To block GBNews from my parent’s TV?

[goslowly]

My parents retired 4 years ago. They’re both in their 60s, healthy, happy, comfortable financially.

Since they’ve retired they have been sucked in by every single thing they say on there. They can spend an entire day sat in front of the TV getting angrier and angrier. It’s to the point that if Starmer comes on the TV, they shout about how he should be killed.

it’s genuinely starting to concern me. You can’t have a rational conversation with them about anything. I miss my parents, how they used to be before all the conspiracy and anger took over.

I’m genuinely tempted to block it from their tv using parental controls and just pretending it’s some weird fault in their telly. They’d not be able to fix it.

Pretty much. I don't remember any black children at all in my school. There were a couple of Sikh children at primary school with me. This was greater London in the late sixties/early seventies. All my parents friends and acquaintances were white.

The habitual lie is that other, real, news sources aren't covering stories that are all over MSM.

The straight up lying to your face was Bev Turner, supported by production,😬 lying to viewers about the racist violence in Belfast. Claiming it was part of a KS plot to remove civil liberties.

The Tru Fax thing is when they report shite like the link below.

For those who dont want to click on the link, no one requested litter trays in schools. There was a bit of a local SM panic. The schools mentioned said it was a load of shite.

There was no row, woke or otherwise.

www.gbnews.com/news/woke-news-wales-furries-cats-school-west-monmouth

I don't think it is due to one issue, it's complicated and due to many different things. That's why it's hard to fix and easy to point at one thing.

Less tax means worse public services meaning people get fed up. When you consolidate wealth, it leads to political power and influence at the top and undermines democracy - look at the US for this and how they are running politics/entire economic growth in tech companies. Austerity since 2010 has hit public services, causing impacts for all of us. The immigration you are talking about increased after Brexit during the Conservative government, possibly two reasons for this - immigration boosts GDP and our economy wasn't really growing, and it's helpful to say there's a problem, vote for us whilst feeding the problem. It was sold as reducing immigration, but it has actually increased it. Also, think about it, Farage sold Brexit as the solution and has made things worse economically.

I don't think you are racist to have reasonable concerns about immigration, but I don't think all of the impact is from immigration. I still think it's reasonable to have a conversation about it and look at all the other factors involved.

I do think some of the content from channels like GB News, and the mainstream press like the Telegraph/Mail etc has definitely shifted to the right slowly, although that isn't unprecedented - the Mail backed Oswald Mosley in the 1930s.

I do think the rhetoric is damaging. Burning down houses in Belfast was basically echos of a pogrom, I didn't think we were going back to the 1930s.

I'd like to say again that we do need to work together, without any of the rhetoric. Most of us want the same things, even if we don't have the same opinions or thoughts on how to get there. We have families and friends we care about, we want decent public services, we want affordable and safe housing. We have far more in common with each other than not, and more in common with each other than people like Nigel Farage.

If media is trying to divide us, question why they are doing it. They aren't doing it for us, they have their own agenda. If we are too busy yelling at each other, we can't fix things and they can do whatever they want.

I can understand this in early 70s but not in 2026 that older people aren't used to immigrants. Think about it..it's almost unbelievable unless they've lived a very sheltered life.

It wasn’t the case back then. I went to primary school in rural East Anglia in the early 60s. There were black children in the school and at my grammar school. The was a Sikh boy in my class.

It seems it was the case for some people though. My issue is that it's hard to believe that it's the same now, 50 odd years later.

Not necessarily. I live in a very ‘British’ town. And by British I mean culturally speaking. Not necessarily white, although our town is predominantly white, but any one you come across with a different ethnicity can very much be classed as culturally British if that makes sense. I guess I’m trying to say that ethnic minorities in my area (and they are very much minorities) have integrated extremely well.
Im an elder millennial and did my paper round at the age of 13 for an Indian family who ran our local corner shop. I worked in a Chinese take away ran by Chinese people and my school wasn’t wholly white but everyone was, and still is, very well integrated.

That still doesn’t sound anything like as bad as the lies, disinformation and manipulation found on the BBC which is supposed to have a global reputation as the gold standard.

So it seems GB News can’t be doing too badly after all.

I do think the rhetoric is damaging. Burning down houses in Belfast was basically echos of a pogrom, I didn't think we were going back to the 1930s.

