The feud between Nadine Dorries and Kirstie Allsopp over Channel 4 privatisation
Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, said it was time for broadcasters to “fly the nest” into a “very exciting future.”
Nadine has spat with TV personality Kirstie Allsopp about Channel 4’s privatisation, claiming that broadcasters’ “salad days are in the past.”
After Nadine’s view was published in the Mail on Sunday, both sent statements on Twitter, with Nadine addressing the Government’s decision to move on with plans to sell off the channel.
Margaret Thatcher, the previous Conservative Prime Minister who founded Channel 4 in 1982, intended it to be “free from the limitations of the state,” according to Nadine. “Lazy, overblown, and ill-informed hyperbole from the Leftie luvvie lynch mob,” he said of the resistance to the plan. Nadine, who hosts the Channel 4 property show Location, Location, Location, twitted on whether it was “truly ministerial” to refer to people opposing privatisation as a “lynch mob” while “complaining about being accused of fascist.”
“This item could make you think twice about using the phrase,” she added while sharing an article on the US Senate enacting an anti-lynching bill.
The government announced this week that plans to privatise Channel 4, which has been publicly owned since 1982 and is supported by advertising, will go forward.
In response to the revelation, Kirstie tweeted that “no real Conservative would sell Channel 4” and that “Lady T will be spinning in her grave.”
On Sunday night, Ms Nadine responded to her messages, claiming that Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs, The Downing Street Years, indicated she wanted Channel 4 to be sold.
She said that Channel 4 could not be saved in its existing form due to “declining advertising income and decreased investment in new programmes.”
“Of course, there is the benefit of a sale to the entire sector, which is that the revenues of sale will be put back into individuals from all backgrounds, especially those from left-behind places, since brilliance is everywhere, not just in the SE,” the Tory MP continued.
“We will invest in skills to take advantage of incoming demand from our thriving film and television industry, thanks to the advantageous tax benefits/reliefs and subsidies this government has put in place to encourage the film industry to consider Britain as its home.”
“I, too, am a big fan of C4, particularly Location, but as I mentioned in my post, it’s time to look ahead. Salad days on the channel are over. Being a government property has its drawbacks. It’s time for C4 to leave the nest and fly into an exciting future.”
