The background: There has been violent rioting in Great Britain’s Rotherham, Middlesbrough, Bristol, Bolton and other parts of the country following a stabbing attack in which three children attending a dance class were killed. Rioters have trashed and looted shops, set fire to vehicles and attacked police officers.

ITV, the alternative to the venerable BBC that dominates British television, had an interview with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper about the deepening domestic crisis on its popular morning show, a “Today Show” rip-off, “Good Morning Britain.” And who was the hard-hitting, independent, unbiased journalist given the assignment of handling the interview yesterday?

Why, it was none other than veteran broadcaster, GMB host and former Labour chancellor Ed Balls….Cooper’s husband.

Strangely, many viewers had a problem with this. Wrote one (of many) critics on Twitter/”X”: “Britain can’t have an honest discussion about…basically anything (from racism to representation) because of the permanent embrace between the media & political class. Ed Balls is the husband of the Home Secretary for goodness sake. This is absurd.” Another wrote with an accompanying video, “If there’s any confusion as to why many ordinary people think the media elite are out of touch, here is Ed Balls- on Good Morning Britain- interviewing….his own wife.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? For its part, ITV said that it was “satisfied” that the interview was “impartial.” Oh! Well that settles that, then!

Why would anyone trust a network that says something so obviously dishonest?

The Home Secretary and GMB presenter have been married for over 25 years and have three children together. Balls came up with a dandy rationalization to justify the interview pairing: “I have not really seen her at all in the last week. When these events happen, and if you’re the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary, it becomes pretty much 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so it’s tough.”

I had nearly forgotten about the “conflicts of interest disappear if you haven’t seen much of the person you’re biased towards for a week” rule.

Looking at this as a glass half-full guy, I will say that at least Great Britain’s journalism is as rotten and untrustworthy as ours is. That’s something…isn’t it?