Uncensored - Piers Morgan - 20220706_piers-morgan-uncensored-boris-johnson-refuses-to-r

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July 6, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan

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Boris Johnson Must Go 00:01:39
	Good evening of Piers Morgan uncensored.
	Tonight Boris Johnson must go.
	The greased piglet of politics has slipped and squirmed through almost three disastrous years of disorder and deceit.
	38 resignations in two days have butchered his government and tonight surely nothing can now save his bacon.
	Good evening on Piers Morgan on Censored looking at live pictures over Downing Street where, well, Boris is hiding, lurking, refusing to go.
	Welcome to a special two-hour program as Boris Johnson's government explodes, implodes, whatever you want to call it.
	It's one hell of a mess tonight.
	Well, of all the latest from the harder Westminster.
	The Prime Minister's political career could end as early as this evening.
	In fact, by the end of his programme, Britain could be looking for a new leader.
	It certainly should be.
	For another devastating day of tension and treachery in British politics, one very simple question rang out to me and it came from one of his own Conservative MPs this afternoon.
	Does the Prime Minister think there are any circumstances in which he should resign?
	It's a great question, isn't it, Prime Minister?
	What exactly would it take for you to do the honourable thing and quit?
	Why haven't you done that?
	Are there any circumstances in which you would think you should give up your job and put the country before yourself?
	Tonight you lie in your Downing Street sty, refusing to go, behaving like the very greasy piglet the Daily Mail put on its front page last night.
Why Haven't You Quit 00:12:49
	But this is the charge sheet against you as our Prime Minister.
	You lied to the Queen.
	You unlawfully suspended Parliament over Brexit.
	You stood by your closest advisor, Dominic Cummings, when he brazenly broke lockdown laws.
	You boasted about shaking hands in hospitals as COVID-19 began to ravage Britain.
	181,000 people in this country died from the virus on your watch.
	You spent £112,000 refurbishing your own Downing Street flat and you lied about who paid for it.
	You refused to sack your friend Owen Patterson after he was caught lobbying for companies he worked for.
	You lied to Parliament about 18 illegal lockdown busting parties inside Downing Street.
	You yourself were fined by the police for attending one of those parties, breaking the very lockdown laws you made.
	You squirmed your way through a confidence vote after 148 of your own MPs demanded you go.
	Then you lied about appointing a man accused of sexual assault to serve in your government.
	And that's your story, isn't it, Boris Johnson?
	Cheat, creep, cave, repeat.
	But this little piglet may be finally running out of Greece.
	Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid began the exodus with their dramatic resignations last night.
	Boris Johnson's faced more ministerial resignations in the past 24 hours than any Prime Minister in British political history.
	A staggering 38 members of Johnson's government have quit and that maybe have changed in the last few seconds.
	It's happening so quickly.
	But still Boris hangs on.
	The opposition leader Sakir Starmer put the first nails in his political coffin, Johnson's, at Prime Minister's questions this afternoon.
	Mr Speaker, isn't this the first recorded case of the sinking ships fleeing the rat?
	As for those who are left, only in office because no one else is prepared to debase themselves any longer, the charge of the lightweight brigade.
	Devastating stuff and Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson's health secretary until last night, lowered the coffin into the ground.
	I have concluded that the problem starts at the top and I believe that is not going to change.
	And that means that it is for those of us in a position who have responsibility to make that change.
	More and more of Boris Johnson's allies are now dancing on his political grave.
	One in five members of the government have walked out.
	Michael Gove is demanding he goes.
	Grant Schapps, the minister for defending the indefensible when it comes to the Prime Minister, is demanding he goes.
	Even Priddy Patel tonight, the Home Secretary, one of his most loyal cabinet ministers, is now demanding he goes.
	Senior MPs like Liam Fox, who have no government post to resign from, are demanding he goes.
	Some of these MPs now deserting Boris Johnson probably have their eyes on prime places in the new government, perhaps one led by Sunak or Javid.
	Some of them are facing hostility from the people who elected them.
	Voters, tired of scandal after scandal, lie after lie.
	All of them agree on one thing.
