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May 24, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:01
20220524_piers-morgan-uncensored-martina-navratilova-and-ri
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Partygate Truth and Hangover 00:02:50
Good evening, Appiers Morgan.
Uncensored, tonight as the Partygate hangover continues, is the party finally over for Boris Johnson.
Martino rattle over on the big Grand Slam Russia ban.
And as Ricky Gervais jokes about trans people in his new Netflix special, he is of course immediately attacked by the cancelled culture mob.
But first, it's my meat grain dump.
Well, parties are often followed by a massive hangover.
You know the score.
A spilling headache that just won't go away.
Flimsy, grovelling excuses for the embarrassments of the night before, perhaps a dash of nausea, perhaps even a dash of remorse.
Well, Partygate, the illegal lockdown-busting scandal that engulfed Boris Johnson's Conservative government, has now turned into a six-month hangover from hell for the beleaguered and notably remorseless Prime Minister.
And the excuses of the last remaining Boris bros are sounding increasingly desperate.
It was a work do.
That's what people do at work.
But it wasn't a crime.
And I don't believe that it was a party.
Well, it was a crime because at least one person got fined by the police for being there.
And it was a party or they wouldn't have been fined for being at an illegal party.
And that's all he says about that's what people do at work.
Does Desmond Swain work in a nightclub?
Well, here's his colleague, Peter Bohm.
You might want it to be a party, but unless you're going to say that the Prime Minister is not telling the truth and the Met police aren't telling the truth, it wasn't a party.
It was a party, Mr. Bone.
I can only assume you don't get invited to many of them.
If you did, then you might have discovered that raising a toast surrounded by four bottles of wine, two bottles of champagne and a bottle of gin very much resembles a party.
Grant Shaps, the cabinet minister who's always wheeled out to defend the indefensible, insisted that Johnson was clearly not partying, even though he was clearly partying.
And then he added this.
I think it's probably worth recalling in context that throughout this period, the Prime Minister himself had been seriously ill, had a close brush with coronavirus.
He lost his mum during the period he's dealing with the pandemic.
But he didn't lose his mum in that period.
In fact, Boris Johnson's mother, Charlotte Johnson Wall, died 10 months after the party happened.
Some people are saying we should move on from all this, but we shouldn't.
This scandal goes to the heart of the Prime Minister's credibility and integrity.
The Times reported today that Boris Johnson suggested to civil servant Sue Gray, the very woman investigating him, that she should drop her inquiry in that secret meeting two weeks ago that number 10 said was all her idea, before admitting that they'd lied about that too, and it was their idea.
Boris Johnson's Credibility Crisis 00:02:49
This is the kind of behaviour that mafia bosses get up to when they're trying to intimidate investigators.
The slow trickle of damning evidence has turned into a relentless torrent of sleas.
Boris Johnson has become a gigantic national headache.
And increasingly, it looks like the only cure will be his departure.
Well, there have been a few more sickening videos this year than the one showing Premier League football star Kurt Zuma brutally kicking and slapping his pet cat around the kitchen as he sneered, I swear I'll kill it.
Here it is.
We're unable to see that video because his brother, Yohan, filmed the whole thing.
He said he thought it was really funny, posting it on Snapchat with laughing emojis.
Well, today, Justice had the last laugh on these sniveling little cowards, as Zuma pleaded guilty to causing suffering to a protected animal, and his equally vile brother admitted aiding and abetting him.
But Zuma was fined just £250,000 by his club West Ham United, which, given he earns £6 million a year, is a pathetically ineffective slap on the wrist that he'll barely have noticed.
If Zuma had done this to a woman, he'd never play professional football again.
Why should he get away with doing it to a defenseless cat?
Well, sometimes these stories are so shocking they become where were you moments, images so vivid or moving that you can recall exactly what you were doing when you stopped in your tracks and saw them.
The shambolic withdrawal of US and British forces from Afghanistan last summer sadly provided several of those moments.
Who will ever forget the videos of men desperately clinging onto a US military plane or the Afghan mothers throwing their babies desperately to soldiers?
So where was Dominic Raab, the British Foreign Secretary, when this all happened?
Well he was on holiday in Crete.
And how about Sir Philip Barton, the boss of the British Foreign Office?
Well he was on holiday too in France and that's where he stayed until after the evacuation was over.
Both of these men are still serving the British government.
A Foreign Affairs Committee report into the withdrawal today tore into the British role in that exit calling it a disaster which costs lives and abandoned the Afghan people to the Taliban's evil clutches.
It also rightly slammed both of those foreign office leaders for being missing an action as Kabul fell.
The cowardly chaos of the US exit made President Biden look weak, unreliable and heartless.