Obviously I agree that burning down houses in Belfast is utterly wrong but I think the government and those in authority are playing the dominant role in exacerbating social tensions. The refusal to act properly on the rape gangs (the thread running about rape dang survivor Fiona Goddard and her treatment is blood boiling), the anti white racism trained into the police and employers, the imposition of large groups of men on local populations with no attempt to mitigate the impact of their bad behaviour on local residents, Starmer’s labelling of vast swathes of the country as racist and ‘far right’, attempting to shut down free speech etc etc.

It seems like Labour want increasing social tensions and infighting - but if they don’t they’ve got an odd way of showing it.

I don’t think it’s about not being used to immigrants living in our society, flooring our laws, respecting our customs snd trying to integrate.

The objections I’m hearing are to the imposition of changes that impact existing residents, poor or criminal behaviour and increasing concentration of numbers in particular areas.

The BBC itself has reported a number of times of the impact of the mainly foreign criminal gangs on our high streets. That has a serious knock on effect on ordinary people’s lives, from the local hairdresser bullied out of her shop by thugs to the Pakistani rape gangs still not being stopped and local businesses going under because they can’t compete with the gangs.

Farage etc are the messengers. They are amplifying the voices of ordinary people whose lives are being badly affected. The left ‘elites’, instead of listening to people’s concerns are trying to silence them and plough on with whatever social experiment they are conducting regardless.

Yes, this is Kemi Badenoch’s point about ‘multi cultural’ not necessarily being a good thing - if you have conflicting cultural practices.

She was making the point that Multi ethnic with a common culture is far more cohesive and harmonious for society. Everyone happy to abide by our laws and not set up their own legal system like sharia, everyone understanding that racism or raping girls from outside your religion is not ok etc

I agree very much with Kemi’s stance on this.

It very much is about culture and not ethnicity, I’d feel the same way if we had an influx of FLDS members from the states, wanting to set up ranches and practice polygamy and child rape in the belief that their religion comes over the law of the land. This is a predominantly white group.

Fundamentalist Islam doesn’t fit with British values.

My mum now in her late seventies is constantly quoting bollocks she has read on GB news on Facebook as though it is fact.

Farage is a member of the elite. He was a stockbroker, went to Dulwich College. He isn't a "man of the people".

I agree that there are issues, but Reform and Farage aren't the answer. They are using ordinary people's concerns to push their own agenda. I would be the first person to say that the issues with grooming gangs need to be resolved. But we need to work together to do this.

I would say that we all need to look into agendas more closely. For example, Reform are allied with the US right wing, the anti-abortionists, the roll back of women's rights etc. They would privatise the NHS and it would be more like the US system, not the European ones. Don't just pick one issue like immigration and ignore all the other things. Think critically always, look at the whole picture.

You were also talking about housing before - Right to Buy decimated social housing, which put more pressure on private rentals. Housing has become an investment, not a commodity and this has driven its price increases. It was social democracy that created the NHS, the welfare state and social housing. It was the right that has taken those things away. These are the things that we have in common - we all need a good, reasonable health care system and reasonable housing.

Most of all, I hope you realise that people will listen to you and try and have a proper conversation, even if they don't agree.

I think getting too obsessed with politics whatever side you lean to is generally detrimental to one's personality.

Same.

Farage is a member of the elite. He was a stockbroker, went to Dulwich College. He isn't a "man of the people".

I didn’t say he was. He is listening to ‘the people’ as opposed to the government who isn’t.

For example, Reform are allied with the US right wing, the anti-abortionists, the roll back of women's rights etc. They would privatise the NHS and it would be more like the US system, not the European ones. Don't just pick one issue like immigration and ignore all the other things. Think critically always, look at the whole picture.

I’m all for critical thinking. I also like reading the source information and if you tried the same you’d see that your claims aren’t quite true as presented. The talking points you have mentioned have been confected from cherry picked comments and misrepresented by the left who want to silence Farage.

You were also talking about housing before - Right to Buy decimated social housing, which put more pressure on private rentals. Housing has become an investment, not a commodity and this has driven its price increases. It was social democracy that created the NHS, the welfare state and social housing. It was the right that has taken those things away

They didn’t ’take those things away’. The right to buy scheme was a great scheme to get many people on the property ladder that couldn’t have done otherwise. Unfortunately the councils didn’t spend the money on replacement housing. They haven’t ‘taken away’ the NHS - it still exists at vast expense.