	Boris Johnson is now unfit to lead this country.
	Yet still, tonight, he clings on.
	Desperately, he says it's business as usual.
	The job of a Prime Minister in difficult circumstances when he's been handed a colossal mandate is to keep going.
	And that's what I'm going to do.
	Actually, it's not.
	It's not, Prime Minister.
	Actually, the time has come for you to get going.
	Straight after your smirking bluster at Prime Minister's questions, you faced another pounding at the liaison committee.
	And even as you sat there soaking up that shellacking, a cabal of your own ministers was steaming into Downing Street, waiting to tell you it's over.
	Like Joe Pesci and Goodfellas, you were the only one who didn't know you were about to be whacked.
	Even Nadeem Sahawi, the man that you appointed Chancellor last night, was lurking behind the door, sharpening his political knife just 24 hours after you promoted him.
	Let's face it, Boris.
	You're a zombie Prime Minister staggering on as the rotting leader of a living, dead government.
	You've bandaged the wounds by offering seats at the cabinet table to anybody prepared to take them.
	But the British people have had enough.
	And it's their agonised moans tonight that should really cut through to you.
	They have had enough.
	All the polls show they've had enough.
	Your own MPs have had enough.
	Your own ministers have had enough.
	Why haven't you had enough yet?
	It's over.
	Tonight, we'll have all the breaking news of Boris Johnson, all the analysis.
	But there are still, unbelievably, there are still some people who still support him.
	What's happening in there, Mr. Reesmark?
	Well, I've been working in the cabinet office.
	The Prime Minister doesn't go.
	I don't have big trade off.
	Is he going to resign by the Prime Minister?
	Well, you're looking at number 10 Downing Street.
	We've got our chopper up there looking down over a pretty grim, dark, funereal scene, isn't it?
	As it should be, as befits the beginning of the end of the British Prime Minister.
	The only question tonight is why hasn't he gone?
	What more will it take to force Boris Johnson out of there?
	And frankly, if, as some people are suggesting, he has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the street, well, I'm prepared to perform my civic duty and do that task for my country.
	Talk TV's political editor, Kate McCann, joins me now live.
	Kate, I mean, one question.
	Why hasn't he gone?
	What's he waiting for?
	How much worse can it get?
	Well, I can tell you directly, Piers, that sources close to the Prime Minister say that he will fight on.
	And the reason for that, to answer your question, is that the Prime Minister believes that, first off, he's been given a significant mandate by the country.
	Essentially, they voted him in in such huge numbers such a short time ago that he feels really the only people who should have the ability to remove him from office are those people, the country.
	Now, that's why the prospect of an early general election has been on the lips of everyone here in Parliament today.
	It's why the PM was pushed at the liaison committee to rule it out.
	But there's another reason.
	The Prime Minister, in those meetings with cabinet ministers tonight, they've been in and out of Downing Street all night long, has been warning them, look, if you try and get rid of me now, you face a summer of talk about a leadership election.
	We will not be focusing on the economy.
	We will not be focusing on Ukraine.
	This is the worst possible moment for it.
	And what you could let in into Downing Street, this is his warning, is a coalition of the Labour Party and the SNP, the Scottish National Party.
	That's what Boris Johnson is saying to his cabinet ministers tonight is the reason that he intends to fight on.
	He is not going anywhere.
	Now, the problem, Piers, is that a lot of those cabinet ministers, and we'll come to the other group, there's two groups in there tonight, remember, we'll come to the supportive ones in a minute.
	The group who've gone in there to get rid of him, they've not resigned yet, but they leave that hanging over his head.
	And there is a realisation, even among the Prime Minister's allies, that if he intends to stick it out, and if he comes out defiantly and says, no way am I leaving office, that could trigger another range of resignations from top cabinet-level jobs.
	If he gets to that point, it's really difficult to see how he continues.
	And of course, that's before we even talk about what the 1922 committee might try and do next week after they've held their leadership election on Monday.
	I mean, look, the bottom line is he's gone.
	He's toast.
	He's like the old Monty Pyther thing.
	He's kicking up the daisies.
	He's an ex-Prime Minister.
