POLITICIAN George Galloway has accused his opponents of trying to get his radio show shut down after the broadcast regulator found it had breached impartiality rules over the Salisbury poisonings.

The show on talkRadio saw the former MP discussing the attempted murder of Yulia and Sergei Skripal in March 2018. The broadcast watchdog Ofcom said it is considering a statutory sanction deciding that the Dundee-born former Respect MP's Talk Radio show breached its rules by not maintaining due impartiality on a major matter of political controversy.

Sanctions available range from a direction not to repeat a programme and publish a correction to imposing a financial penalty of up to £250,000 and revoking a licence.

The three-hour programme aired 12 days after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yuli were poisoned by Novichok after it was sprayed on the door handle of a property in Salisbury.

The Herald:

Ofcom investigated a complaint that the programme, broadcast on March 16, contained “biased and unbalanced views” about the response of the UK and Russian governments to the poisoning.

Ofcom said that on three occasions, when the audience contributions differed to the former MP’s position, Galloway joked that the listeners who had sent in their messages were in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.

Mr Galloway went onto social media to air his concerns at the move.

He said: "I’m a dissident. I have a radio show. Some folks are trying to get it off the air. What do you think about that?"

He added: Freedom of the press, democracy, even law, are but an illusion in Britain. Just lipstick on a pig. #Moats #SanctionedByOfcom.

"In the sea of poisonous rancid rank right wing mendacity and prejudice in the twisted British media it is ME - the ONLY left wing radio and television presenter in Britain - who is guilty of lack of 'impartiality'! You COULD NOT MAKE THIS UP!

The Herald:

"Across ALL networks there are 168 hours of radio time Britain. Thousands of hours in total.

"Just three hours on ONE radio station are given over to a non-mainstream point of view. Guess which program has just been sanctioned by @Ofcom as not 'impartial'?"

Ofcom said the show failed to give due weight to a sufficiently wide range of significant viewpoints about the political aftermath of the events in Salisbury.

Mr Galloway had taken a position criticising the UK Government, and questioning the validity of the Government’s allegations about the involvement of the Russian authorities.

Ofcom said the first 11 text messages read out were broadly supportive of the host's views on the events in Salisbury.

Ofcom questioned Mr Galloway's response to messages suggesting that some listeners who had sent in messages were housed in Broadmoor.

Mr Galloway told the media regulator it had engaged in a “transparently politically motivated attempt at censorship”.

TalkSport, which holds the licence for talkRadio, said Galloway’s “controversial views” would “not come as a surprise to listeners”.

It said steps had now been taken to ensure that “differing views are expressed on air”, including the producer “speaking to Galloway of the need for dissenting voices to be heard, something which Galloway has always welcomed and encouraged”.

The ruling comes after Ofcom announced in December that the RT news channel, formerly Russia Today, was not impartial in seven news and current affairs programmes which aired in the UK over a six-week period.

Two of the programmes, which were mostly about the Skripal poisoning or the conflict in Syria, featured former MP Galloway.