Ofcom stands accused of an “Orwellian” assault on free speech after launching probes into climate sceptic comments for the first time in almost a decade. The Mail has the story.

The media regulator originally decided not to investigate complaints over remarks about climate change on two programmes aired by TV channel Talk last year.

But it announced a dramatic U-turn after being lobbied by pro-transgender rights and climate activist campaign group the Good Law Project (GLP).

One complaint related to comments made by a Talk guest who said on a programme in November that climate change “was a deliberate effort to create fake anxiety… out of something that is false”.

In the second case, also in November, another guest said Labour’s energy policies were “suicidal”, “driven by pseudoscience in many cases” and “a kind of cultish behaviour”.

On one of the programmes, a UK Health Security Agency report into the potential mental health impacts of concerns about climate change was being discussed alongside the Government’s messaging over the issue.

The other featured a discussion relating to the potential impact of climate change and Net Zero policies on the UK population.

After the GLP wrote to Ofcom in January asking it to justify its initial ruling not to investigate, the regulator U-turned. It said a potential breach of rules of the broadcasting code around “due impartiality” and “material misleadingness” required “reconsideration”.

It also launched a probe into a new complaint over comments made about Labour’s energy and Net Zero policies on the Morning Glory with Jeremy Kyle programme in December.

The three probes are the first the broadcasting regulator has launched into alleged climate-sceptic comments on television and radio since 2017.

Ofcom stuck by its decision not to investigate complaints about climate comments on three other programmes.

Lord Young of Acton, boss of the Free Speech Union, said: “I’m astonished Ofcom has U-turned on this.

“These are clearly complaints submitted by climate activists seeking to weaponise the regulator to silence people with opposing points of view.

Read More: Ofcom Accused of “Orwellian” Assault on Free Speech