The "niche Canadian" (thank you, The Guardian) returns! Welcome to another of Mark's post-cardiac Steyn Shows - with all due thanks to Audrey, the French nurse who saved his life. If you don't want to watch it above, you can watch it on your Smart TV with the whole family agog.
On today's show Steyn welcomes back three of his most popular guests - Alexandra Marshall, Dominique Samuels and Samantha Smith - for a look at big-picture topics (such as the weird leftist obsession with the British Empire) and smaller ones (celebrity gossip as a distraction from total societal collapse). Mark also finds time to mull the UK state censors at OfCom and announce the latest special guest to join him on this summer's Mark Steyn Cruise.
All that plus a bonus edition of Mark's Mailbox. Click above to view the full show.
~ One advantage of Mark Steyn Club membership is that you can enjoy The Mark Steyn Show in whatever form you wish - video, audio or text. For the audio version of this episode, please see here.
~There has been a lot of chatter on Twitter about how no one at GB News is standing with Mark. Well, our top-rated guests certainly are, and we are very grateful to them. If you'd like to know more about, say, Alexandra, we've introduced a new Contributors page. If you'd like to meet them in person, you're welcome to join us on our first post-Covid Mark Steyn Cruise. You can find more details here.
~On today's show, Mark noted his old comrade Toby Young's defence of Ofcom and GB News. Toby's own readers and viewers don't seem persuaded by it:
JD was on the money. Toby, you come across as a snivelling apologist for Ofcom (please stop calling it Ofsted). You pontificate on the potential lack of veracity of some or Mark Steyn's graphs and numbers, thereby attempting to justify his loss of livelihood, whilst glaringly omitting the crap spouted unchallenged and uncensored by Whitty/Ferguson/Vallance et al. You've taken the Kool Aid man. Disgraceful!
And another:
Big picture: Neither Steyn nor his guests can exercise free speech about the vaccines on GB News without risking a £1m fine from Ofcom.
Small picture: A nice man from Ofcom's press office explains why they're even-handed.
Toby, the issue isn't whether Ofcom finds Steyn/GBNews guilty of misrepresenting a graph, the issue is that it has the power to do so. Surely the Free Speech Union exists to tell Ofcom and its masters to f**k off.
And one more:
If this debate had been a contest then JD would have won it hands-down. Come on Toby. Why all this "it's the law so you've just gotta put up with it stuff"? Laws can sometimes be plain evil in their effect and those laws should be resisted.
OfCom is the perfect tool for an authoritarian regime. It's unaccountable, autonomous, subject to little or no governance, and has draconian powers to punish. Thanks to OfCom, GB News presented Mark Steyn with a contract neither he, not any rational person, could accept. Seems like constructive dismissal of a man who had just recovered from a serious medical condition... Surely you are not still hanging onto the "cock-up" theory about all this?
Oh, okay, two more:
Whilst I hate Ofcom and was disappointed to say the least at the extent to which Toby appeared to stick up for them, I do believe GB News and Frangopoulos to be the real villains of this particular piece. It's not as if Ofcom have (yet) ruled against Mark Steyn on either of the complaints they are 'considering'. To present Mark with a contract that no-one would ever agree to sign, and to do so while he is still recovering from a double heart attack, does not sound like the start of an intended negotiation as Toby suggested it might have been...
I've certainly watched a lot less GB News since last week and imagine many have done the same. I have, however, been watching Mark's shows from his own website, and they are as entertaining and informative as always.
Thank you, David. We hope you like today's show.
~If you've missed a Mark Steyn Show in the last few months or years, you can find all our recent shows and many highlights from the archives in a handy Netflix-style tile format here.
The Mark Steyn Show is a special production of The Mark Steyn Club. If you're a member, feel free to weigh in below, as we love to read your comments - and, as he did tonight, Mark may even read them on air. If you're wondering what the Steyn Club's all about, you can find more details here - and we also have a great gift membership. And don't forget that cruise.