Kiwi backs anti-elite TV channel

A television channel with an avowed opposition to ‘‘cancel culture’’, whose backers include an investment firm chaired by media-shy Kiwi rich-lister Christopher Chandler, has launched in Britain to mixed reviews.

GB News announced in January that Dubai-based Legatum, an investment company chaired by Chandler, was among its backers.

Other investors in the 24-hour current affairs channel include prominent British Brexit supporter Sir Paul Marshall.

Britain’s Guardian reported that former British Conservative Party treasurers Lord Michael Farmer and Lord Michael Spender were also investors, along with the United States entertainment giant Discovery.

GB News describes itself as ‘‘independent and fearless in tackling the issues people care about’’.

The channel’s chairman, Andrew Neil, who is also a primetime host, said during its on-air launch that ‘‘we are proud to be British – the clue is in the name’’.

‘‘We will not come at every story with the conviction that Britain is always at fault, usually to blame when things go wrong – generally useless,’’ he added.

‘‘We will puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics,

‘‘We will puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics, business, media and academia and expose their growing promotion of ‘cancel culture’.’’

Andrew Neil

GB News chairman

business, media and academia and expose their growing promotion of ‘cancel culture’ as the threat to free speech and democracy that it is.’’

Former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage was an early guest on GB News and was about to give his opinion on whether Boris Johnson had gone ‘‘woke’’ before he was cut off by a Co-Op pizza advert, the Standard reported.

Chandler was reported in 2017 to have amassed a US$1.7 billion fortune (NZ$2.4b) and to have taken Maltese citizenship.

He and his brother Richard were born in Waikato and inherited wealth through their family’s retail empire which they grew through successful investments in emerging markets.