	He just hasn't got the memo yet.
	What is he waiting for?
	I don't get it.
	It's so humiliating.
	And is he literally waiting for someone to drag him out?
	I think he genuinely believes what he's saying to his cabinet colleagues.
	You know, I saw him today in Prime Minister's questions.
	I was watching from the public gallery.
	He was buoyant.
	He looked, I have to say, like he was enjoying it.
	He enjoys being in a difficult situation up against it.
	This is a man who genuinely believes that what he's doing is the right thing for the country.
	And even more than that, he thinks that the electorate agree with him.
	Now, there is no way of testing that.
	You can do lots of different polls.
	They'll tell you lots of different things.
	The only way to test that is a general election.
	And he believes, against Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, he's still the man for the job.
	The second reason, Piers, is that other group of senior cabinet ministers that I mentioned, they're in Downing Street tonight, too.
	People like Nadine Dorries, people like Jacob Reese Mogg, maybe even Nadeem Zahawi, who are trying to figure out if there's a way to shore him up and then if there's a way to keep the government together even if Boris Johnson goes.
	My understanding is he thinks he's got enough support in the cabinet to sustain himself.
	He believes that he's got enough ministers who will back him even through this rocky time, even despite what could happen on Monday.
	So he thinks he can still continue in position.
	The big question is with all of the resignations he's had, and you mentioned more than anyone else, it's actually a record.
	Can he replace those people with credible ministers?
	That's a question tonight we still don't have an answer to.
	Kate, do you know, finally, do you know General Custer's last words before he died?
	No, go on, tell me.
	They'll never hit us from...
	That was it.
	He never got to finish the sentence.
	Looking at the enemy on the brow of the hill.
	They'll never hit us from...
	That was it.
	Kate McCann, we'll be back to you later on.
	Thank you very much.
	Brush up and custer in the meantime, and I'll be back to you later.
	Well, I'm joined now in the studio by talk TV host Julia Hartley Brewer, political economist Emily Sheffield, and the sons look to Trevor Kavanagh.
	I'd call you Trevor MacDonald there because you're such a doy in the television news and newspaper news.
	Trevor Cavanagh, you've covered so many of these crises.
	It is tempting sometimes to overblow things, but I just look at this situation in totality and think this is over, isn't it?
	You can't overblow this.
	I mean, I think Emily summed it up brilliantly.
	Boris is toast, or in the case of his slippery pig, Bacon.
	And I think that it's a matter of hours, not days.
	How can he hang on when half the cabinet is sitting there waiting for him to arrive to tell him to go?
	You've got the 1922 committee executive ready to change the rules and force another contest.
	And you, I mean, the idea of a general election, as we discussed last night, is for the birds because the Queen wouldn't have it, I don't think.
	But when you've even got Nadeem Zahawi, the guy he promoted last night to Chancellor, when he apparently is leading the charge of the cabinet assassins.
	I mean, surely at some point you wake up and smell the cappuccino, don't you?
	Well, you have to admire Nadeem Zahawi.
	Yes.
	It's like Game of Thrones.
	He's an absolutely ruthless operator.
	Yes.
	He went in and demanded a job rather than let someone else like Liz Truss take it.
	Took the job, one of the four major departments, which gives him the qualifications of a head of the Treasury for the job.
	And then demanded it.
	So, I mean, now he's plotting to get rid of the man who gave it to him.
	I mean, it is unbelievable.
	Emily, what do you make of this?
	I mean, you're a columnist.
	What's your next column going to say?
	My next column's actually going to talk about who's next going to be Prime Minister.
	I think we just not talking about Boris Torrey.
	Well, the Spectator, which is Boris's former magazine, The Spectator, tonight has after Boris as a headline on the front.
	They've already moved on.
	No, he's gone.
	I'm sorry.
	I think it'll be tonight.
	And if it's not tonight, it's going to be tomorrow morning.
	And, you know, maybe I'll be proved wrong.
	But what cabinet has he got to put together?
	He's got no one to support him.
	Someone gave a very good tweet earlier today and said, well, it's going to be Dylan the dog, Carrie, and Larry the...