We now know the British government was no better.
Shame on them.
FOMO, Hypocrisy, and Accountability 00:07:59
Well one of the biggest problems for young people today is FOMO, the fear of missing out.
The fear of missing out on parties, on fun, on smashed avocados for brunch, and most of all, the fear of missing out and looking like their dream idols on Instagram.
Hundreds of millions of young girls now want to be and look like, for reasons that completely baffle me, the Kardashians.
But the heart of FOMO is fake.
What they're in fear of missing out on usually doesn't even exist.
The Kardashians are the global flag bearers for photographic fakery, as evidenced again by Courtney's wedding to Travis Barker.
Talk about Instagram versus reality.
Look at this.
These people just aren't real.
Here is Courtney Kardashian on Instagram, and here's how she actually looked over the weekend.
Even these apparently world-beating beauties don't look the way they make you think they do.
Here's Chloe Kardashian, her sister, on Instagram, and here's Chloe as she actually looked at the weekend.
It's all an illusion of perfection.
Every time they post these pictures online to their millions of followers, they're just pulling another contract and burnish their brand to the world.
Here's Kylie Jenner on Instagram versus Kylie as she looked at the weekend.
Now look, here's the point I'd make.
They all look absolutely fine to start with.
They don't need to do all this frenzied airbrushing to seek a bogus perfection.
So don't fear missing out on looking like the Kardashians because they don't look like the Kardashians.
You see pictures of your dream boats on Instagram.
Well, I'm afraid you just can't believe what you're seeing.
They just don't correspond to reality.
Wait a sec.
What have you put up there?
I don't get that.
Well, joining me now is the journalist Adam Bolton and author Ella Will.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Great to see you.
I'll leave that photograph.
One day I'll tell the real story, but it was a proud moment.
Adam, great to have you.
One of the great doyens of the television journalism industry.
You, better than most people in this country, can put into proper perspective where we are with party gate.
Because every time I hear somebody going, it doesn't matter, we should move on, I feel the shackles rising inside me because I think it does matter and we shouldn't move on.
Am I wrong?
Am I exaggerating the scale of this?
Yeah, I think it does matter for two reasons.
First of all, because we all went through the pandemic, all of us had to change our lives.
You had long COVID and all the rest of it, and we all changed our behaviour.
People who were telling us to do that and punish us if we didn't were the government.
And they were going on television saying that.
Now, if they weren't obeying their own rules, I think that's very serious.
And it's an example of a serious matter, which now looks a bit trivial because we feel we're past the pandemic.
And, you know, what about politics?
So I think that's the first reason why it matters.
Second reason why it matters is because it matters to have a government we can trust.
And if you have a government there that has consistently had to change its story, been proven to say things which aren't true.
I mean, just look at this latest stuff about Boris Johnson leaning on Sue Gray not to publish her.
I mean, really shocking.
Yeah.
And initially, they said, oh, there wasn't a meeting.
Then they said it was a meeting she asked for.
Then they had to admit that he asked for it.
And now we have this evidence coming in the times that, you know, they were trying to sit on the whole inquiry, which has dominated politics for the past six months.
All of that matters.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And Ella, I mean, I read that there's a BBC documentary, Panorama out tonight, which has a litany of detail about what was going on at these parties from people who were there.
And when you see the scale of it and the sort of the impunity that these people at the heart of Downing Street were behaving whilst everybody else was obeying the laws they'd laid down, even to the extent that they were saying to some officials at Downing Street, mocking them for expressing even a raised eyebrow about what was going on.
Actually mocking people for saying, shouldn't you not be doing this?
It's quite shocking when you get into the weeds of this.
Isn't it?
Call me a cynic, but I'm, you know, politicians acting with impunity, lying, not, you know, having one rule for them, one for us.
No, it's not a good thing.
It's not a good thing.
And we should never tolerate it.
But it was ever thus.
And I think you're absolutely right that we shouldn't forget this, but not potentially for the reasons that you're saying.
Because the most frustrating thing for me is that this is, you know, this scandal over how a government acted and indeed how an opposition party acted, how everyone did throughout a pandemic has boiled down to the question of a PCN and whether or not holding a drink like that constitutes a party.
And that really trivialises, I think, the central point of this, which is what do we actually care about?
Because parties in and of themselves in the abstract, there's no problem with it.
The problem was that the government was, that members of government and civil servants and that were having a good time while they were legislating to criminalize people who sat together.
To me, it's not about parties.
It's about the brazen hypocrisy and double standards.
But for the future, I think what's important to recognise is that, you know, Boris Johnson and other cabinet ministers are still dangling the prospect of lockdown measures and things like that for the future.
And I think what we have to, the real reason.
