New TV channel GB news is being mocked online as “GBeebies” after launching on Sunday.
Former BBC presenter Andrew Neil, who left his role last year to start GB news, introduced his new team upon launching the network. It includes Brexit Party candidate and Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry and former Sun showbiz columnist Dan Wootton.
GB News’ opening interview featured anti-lockdown presenter Neil Oliver, but technical issues meant Oliver was inaudible and producers could be heard whispering to each other.
Fears have been aired that the channel could bring very biased coverage similar to Fox News to the UK – as their branding shows Union Jack colours and some of their segments are called ‘Wokewatch’ and ‘Free Speech Nations’.
Twitter users have labelled the channel “GBeebies”, after BBC’s children’s network CBeebies.
Jen Furby said her first thought upon seeing the nickname was “Ooh, Grandparent CBeebies, exciting!”
Another Twitter user said millenials finally have a “just be quiet and watch that for a few hours” channel for their parents.
But Alex Routledge said calling GB News after the children’s network is “really offensive to the good work being done at CBeebies”.
Newsletter writer Mic Wright said GB News journalist Tom Harwood managed to ask a Number 10 briefing question on the second day of the channel officially launching.
“Expect the Tories to give lots of backing, tacit and otherwise, to GBeebies,” he said.
Another user complained their dog was suddenly getting “very anxious” about the TV upon the GB News launch: “It is almost as if someone on a channel somewhere was constantly blowing a dog whistles.”
Some users have chipped in with corrections to the new channel’s output.
Dan O’Hagan slammed a headline appearing on screen as “Fereedom day delayed”.
“Heartening to see that GBeebies have adopted the level of spelling used by their viewers on social media,” he said.
And pro-EU radio show 16 Million Rising said the live claim that seasonal fruit pickers left the UK because of the Covid pandemic is “a lie”.
“The overwhelming majority left before the pandemic due to Brexit,” the “Breaking correction” read.
It comes as last week it has been revealed that Brexit caused a 90 per cent drop in foreign workers on a UK farm.
Stephen Taylor, managing director of Winterwood Farms Ltd, told the Daily Mail that the labour market has got ‘tighter and tighter’ over the last couple of years.
He said Brexit’s impact on the flow of workers to UK farms is only getting worse.
“95 per cent of all fruit and produce picked and packaged in this country is done by Eastern Europeans.
“We are right at the brink now,” Taylor added.
He added that in order for Brits to do the work instead, “they need to be mobile”. And he slammed the way in which the UK speak about EU seasonal workers: “We are taking back control, as Boris would say, but when we are taking back control, we are actually deliberately throttling our own businesses because we know the thing we haven’t got control of is labour.”
Related: Brexit causes 90 per cent drop in foreign workers working on UK farms
UK hospitality sector struggles for workers after EU citizens ‘went back home’
UK hospitality takes massive hit after EU citizens ‘went back home’
