Snow’s ‘obscene Tory rant’ hurt Channel 4, says Dorries

NADINE DORRIES has said that Jon Snow did not do Channel 4 “any favours” when he “shouted obscenities about the Tory Party”.

Appearing before a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) session about online safety and public service broadcasters, she was asked what she thought of the news show.

Ms Dorries said she “gets on really well” with presenter Cathy Newman and had been asked on by her a number of times in the past two weeks.

Apparently referring to eyewitness reports that former anchor Snow shouted “F--- the Tories” while at Glastonbury Festival five years ago, she added: “I have been on Channel 4 News a number of times. It is edgy. I am not going to justify a news programme whose anchor [was] shouting obscenities about the Conservative Party.

“So they didn’t do themselves any favours sometimes on the news programme and I think that is probably as much as I want to say about that.”

Ms Dorries also admitted that she shares her Netflix password with four other households, including her mother’s. She said: “My mum has access to my account, the kids do. I have Netflix but there are four other people who can use my Netflix account in different parts of the country.”

Laughing, she added: “Am I not supposed to do that?”

Ms Dorries was also questioned about the Government’s decision to sell off Channel 4. The broadcaster has been publicly owned since its creation in 1982, by the Conservative Government, and is entirely funded by advertising.

Ms Dorries said she “can’t see a scenario” in which a privately owned Channel 4 would become partly or wholly subscription based.

She told the committee: “As a public service broadcaster, that is not on the table, that is just not on the cards at all.

“I can’t see a scenario in which that would happen.”

Sarah Healey, DCMS permanent secretary, defended her staff in the session, after John Nicolson, a Scottish National Party MP, questioned why public appointments in the department were “so often a mess”.

She said: “I [don’t] agree with the premise of your question. We do the highest number of public body regulated appointments in Government.”

Mr Nicolson highlighted the disrupted search for the new chair of the Charity Commission and “the ongoing saga of Ofcom”, which he said had ended with “an elderly peer who doesn’t use social media, which seems extraordinary in 2022”.

Conservative peer Lord Grade, 79, who is a former television executive, was recently appointed to the broadcasting watchdog after a lengthy process that had to be rerun.”