Why would anyone trust a word they say?
Well, the real reason we have to hold them to account is to say what really was the tragedy and what really was the thing that was wrong was that you criminalized people who sat next to each other on a bench, particularly in the latter stages of the last two years, not that you had a party.
So I just want people to get their priorities.
Well, in a way, that's a secondary issue because they did make those laws.
Now, you can argue about whether they should and whether they should again.
It's the primary issue because I think I don't think it changes the hypocrisy.
If you make laws, you've got to abide by them yourselves, right?
I mean, it would probably be different next time around.
People have learnt from it, but at the time, that's what they were telling us to do, and they weren't doing it themselves.
And it does come down to trust.
And yes, it's trivial parties, but what's becoming clear is Boris Johnson is a very trivial prime minister.
He's not someone who is wading into the big issues, who has a clearance.
And also be clear, he's a liar.
I'm sorry.
But he's been fired from several jobs in the past for lying.
And he's been lying about these parties.
He's stood there in Parliament and said everything was above board, all on the rules.
That party, we're told now by people who were there, up to 30 people were on the lash.
Apparently, it was every Friday at four o'clock.
The press team all had her knees up.
But I mean, he's debased everybody.
He's reduced us to arguing about when is a party a party?
Yeah.
And, you know, does hold your glass minute, which I find, you know, humiliating.
I mean, we know what a party is.
Yes, exactly.
But then on top of that, what we've seen is junior people in Downing Street carrying the can.
They're the ones who've been fined.
And, you know, if your boss says, we're having a party, you go.
You may not want to go.
And we know that 50% of the people invited to the Downing Street Party didn't go.
But a junior person, an ambitious person, will go if their boss throws it.
But ultimately, Adam, I mean, the only way Boris Johnson will go is not what you or I think or what even the British public think until an election.
The only way is if 56 Tory MPs decide that his behaviour, and the Sue Gray report is due out tomorrow and may be more damning than we're even expecting.
But if it's just more of the same in huge detail, could it trigger enough Tory MPs to actually grow a pair, get a conscience and send in letters to have a leadership election?
Yeah, I do think it could, because I think if it is clear to the Conservatives that he's become a liability, and, you know, remember, since this broke, they've been behind in the polls.
And Boris Johnson is currently less popular than the Conservative Party.
Now, they're not going to put up with that forever, except if you have the argument that the next election is a good one to lose, but that's not how most politicians think.
And Ella, on one other issue today, which I thought was big in the news, Afghanistan.
Monkeypox Panic and Political Liability 00:02:58
The British role in that absolute debacle of an overnight departure, which betrayed all the Afghan people, looked about as shameful as the Americans when you actually get into the detail of this report that's come out.
Yeah, I mean, if you were waiting for the report to inform your decision about how we handled this, you obviously weren't watching the footage that we all saw at the time of people standing in sewage, scrambling for planes.
These are people that took a risk working with the British government.
And I'm really sick of watching and listening to all the crocodile tears from certain Conservative MPs about how difficult this was to handle.
Yes, it's not.
Or indeed from people within the Foreign Office about how hard they worked, because quite simply, this was from the start mishandled.
And also, I think it's not just a case of people not catching emails.
It fundamentally shows from both the UK and the US perspective the disregard with which the West treats people in nations that it meddles in.
And the grotesque betrayal of the Afghan people, where you now have the women in particular, you know, even female TV presenters having to wear masks now on television, not because of COVID, but because the Taliban have ordered them to put veils on it.
I think it's completely shameful.
Let me ask you a question, Ellen.
What do you know about monkeypox?
It's not as bad as COVID.
Right, it looks worse, but it's not.
So I've got to be honest with you, I've not really got into the weeds of monkeypox.
Do you know much about it, Ella?
You know, I know that it looks a bit sore, but I have to get it.
I was out today with my middle son, who's a young actor.
He hasn't got monkeypox.
But he shares a flat with another actor called Alex Heath, who it turns out is a bit of an expert on monkeypox because he posted something to TikTok two days ago that has now had nine million views in two days.
It's a sensation on TikTok and it's a simple 30-second explainer of monkeypox.
And I thought it'd be interesting just to play it.
Here's Monkey Pox by Alex.
Should you be worried about monkeypox?
As quick as I can.
So it's a disease that leaves you with a fever, fatigue, and a rash that wears off in a couple of weeks.
There's been a small number of outbreaks before, but the way it's been able to spread is hard to ignore.
See, normally outbreaks have stayed in one place, but this week it's been seen in several states.
And so the WHO is expected to investigate whether the strain's spreading undetected.
Should you be worried?
Not really.
If you're relatively healthy, it wouldn't hit you severely.