	No, because Larry, Larry doesn't do that.
	He'll be outside amusing people, probably cleaning his bits in front of the cameras, which is what he normally does.
	There is no serious way forward.
	And I just don't think it's weird because he's not looking at his legacy.
	And most prime ministers are quite obsessed with their legacy.
	I really, everyone's always said, including me, he will be dragged out and we'll see the scratch marks on that black door.
	Absolutely.
	But we really are going to see the scratch marks.
	And he is, he is, his reputation is ruined now.
	Everyone said he's going to make loads of money from speeches.
	Well, fine.
	But he goes not as a man defeated by policy or an economic situation.
	It is his own character that has been wrecked.
	So his legacy is appalling.
	Right.
	So Julia, that's a really interesting point, isn't it?
	Is that this is a guy, it's extraordinary speed that he has collapsed here because he came in with this thumping majority.
	I remember being at a Christmas party.
	Trevor, you were there too.
	December 2019, a few days after the election.
Reputation Ruined Forever 00:02:55
	And they were so celebratory, Boris and his team, at this gigantic victory they'd won.
	And it seemed like they were almost omnipotent.
	They could do what they liked for the next four years.
	Here we are, two and a half years later, and it's collapsed in complete ignominy.
	Well, they say a week is a long time in politics.
	Two and a half years is a lifetime, isn't it?
	But this is Mr. Unconventional, and everything he's done, whether it's becoming a Tory mayor of a Labour city in London twice, and then leaving politics, going back, and everything he's done in his personal life as well, it's been unconventional.
	So what a surprise that this is the man that doesn't obey convention when it happens.
	I mean, he's making sort of the downfall of Gordon Brown and Theresa May look like acts of class and perfection, doesn't it?
	Well, someone said, I hope he can leave with a shred of dignity.
	I'm like, that ship sailed a long time ago.
	There's no dignity left on it.
	On my breakfast show this morning, I was talking about how he was hanging on by his last fingernail.
	I think all day he has basically been flying down through the air into the grand.
	Well, the dotted mail's front page last night made me chuckle because he had the greasy piglet headline.
	I think we've got it here.
	He is the greased piglet.
	I mean, we had a little piglet in here earlier.
	Very charming little fellow it was too.
	But the point of the greased piglet being that he always manages somehow to slip away.
	This is where you need to get into his psyche.
	Because you think, why does he think he could survive this?
	Because he's survived everything before.
	He always thinks he's going to get around this.
	Whatever it is, he can talk his way out of it.
	He appeared at the liaison committee, two hours of having conversations with MPs, select committee chairs, in which he was discussing, yes, I'll organise that meeting.
	Yes, we need to talk about what's happening on that policy.
	And everybody in that room and everybody watching was sitting there thinking, you're not going to be Prime Minister in a few days.
	Trevor, I've been told by sources, good sources, that inside Downing Street, it's funereal tonight.
	A lot of tears, a lot of raised voices, a lot of people either trying to console him, others telling him he's got to go, a lot of fracture stuff going down.
	What are you hearing?
	Well, pretty much the same thing.
	And it reminds me very much of the last days of Margaret Thatcher when she consulted her cabinet and found that none of them wanted her to say, apart from Michael Portillo.
	And this is the same.
	And I think that it is a blood-letting process.
	I mean, what happened in the liaison committee, as Julia was saying, was an absolute horror to watch.
	It was someone being flayed alive.
	It was surreal.
	And yet he seemed to be enjoying it.
	I mean, there was a laugh on his face as he was going through.
	And Prime Minister's questions.
	He seemed, as indeed Margaret Thatcher did on her final day.
	Politics does send a lot of people nuts.
	It looked to me like he's actually, he's got a bit nuts.
	I mean, to be enjoying your own death in this way is a bizarre.
	It's what makes them alive.
	They're addicted to the danger.
	And he loves all of that.
	Look, the only thing missing in number 10 right now, two groups of cabinet ministers, one lot saying, stay, Prime Minister, stay, because I won't have a job if you go.
	And the other side saying, mate, it's time to leave.
