Ofcom has ruled against Talk presenter Kevin O’Sullivan on due impartiality despite News UK’s defence of his right to share his own views as a “shock jock”.
O’Sullivan, who presents The Political Asylum from 7pm to 10pm on weekdays on Talk via radio, TV simulcast and Youtube, spent a chunk of the programme on 30 January saying the upcoming local elections were cancelled because Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “scared” of being “humiliated by Reform UK”.
Elections in several local authority areas were postponed by a year to May 2026 due to a major reorganisation taking place of some councils where two-tier local government areas are becoming unitary authorities.
Describing the delay as a political tactic, O’Sullivan’s comments included saying that “there are 29 local elections coming up in May. Reform, quite rightly, fancied their chances and Labour knew that they were doomed. Guess what? They’ve cancelled 13 of them. If there’s one thing lefties hate, it’s democracy.”
Among other comments, he also said: “And Reform UK was set to do extremely well. Well, guess what, what’s Starmer’s approach to that? Let’s cancel democracy.”
Talk owner News UK argued radio presenters like O’Sullivan, a former Sunday Mirror TV columnist and Sun Bizarre showbiz editor, “benefit from the wide understanding of the ‘Shock Jock’ who expresses highly partisan personal views”.
News UK added that O’Sullivan “characterises himself as an unambiguously acerbic and opinionated middle-aged man. He is as notorious for his contrarian views as he is popular with the Talk audience” and that The Political Asylum lets him “deliver his own, very personal, tongue-in-cheek and often hyperbolic response to stories in the news”.
The broadcaster also described the editorial approach of the programme as “deliberately disrespectful”.
However Ofcom, which had received a complaint about the programme concerned that O’Sullivan’s comments were misleading, found that other viewpoints should have been included because he was discussing a matter of political controversy and current public policy.
This put the programme in breach of the due impartiality rules of the Broadcasting Code.
Whenever the Government’s viewpoint was mentioned, Ofcom said, it was brief and “dismissed or denigrated” by O’Sullivan and other contributors to the programme such as Talk international editor Isabel Oakeshott.
For example, Ofcom cited O’Sullivan’s comment that Starmer was relying on “some old drivel about ‘oh well the borders are changing, so we’ll have to do these’… No, no, no, he is terrified of how bad it is going to look when Labour lose all of these seats, all of these local elections.”
A clip of Reform MP Nigel Farage showed him saying “both Labour and the Conservatives agree. They are terrified of the
rise of Reform” while Oakeshott described the postponement as a “brazen attempt to deny people their democratic voice” and said “I am sure it is because of the rise of the Reform party”.
Ofcom noted that although O’Sullivan was soliciting callers, the only one whose view was included in the programme agreed with him.
News UK told Ofcom it regretted that “on this occasion, a wider range of voices and perspectives was not achieved” and that it was discussing with its production team ““what other means might have been employed to ensure further representation of alternative views”.
Read the full Ofcom ruling here.
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