In either case, antivirals make it more treatable, but it's feasible that in the next few weeks or so, you'll see an awful lot of news stories on it.
Some papers will generate clickbait from it.
There are concerns about the virus's behaviour, but bear in mind post-pandemic panic sales papers.
Jonathan Van Tam eat your heart out.
You know what's fascinating about it is there's this whole world on TikTok, which I'm sort of loosely aware of it, but 9 million views in two days for just a young actor, not that well known.
I'm sure he will be.
He's talented.
But it's fascinating, isn't it?
There's this other world where young people are getting information like that about big issues like monkeypox.
Well, it's also, it's, you know, the thing about TikTok is people talk about as a young people sing.
It's a very young people thing.
So I'm 30.
I don't consider myself as old at all yet.
But it's completely beyond me.
Are you a TikToker?
Wimbledon War and Putin Points 00:16:03
No, I did look at it, but I couldn't get it to work.
Great to see you both.
Thank you very much.
I've got a feeling we'll be seeing you again because I think it's going to be a big week for Boris Johnson.
Maybe one of his last in office if what we believe is in this report comes out.
Well on censor tonight, Martina Vatalova on the Wimbledon ranking points row.
Is Vladimir Putin dying?
I've got Britain's former spy chief here who thinks he is.
And Ricky Gervais feels the heat, not that he'll care, but his comments on trans people, his jokes in a new Netflix special and the TikTok sensation.
A lot of TikTok tonight.
Giving cash to complete strangers.
Would you be next and why?
All coming up for one censor.
Just want to send our best wishes to Thomas Markle.
He's the estranged father of Meghan Markle and he's been rushed to hospital after suffering a large stroke, we're told.
He'd gone to hospital in California.
Wish Thomas a full and speedy recovery.
His propaganda machine portrayed him as a strong, fearless leader who rules Russia with an iron fist, but recent images of President Putin paint a rather different picture, a despotic dictator with a bloated face and reports he's riddled with cancer and Parkinson's disease.
Well, here's Putin meeting the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in February, hands trembling, feet shaking.
And here he is struggling to walk at Russia's Victory Day celebrations earlier this month.
Well, the former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Richard Dearlove, joins me now.
So, Richard, great to see you.
You are the real life M, aren't you?
Well, you were.
I was once.
C. C, not M. C, you were C. I'm so sorry.
Of course, you were higher up the up the chain.
A perfect person then to talk about what is going on with Ukraine because a lot of people are thinking the way to stop this is to get to Putin.
In your previous life, would you have been contemplating using a James Bond-like assassin to go in and take him out?
I don't think that would have been a practical approach to the problem, so no.
Would it not?
It's a serious question.
Well, it's a serious question.
Because I have mooted the idea of assassinating him as being the way to stop what is going on.
Do you think it would even if you're not?
We're not in a state of war with Russia at the moment, so that would not, in my view, be an option which the government could even consider.
Your belief is that Putin is sick and may not have long to live?
Yeah, my belief, well, take one look at him.
If it was your father, what would you think?
He was seriously ill.
I mean, the fact that he shook hands at that victory parade with the hand he doesn't use, I think is a clear indication that there's something fundamentally wrong.
I mean, let alone the other symptoms that he's showing.
Is it more dangerous for the world if he is, say, terminally ill with a cancer or something, and only he knows this and his medical team, is that more dangerous because it may encourage him to do something reckless?
Well, I think if he's seriously ill, his judgment may be impaired.
So you have a collision, as it were, between the geopolitics of Russia and its loss of Ukraine and Putin's health.
I think that's a pretty unsavoury combination of factors.
It's a very unsettling time at the moment for geopolitics.
You've got President Biden being quite forceful about Taiwan and what he may do, taking the American position to a slightly stronger place than it's been before, saying he would engage militarily.
We've obviously got Ukraine.
You've got all the issues with wheat and other produce now, potentially causing starvation, especially in Africa, Middle East.
These are worrying times, you know, massive inflation.
What do you make of it all?
You've been around the block, if you don't mind me saying, for a few decades.
Have you seen anything quite like this?
No, probably not.
We're living in a period of, you know, geopolitical.
Well, maybe we should call it crisis.
The pandemic's been probably the most disruptive event socially and to an extent politically since World War II.
And on top of that now, we have a major war on the European continent.
So let alone the other problems with the price of energy, the situation with China, we have a concatenation of crises, some larger than others.
But yes, it's highly problematic.
Does social media amplify all this in the sense that when you were running MI6, you dealt with all sorts of massive issues.
Are things actually worse now?
Or are they just amplified by the fact we have to do that?
Well, social media definitely exaggerates and amplifies the problem and let's say increases the level of social anxiety because the messages are broadcast so widely and to so many people.
