GB News includes LGBTQ+ people with paedophiles – again

Last year, Ofcom found that GB News broke the broadcasting code by airing a homophobic slur including LGBTQ+ people with paedophiles. But now GB News has done it again.

During a discussion about children at Pride on 5 July, the campaigner Caroline Farrrow suggested that the event has become about “celebrating every single sexuality that isn’t heterosexuality” including “bestiality” and “paedophiles”. 

These remarks are almost identical to comments made by GB News host Josh Howie, who claimed in January 2025 that “the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons… that includes paedos”.

Good Law Project submitted a formal complaint (PDF) to the media regulator about Howie’s comment, along with more than 70,000 supporters. And in October Ofcom found that the broadcast clearly had the potential to be highly offensive, could not be justified by the context, and was in breach of its broadcasting code.

The complaint – which was co-signed by the LGBT+ Consortium, Stonewall, TransActual and Trans Media Watch – highlighted that conflating homosexuality with paedophilia was a “longstanding”, “toxic” and “dangerous trope”. And it argued that Howie’s comment was offensive and harmful hate speech, which was “blatantly homophobic and transphobic and was made with the intention and effect of promoting hate towards the LGBTQ+ community”. 

Members of the LGBTQ+ community who wrote complaints connected it to their own experiences of homophobia and transphobia; and suggested that it could encourage hatred towards, or even violence against, members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Good Law Project believes that the broadcast featuring Farrow breaches the code in exactly the same way. We’re preparing a complaint to Ofcom, telling the regulator to take decisive action.

But the fact that GB News has broadcast this slur again, even after Ofcom’s decision last year, shows that the regulator simply isn’t doing enough to tackle the broadcasting of misinformation and hate. 

Last month, we issued proceedings to judicially review Ofcom’s decision not to take action against more transphobic broadcasts by TalkTV. The media regulator is giving rightwing channels a free pass to spread toxic lies. It’s time for the regulator to do its job and stop broadcasters spreading hate.