There are many complex economic issues and policies from the last 40+ that you seem to be conflating across a span of Labour and Conservative governments. I’m not sure that this thread is the right place for that in depth discussion but you have decided that ‘the right’ is bad. I think that is too simplistic and inaccurate but you are entitled to your opinion.

These are the things that we have in common - we all need a good, reasonable health care system and reasonable housing.

True. This will not be helped by bringing millions of new people into the country (it is that many over the last few years) when we haven’t enough housing or NHS capacity for those already here.

Most of all, I hope you realise that people will listen to you and try and have a proper conversation, even if they don't agree.

That’s not been my experience so far, I spend quite a bit of time on here getting yelled at and being called racist and fascist - one day I literally just said ‘I want a conversation about immigration’ and a poster called me a fascist, then doubled down on that. The Prime Minister has labelled people like me as being ‘the biggest problem our country faces’ and is trying to shut down free speech and making it easier to imprison people for saying things he’d rather were not said.

I like your idea of working together but the authoritarian left need to stop attacking and attempting to silence ordinary people otherwise Farage is all we have left. And I can’t stand him either.

The right to buy scheme was a great scheme to get many people on the property ladder that couldn’t have done otherwise. Unfortunately the councils didn’t spend the money on replacement housing.

They weren't allowed to spend the money on replacement housing. It was expressly forbidden by Mrs Thatcher's government when they drafted the legislation.

I don't think Farage is really listening, he's using it to increase his own bank balance. He has been linked to the Heritage Foundation, the architects of Project 2025 in the US. It's far more likely to go authoritarian under Reform than anyone else. They are talking about deporting people who were born here. This has echoes of the 1930s which go way beyond having a conversation about immigration.

Councils weren't allowed to spend the money on more council houses, Margaret Thatcher was ideologically opposed to them. They allowed ordinary people to have decent housing with the security of lifetime tenancies.

The NHS budget isn't big enough, it hasn't been taken away yet but it would be under Reform. There's a lot of money to be made in private healthcare and there's a queue of US companies who would like another market to expand into. Public services like libraries and Sure Start centres have been reduced and this has a knock on effect on our lives.

The Overton window has shifted and the right in the mainstream has shifted much further to the right. I would not have voted Conservative, but there is a much bigger gap between the left and right than previously. There have been Conservative politicians who I have respected, but there haven't been any for many years. There wasn't as much polarisation previously, you could have differences without it descending into arguments. Regarding immigration, it actually went up under Boris Johnson, it has gone down since Labour got in. Is that reported on GB News?

When people are saying that politicians should be killed, like OP's parents have, or that people in small boats deserve to be drowned like some people are saying, it's proof that things have gone too far. There's no empathy or humanity in that. It's OK to say that you don't agree with something, it is not OK to lose all humanity. Polarised content drives this, and it's driving our societies apart at a time when we need to come together to solve the multiple crises that we are facing, like climate change and a struggling economy where some people are struggling to afford the basics like housing, heating and food.

For accuracy:
Councils were strictly forbidden by the Tory central government from spending any more than 20% of the money raises from RTB on replacement housing.
Unless you are part of the far right, Starmer did not say 'people like you' were the biggest problem our country faces. You have inexplicably decided that when people say far right they mean people concerned about immigration. They don't. They mean racist activists and agitators like Yaxley Lennon, and extreme political parties like BNP and Restore.
If that's not where your views align, no ones talking about you.

KS and the government had nothing whatever to do with the racist violence in Belfast.🙄

Just because GB News says something, doesnt make it true. You'd be better checking for yourself. They're bigger on conspiracy theories and culture war stuff than facts and news.

I don’t watch GB News 🙄

Unless you are part of the far right, Starmer did not say 'people like you' were the biggest problem our country faces.

He was talking about the normal people in the marches. He expanded the definition of ‘far right’ as he thinks we are the problem. He is a human rights lawyer by trade, that’s how it works. He is utterly divisive.

It didn’t work out for him. Treating people with contempt will get the same back, and now he’s out.