But I mean I think the situation is genuinely worrying and difficult and you know we have a variety of apparently insoluble and difficult problems facing the government, facing any government, facing any nation state.
What's the thing you miss most about being C in MI6, running our spies?
And what's the thing you miss least?
Well I think being in a position where you know a lot about what's going on, I guess I could say I never really had a boring day at work in my life.
Not many people could say that.
It's a privilege to be at the center and to know what's going on.
Also slightly terrifying though, wasn't it?
Well the job is not for somebody who's of a nervous disposition.
Let's put it like that.
I think you need to be relatively calm in the way that you view crises which at any moment can sort of escalate in front of you.
What am I pleased about?
Well I think in a way I'm pleased that I'm not head of the service any longer.
I mean I was in it for a very long time and I think I did my bit and served my country.
I'm very proud of that.
What was the moment, if I could let you relive it again, what was the single most memorable moment for whatever reason of your tenure?
Oh I guess it has to be 9-11 and the events of 9-11.
And when that happened, I mean, when you're in that job, you must know this is now your world has completely changed, as so many did.
But were you able to stay calm even in a moment like that?
I think so.
Ask my colleagues and friends.
I think I had a reputation for remaining calm.
You also had a reputation for integrity.
If you had been caught as the boss of MI6 during a pandemic with severe lockdowns, hosting leaving parties, having a large number of your staff, 86 of them, getting fines from the police for having illegal lockdown breaking parties, would you have fallen on your sword and done the honourable thing?
I wouldn't have been in that position.
Right.
So what do you make of the fact that the Prime Minister was in that position?
I think I'm going to avoid comment on the prime minister.
Well, you don't have to sit on the fence anymore, Sir Richard.
Well, on that particular issue, I am going to sit on the fence.
But I mean, what I would say is that, you know, if you're in an organisation, particularly if you're leading an organisation like the Secret Intelligence Service, the issue of integrity is absolutely crucial.
So you wouldn't have put yourself in that position.
I mean, there's a picture coming out tonight from Pippa Crera from the Daily Mirror, and it's a picture of what is quite clearly a lavish amount of alcohol for a party.
I mean, there's just no denying it.
Do you think when we get told as the public, that's not a party, we're being taken for mugs, Sir Richard?
All I would say is if you're a lawyer, it's quite difficult to describe what they think is.
What a party is.
So I think that's my reply to that difficult question.
Final question for you.
Who should be the next James Bond after Daniel Craig?
And should it ever, ever be a woman?
I'm a traditionalist, and I think it should be a man because that's the way Ian Fleming conceived of the role.
Correct.
And so...
Who would you like to see do it next?
Well, I've looked at a list of the candidates, and my pick would be, and I'm not an expert.
No, no.
But if I was...
Actually, you are.
Well, I'm an expert for the role.
Yes.
I think the one who sits it best of the list, but I don't know all of them, is probably Tom Hiddleston.
Really?
Really?
Yeah.
I think he ruined it with the Taylor Swift Ocean t-shirt.
You know more about that than I do.
I'm an Idris Elba fan myself.
I think he'd be a cracking boy.
Well, he would be good.
I agree.
Yeah, but it's got that sort of steely charm.
Well, you need steely charm.
I did actually pitch myself to Barbara Broccoli only three months ago.
It would have been rather...
I saw the big leap from Piers Brosnan to Piers Morgan, isn't it?
I mean, let's be honest.
Well, maybe they should have a real C as M.
Yes.
Why not?
A great idea, Sir Richard.
So why don't you suggest that Sir Richard DeLoff, what a pleasure.
Nice to meet you.
Very nice.
Thank you very much for joining me.
Let's get to Wimbledon Gate because there's a big scandal brewing as we run towards the Wimbledon Championships because there will be no ranking points now to play for after the Wimbledon organisers decided to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes.
Well, Frenchman Lucas Poul became the first top player to declare he won't play in the world's most prestigious tennis tournament.
Naomi Osaka has publicly come forward and said she may not either, saying it would be pointless.
I'm sure someone else would probably take her place, but it's clearly a tournament now in turmoil.
It's kind of like, I don't want to say pointless, no pun intended, but like I'm the type of player that gets motivated by like seeing my ranking go up or like, you know, stuff like that.
I think the intention was really good, but the execution is kind of all over the place.
Joining me to discuss all this is 18 times Grand Slim tennis champion Martina and they rattle over.
Martina, thank you for joining me.
We did discuss this a few weeks ago, didn't we?
And things have really escalated now where it's becoming this massive furore.
I've got to say, since we last spoke, I think I shared your view then that punishing individuals seemed the wrong way to punish Putin.
