Media regulator Ofcom has received more than 8,000 complaints after Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was interviewed by her husband Ed Balls live on TV.
Balls, a former Labour cabinet minister and regular presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, questioned his wife about the riots gripping the UK on Monday’s edition of the programme.
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On Wednesday, Ofcom said there were 8,201 complaints related to the segment. Some were about Mr Balls’s interview with Ms Cooper and others were about an exchange with Labour MP Zarah Sultana.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We are assessing the complaints against our broadcasting rules but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.”
The issue of politicians interviewing other politicians has been controversial in recent years, after GB News allowed a number of Conservative MPs to interview their colleagues.
Mr Balls in no longer a politician, having pursued a media career and appeared on Strictly Come Dancing since losing his seat in 2015.
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However, there was widespread criticism of the interview on social media, with Deadline reporter Jake Kanter saying it was “baffling it was allowed to happen” given the legal obligation on broadcasters to be impartial in their reporting.
Balls and Ms Cooper have been married for more than 25 years and have three children together.
Before the interview the former shadow chancellor said he had “genuine questions” for his other half, as he has “rarely seen her at all in the last week” because of the disorder on the streets.
While questioning was mostly led by GMB host Kate Garraway, Balls grilled his wife on accusations of “two-tier policing” – a phrase used to describe the impression that some protests and demonstrations are dealt with more harshly than others
He asked if there had been a “softer and more cautious” approach when policing protests against the war in Gaza compared with a “tougher” approach to the violent unrest of the past week.
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Ms Cooper said that police have to operate “without fear or favour, whatever the kinds of crimes it is that they face”.
The episode also attracted criticism for the way Balls and Garraway interviewed Ms Sultana after she called for political leaders to condemn the unrest as “Islamophobic”.
Balls interjected to say Ms Cooper, Tory leader Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had all criticised the riots as “racist”.
He continued to interrupt her as she replied to Garraway’s question about why she wanted politicians to call the riots Islamophobic specifically.
It led to a heated clash with Ms Sultana saying: “I’m going to wait for Kate to finish her question if that’s alright” and Balls hitting back: “If you want to answer the questions, you can but you don’t have to.”
Ms Sultana later shared a clip of the exchange on X saying: “The sneering contempt of ‘journalists’ will never stop me from calling out racism and Islamophobic hate.”
Broadcaster Narinder Kaur, who regularly appears as a panellist on the ITV show, was also critical of the interview, writing on X: “This is unacceptable & deeply uncomfortable viewing. An entire white panel questioning a brown woman like a suspect. Ed Balls and Kate have left their homes this morning with no fear. Zarah and every other brown/black person left knowing they are a target.”
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Following Monday’s episode, an ITV spokesperson told media outlets GMB “featured a range of interviews and discussion” on the issue and that ITV is “satisfied” the interviews “were balanced, fair and duly impartial”.
Sky News has contacted ITV for comment.
