item, Sultana, who previously sat as a Labour MP before she had the whip suspended in July, said the government should describe the riots as Islamophobic as well as racist, and challenged Balls on an article he had previously written about immigration.
Writing afterwards on X, she said: "The sneering contempt of 'journalists' will never stop me from calling out racism and Islamophobic hate."