But I then interviewed Vladimir Klitschko, the Ukrainian boxer, last week, and he said this to me: The war is going on.
They cannot participate at the next Olympic Games.
They cannot participate in any athletic events because this war is represented by Russia.
So Atlas representing Russia.
And there's definitely connection.
I've got to say that when I listened to him speaking so powerfully, he did slightly sway me.
I've got to be honest, because I can just imagine a situation where a Russian tennis star ends up winning a Wimbledon trophy and has it presented to him or her by the Duchess of Cambridge, for example.
What a PR bonanza that would be for Vladimir Putin right now.
And something that we, I just don't think as a country, could tolerate that kind of scenario unfurling.
So I'm not sure that Wimbledon have had a lot of choice given the pressure from the UK government to do this.
Sure, I understand so much where the players and people in the Ukraine are coming from.
100%.
I can still relate to this.
I am thinking there's a big difference between team events and individual events.
And also you have Russian and Belarusian players on team sports.
For example, Alexei Ovichkin playing for the Washington Capitals in the NHL.
Not a peep out of anybody that he should not be playing for that team.
Plus, he's a massive supporter of Vladimir Putin on top of that.
So you have a player like Rublev who has disowned the war.
He had written on the camera, no to war, yet he can't play.
So it's just, you look, there is no winning situation here.
And now you have a controversial decision.
If it was the right thing, I think we would not be so ambivalent about it both ways.
So there's just no good way out of it.
Bad situation, of course, horrible situation with the war, bad situation with Wimbledon making this rule.
And now another kind of iffy decision not giving the points.
But you just try to make the best out of a horrible situation.
If you were still playing, Martina, at the top of your game, and may even be in the running, as you were, of course, many times to win a Wimbledon title.
What would you have done?
If the points weren't there to be won, would you have taken a view like Naomi Osaka and said, well, actually, in that case, I'm not going to play?
Would you have taken a principled stand in support of Russian and Belarusian tennis players?
What would your view have been, do you think?
No, I would, well, first of all, I could care less that there were no points given because I always play for the trophies, not the points and not the money.
So for me, it was Wimbledon and nothing else.
And everything else came in second.
So the points were this is not an exhibition.
I don't understand that view that players wouldn't play because there are no points.
So you're playing for computer ranking.
I just wanted to hold that trophy, that wonderful, wonderful Venus Rostish.
So it's, you know, there is no good way out of this, but I don't understand the players that say they don't want to play because of points.
This is why you're playing tennis to get points onto the computer and see your ranking going up or down or whatever.
I could have cared less.
When I won Wimbledon, I didn't know that I became number one.
I learned that in the press conference when they told me, by the way, you're number one.
I'm like, oh, great.
That's just cherry on the cake.
I mean, Naomi Osaka, I've got to say, barely a week goes by without Naomi Osaka whining about something.
She's just got all her priorities wrong.
Should she go back to just wanting to win big trophies and keep quiet?
Well, it's kind of nice if you can walk away from a potential, what, 2 million pound payday?
Most people don't have that luxury.
But I just don't understand that mentality.
And I would like to sit down with her and just tell her about the history of Wundlane.
And the Russian players, Belarusian players, this was never, wouldn't even occur to her that she would not play if they were playing and points weren't taken away.
So I don't understand that mentality, but there's a lot of things that I don't understand these days.
Well, I think if they all had your winning mentality, trust me, they win a lot more tournaments because you were one of the all-time greats.
Martina, let me ask you just about another ongoing raging issue that you've been vocal about, you've been attacked over.
I want to know what your feelings are about it now, but this whole issue of trans athletes in women's sport is not going away.
If anything, it's gathering momentum and ferocity.
You know, when you try and discuss it in public, as you found, as I've found, as others have found, however fair and tolerant you try and be in the way you talk about it, there is just fury that erupts.
Where are we with this debate and where should we be trying to get to?
Well, this insistence on not just being accepted, but allowed to compete in sports when clearly we have categories in sports for a reason, by weight, by sex.
And when it comes to sports, it's about biology, not about identity.
And the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union in America, has gone as far as saying that trans women should be accepted into women's sports with no mitigation whatsoever.
Trans Community Jokes and Censorship 00:11:59
We don't care about testosterone, nothing else.
It's all about how you feel and you have to be accepting and welcoming.
And clearly, that would be the end of women's sports because there are enough trans women now where they would take over women's sports if there is no mitigation.
And what we have really found, I have done a lot of studying on this, is that once men had boys hit puberty, become men, it's impossible to mitigate that advantage that is automatic given for male bodies, biological males.
Is it as damaging?
I mean, people have called this.
