When Liz Truss launched her podcast last year, she declared it would bring a “counter-revolution” to take on the “deep state”, which, she said, “tried to destroy” her. The revolution, however, has not yet arrived. Truss, whose stint as UK prime minister abruptly ended after her disastrous mini-budget crashed the economy, has so far failed to find a wide audience in her media career.
Her podcast episodes hosted on YouTube often receive fewer than 4,000 views each, which is understood to be below the amount generally needed to monetise a video. Now, Truss is relaunching her podcast and joining the former TalkTV host Mike Graham’s YouTube channel, UKLive, where she will be livestreaming twice a week. Graham was dismissed from Rupert Murdoch’s digital channel after the company said he had failed to cooperate with an investigation into a racist post that appeared on his Facebook account.
The post inquired: “Why are we surrounded by non-white people?” Graham claimed he did not post it and that he was hacked. The presenter, whose new channel calls itself “the home of common sense”, came to public prominence after claiming on air that it was possible to grow concrete. Graham was questioning the eco-activist and carpenter Cameron Ford on whether timber was a sustainable building material.
Cameron said timber was “regenerative”, adding: “You can grow trees. You can’t grow concrete.” Graham replied: “Yeah, you can.” Graham’s channel does generate income, securing enough views to qualify for YouTube’s scheme that shares ad revenue with creators. While UKLive only averages about 24,000 views a video, its prolific output of 1,700 posts in the last year means it has secured 41m views in that time, according to the Socialpruf analytics site.
That is enough to generate thousands of pounds a month in ad revenue. The rise of YouTube has created a home for those shunned by mainstream outlets, but its growth has also in effect created a whole world of broadcasting outside of the regulated world of mainstream TV. But the law has not kept pace, parliament has yet to confront the implications of this increasingly blurred distinction, and the platforms themselves have not always proved able to prevent serious harm.” Truss will be joining a host of other presenters including the former actor Laurence Fox, who was suspended from GB News after making sexualised comments on air about a female journalist.
Also on the roster is Mark Littlewood, a former director of the Institute of Economic Affairs thinktank, which praised many of Truss’s economic policies, and the pro-Reform commentator Ellie Hodges. Truss may hope to benefit from Graham’s larger following; his channel has 179,000 subscribers compared with her 32,300. Recent podcasts from Truss include one in which the commentator June Slater claimed “Labour is panicking as Reform surges in Makerfield byelection”.
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