Since the sad culmination of the Nicola Bulley investigation, scrutiny has turned to the role of the media. The Bulley family issued a statement yesterday saying Bulley’s husband was “vilified”, particularly pointing the finger at Sky News and ITV in particular for contacting the family despite their request for privacy. The media’s coverage of the case has been described as “ghoulish”…

Guido usually leans towards freedom of the press, however taking a look at Sky New’s coverage, this description clearly seems accurate. After previously spending her mornings tracing Bulley’s final route on live TV with Inzamam Rashid, Kay Burley did another report yesterday. From an actual graveyard.

Kay reported that as the dust settled “Lancashire police have got a lot of questions to answer”. And what about the ghoulish media, Kay?

UPDATE:  Broadcast regulator Ofcom say: “We are extremely concerned to hear the comments made by the family of Nicola Bulley about two broadcast licensees. We have written to ITV News and Sky News to ask them to explain their actions. We will then assess whether any further action is required.”

First it was Good Morning Britain on the naughty step, now it’s Sky News’s turn to depart Downing Street’s good books. Guido hears that Kay Burley’s show has now been “benched” by the press team following a tawdry week of behaviour from the presenter, including retweeting Labour MPs attacking the government and launching a sustained attack against Rachel Maclean, involving taking her answer out of context and not dropping it for three days. They are watching closely… 

Kay being put on the naughty step isn’t quite the full-on boycott seen by GMB, and ministers will occasionally feature. Instead she will have to fight for her place on the round on a case-by-case basis. A government source says:

“I get the impression the broadcast plan is to be as open and accessible as possible but Kay over sugared the tea this week. She was retweeting a Labour MP after the Maclean interview and was still going for her 2 days later. Think interviews with Kay will be judged on a case by case rather than a given basis.”

It’s not like she could ever ask questions on Partygate from a position of authority anyway…

Wes Streeting laments loyally to Kay Burley about his chances of leading the Labour Party…

“I am sure that by the time there is a leadership election I will be too old and people will be looking to a new generation because after three terms of Keir Starmer being the prime minister of our country people will be looking for a new generation.”

One notable moment made it out of the Welsh Secretary’s morning media round. Asked about last night’s Partygate fines and whether the PM should resign if he receives one, Simon Hart told Kay Burley:

“We all make judgements which we have time to reflect on and wished we’d made differently, I think for me personally speaking the world has moved on… the idea that every politician – or indeed every journalist for that matter – who makes a misjudgement along the way should automatically be sacked is not something I subscribe to.”

Whoever could he be thinking of?

Beth Rigby has admitted she offered to resign as Sky News‘ Political Editor for attending Kay Burley’s lockdown-breaking birthday bash in December 2020. As Guido exclusively revealed at the time, Rigby joined 9 Sky colleagues at Burley’s illegal sixtieth birthday while London was still under Tier 2 rules. Both Rigby and Burley were taken off-air for three and six months respectively…

Now Rigby has revealed in a Times interview that while her lawbreaking “wasn’t a deliberate thing“, it was a “a really stupid thing to do”, and she even offered to step down:

“Actually, what people don’t know about all of that, which no one really knows, apart from a couple of people at Sky, is that I did offer to resign over it because I realised as it played out in the press how bad it looked, that it was potentially damaging for the channel, that it had upset my colleagues, and I felt absolutely wretched about that.”

Sky’s Head of News John Ryley rejected Rigby’s resignation, instead saying “I don’t want you to do that. I want you to remain our political editor but I think you need to kind of spend some time away.” Suspect Kay Burley did not make the same offer.

Good to see Thornberry out on top form this morning. Being interviewed by Kay Burley on the volatile Russia situation, the shadow attorney general ended up losing her train of thought and admitted she couldn’t remember the question, to peals of laughter. Sir Keir probably has few regrets about demoting Thornberry…