Let me just say, I accept trans people for who they are in normal society.
But when it comes to sports, it's about biology.
And we have to draw the line there.
There's no other way around it.
To me, it's not as willful as other forms of cheating, but it has the same effect.
You know, I don't blame the trans athletes if they're allowed to do this.
It's legal as things stand.
But it has the same effect as doping and other forms of cheating, doesn't it?
Well, testosterone, you know, there's a reason why we limit testosterone for women athletes.
We're not allowed to take testosterone to get stronger.
That's what you had in the 70s and 80s when the East Germans and Soviets, frankly, were taking testosterone up to wazoo and winning.
Women, biological women, had no chance against doped-up women like that.
And trans women have a lot more testosterone naturally.
Even if they start taking those drugs and lower the levels, the effects are still there.
The muscle mass, the lung capacity, of course, the skeleton doesn't change.
All of that.
It's just not possible to mitigate that advantage.
You know what?
It's just the bottom line, it's just not fair.
And I've followed you about this.
You've been so rational and calm and fair-minded about it.
But it's not going away.
It's got to be dealt with or women's sport will just get destroyed.
Martina, brilliant to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot.
Wants to common sense in that debate.
Well, I'm sensitive next is Ricky DeVeis jokes about trans people in his new Netflix special.
He, of course, has been immediately attacked by the canceled culture mob.
Is it right for comedians to be able to tell jokes about the trans community?
Discussing that after the break.
Welcome back to Pittsburgh Glass Census.
Well, this didn't take long.
Within hours of Ricky Gervais' hilarious new Netflix special being released, the canceled culture mob is trying to finish him off, claiming that his jokes about the trans community are hurtful and damaging.
I love the new women.
I know the new women.
They're great, aren't they?
You know, the new ones we've been seeing lately.
The ones with beards and they're as good as...
They're as good as gold.
I love them.
No, it's the old fashioned.
And now the old fashioned...
They're going to go, oh, they want to use our toilets.
Why shouldn't they use your toilets?
For ladies, they are ladies.
Look at their pronouns.
What about this person that isn't a lady?
Well, his penis.
Her penis, bigot.
Well, joining me now is the filmmaker, writer and actor, John Waters, and trans comedian Dahlia Bell.
So welcome to both of you.
Dahlia, let me start with you.
I watched the whole Ricky Gervais Netflix special and it was outrageous.
It was very funny.
It was controversial.
It was laugh out loud and shocking.
But ultimately, it was comedy.
What do you think?
Is that a question or just your opinion?
It's my verdict on the thing.
I just wondered whether, A, have you seen the whole thing or are you reacting just to the clips that have gone round Twitter today?
Yeah, so I haven't gotten a chance to see the full thing yet.
Unfortunately, only the clips, which just aren't funny.
It's more a matter of boredom for me than anything else, though.
Right.
I mean, let me ask you, though, do you find any jokes about the trans community funny?
Or do you believe that they should?
Absolutely.
I'd be trying to struggle.
If I was to tell a trans joke now, would you laugh if it was funny?
If it was well written and it was funny, then absolutely.
You see, this is my problem, John, because I don't think that that is true.
Because whenever I've tried to have fun with the trans community about any of these issues, all hell breaks is.
I had a trans activist on last week trying to talk about some of these issues and was screamed down and abuse helled at me and so on.
What do you feel about this?
I mean, is Ricky Gervais, Dave Chappelle, these guys doing this stuff on Netflix?
Are they crossing a line or is there not a line for comedians?
Should they be allowed to effectively mock any community?
Well, here's how I get it.
I get it.
You know, it's a straight guy making trans jokes.
And trans people, I get why they're angry.
They get murdered.
You know, there's nowhere to go to the bathroom when they're out.
But I think I can make jokes about.
I have in my new book, a dog that believes he is trapped in the body of a cat and starts living the life of surprise with a Z and the other pets accept him except for his facelift that because she's had a facelift that makes her look kind of the wind tunnel look like Joan Crawford.
So yes, I think you can, but maybe if it's a straight guy, ask Eddie Lizard what he thinks.
Right, Eddie, yeah.
I mean, Eddie would probably say he could laugh.
I want to play another clip to you if I can, Dahlia.
This is also from the Ricky Gervais Netflix special.
It's about why he feels he should tell trans jokes.
I talk about AIDS, famine, cancer, the holocaust, rape, paedophilia.
But no, the one thing you mustn't joke about is identity policy.
One thing you should never joke about is the trans issue.
They just want to be treated equally.
I agree.
That's why I include them.
Now, you are a trans comedian, right?
Is he right?
Is he right to say if you're going to be genuinely inclusive, Dahlia, then you should include everyone and everything?
As long as you're original and creative with it, then sure, why not?
Yeah, I mean, that to me is the bottom line.
You know, when I watch the whole special and I know how Gervais works, a lot of the humor is poking fun at people and the way they go about having these debates.
It's not designed to be malicious.
He says in the special, he fully supports trans rights.
I've seen trans comedians coming up on Twitter today saying he's always been very supportive.
I don't think he's got a transphobic bone in his body.
And yet within hours of this special being released, he's being bombarded with abuse and people trying to cancel him for being transphobic.
And don't they have every right to be offended and say they don't like a joke?
Well, they do.
They don't have any right to cancel it.
They don't like.
And if they don't like it, then I rewrite the joke.
Who's been cancelled?
Well, no, no.
Give me an example of one comic that's actually canceled.
I will give you an exact example of someone.
Literally sexually assaulted women.
I'm not defending that.
Here's what I would say to you.
Dave Chappelle, as you know, was nearly cancelled from Netflix by an internal uprising by Netflix.
I've hates $60 million.
I feel so bad for him.
It wasn't successful, but you do know there are attempts to cancel people like Chappelle, like Ricky Gervais.
I just wonder whether you as a trans comedian...
I'm still saying they don't like things.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah, but there's a difference between saying you don't find something funny or even that you find the defensive.
Of course you can do that.
But you shouldn't have to then cancel people or demand they lose their jobs.
That to me is a line where free speech gets trashed.
Except that we also have free speeches that say that we don't think someone should have a job.
All right, John, come in there.
So I think it's much easier.
Like, I don't do a lot of black jokes.
I'm not black.
I don't do a lot of Jewish jokes.
I'm not Jewish.
It really helps if you are the minority that's making the joke about minority.
But I do believe that everything is fair and comedy is a cliff you walk in.
When I was young, the censors were against any kind of nudity.
And the censors today on the other side come in if you make a movie and someone's nude, they have an intimacy coach where you have to put a fake vagina over the vagina if anybody's going to have lunch downtown because then you're not touching the real thing.
So it is confusing.
Dahlia, last word to you, because I do think I do want to have respect for the trans community.
I don't want to expose the trans community to any bigotry or hatred.
But I do think that part of the way through all this is for everyone to perhaps have a same sense of humor that perhaps you do about it, actually.
Perhaps.
I think everyone's entitled to approach it as they see fit.
Well, let's leave it there.
Because I happen to agree with you.
John, would you agree with that?
Are there any trans comedians?
I'm trying to think of, I know a lot of gay comedians.
You know, that's what I don't get.
We all used to be in this together.
Gay, drag queens, trans, everybody all together.
Now we're fighting with each other.
I think we should all just scare straight people.
I try to.
If I'm ever at an office party and I see a straight guy like sucking down an oyster, I tell him, that's what it's like, you know, just to make people nervous.
I think gays, trans, I mean, we should just gather together and make people nervous.
I like that.
There's actually a funny bit in Gervais's special where he talks about being a minority because he's a white, middle-aged, multi-millionaire.
It's a funny sketch.
Anyway, listen, thank you both very much to John Walters, to Dahlia Bell.
It's a good debate, and hopefully we can keep laughing.
That's the most important thing.
Well, Aunt Sen said next, find out why a hand-painted rainbow house dedicated to the LGBT community isn't enough for the woke mob.
My world's gone nuts is after the break.
Well, the BBC was reporting on the French Open today when they ran this clip.
Keynes viewers would have noticed the ticker declaring Manchester United are rubbish and weather rain everywhere.
Two pretty accurate statements, to be honest, but they nonetheless did one of their hand-wringingly dropping apologies.
Someone was training to learn how to use the ticker and to put text on the ticker.
So they were just writing random things, not in earnest.
And that comment appeared.
So apologies if you saw that and you were offended and you're a fan of Manchester United, but certainly that was, you know, a mistake.
Relax.
I wasn't remotely offended.
It does rain all the time in Manchester and United are rubbish right now.
Cristiano Ronaldo accepted.
The BBC should just employ people to do their jobs better.
We'd never make a mistake like that here.
Now we talked about it earlier.
Ricky Gervais said, I want to live long enough to see the younger generation not be woken up for the next generation.
Well, we didn't have to wait long.
It never matters how hard you try to signal your virtue.
It'll never be enough.
This guy from Alberta in Canada painted his house in the colours of the LGBT flag.
Took him 25 hours, but apparently it wasn't enough.
A group of self-described racial educators said, they're the old colours.
You need the new ones.
It's never enough, folks.
So don't bother virtue signalling.
That's it for tonight.
Remember, whatever you do, keep it uncensored.
Good night.
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