	The only thing missing is that Willie suitcase full of booze, which someone should have gotten.
Politics Sends People Nuts 00:15:48
	Well, you can at least have a legal leaving party.
	Let's bring in Talk TV contributor Adam Bolton, who's down in the cesspit of Westminster tonight.
	Adam, so what are you hearing?
	What's going to happen?
	Will he go tonight?
	It seems very unlikely.
	He can't be physically forced to do it.
	And he is telling everyone that he's not going to go, that the choice for the party is either a summer talking about itself or a summer dealing with the crisis.
	But, you know, you've been talking a lot about his demeanour and the fact that he seems to be enjoying this.
	And I think he is.
	And that is because Boris Johnson is a supreme narcissist.
	His whole career has not been about doing anything.
	It's being about Boris Johnson being the centre of attention.
	And once again, Boris Johnson is absolutely the centre of the attention.
	So I think if you were a betting person now, it would be that the parliamentary party is going to have to winkle out Boris Johnson.
	We know that the chairman of the 1922, Sir Graham Brady, has been in Downing Street as well.
	And probably they are going to have to go through the vote of their membership, followed by a vote to change the rules, followed by a confidence vote, which on the basis of what we've heard from conservatives.
	What happens if he would lose?
	What happens if tomorrow morning Gove resigns, Pretty Patel resigns, Grant Chaps resigns, because they've had the conversation, you've got to go, we're going Resign, he doesn't go and they all resign.
	You can't have a government with no cabinet.
	Well, presumably, Nadine Zahawi would resign as well, so he might get into the Guinness Book of Records.
	Shortest Chancellor.
	But theoretically, there is nothing constitutional to say that the Prime Minister could say, Well, I'm going to go on.
	I still believe I can command the confidence of my party, and I'm going to go on until that vote takes place.
	I mean, that's the possibility.
	And what's beginning to worry people now is that if we do get into the period of waiting for the 1922 committee to hold its vote of confidence, that in the meantime, he could say, Oh, by the way, I think I'll beetle off to see the Queen and see if we can have a general election, because as he always keeps saying, he got this massive mandate in the 2019 election.
	The point is, this is not, well, we all know this now, don't we?
	This is not a politician who plays by the rules.
	It's all about.
	Although it would be truly ironic if the Queen, as I think she did with Margaret Thatcher, she gave a kind of suggestion, your time's up.
	If she was to be the one that pulled the trigger on Boris, maybe refusing to let him have a snap election and said, I think it's time you went.
	You know, I remember, I think the most damaging image of his entire premiership, frankly, was the Queen on her own in the church at Prince Philip's funeral and the discovery later that there were two illicit Downing Street parties going on till the early hours the night before.
	I think that image has come back to haunt him again and again with the British public.
	It would be ironic and perhaps very fitting if it was Her Majesty who called time on Boris Johnson.
	Adam, stay there.
	We'll be back with you later on the show.
	We're extended two-hour edition of Piers Morgan and Centre tonight.
	A lot of drama again tonight.
	Will Boris go?
	Will he try and hang on?
	Will there be more resignations tonight?
	We're seeing a lot of the very big beasts in the cabinet jungle turn on him even in the last few minutes.
	Pretty patel.
	Who would have thought it?
	She's the Judas Iscariot of the operation.
	We'll come back with this after the break.
	Well, welcome back.
	Another dramatic night in British politics.
	Will Boris Johnson hang on or could he go as early as tonight as British Prime Minister?
	Well, the SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford joins me now from the very heart of Westminster's and central lobby there.
	Mr. Blackford, one question.
	Is Boris Johnson going to remain Prime Minister more than a few hours?
	Well, that remains to be seen, Piers.
	He should have gone by now.
	And the fact that so many ministers have gone today, the fact that so many of his cabinet have gone and told him to go, he needs to do the decent thing.
	He can't cling on here.
	In the end, he will be forced out.
	The 1922 committee, I know, will do its job.
	But where is the self-respect and the dignity of a Prime Minister that's lost the confidence of the House of Commons, lost the confidence of his own MPs?
	There is no dignity to this.
	He really ought to do the decent thing, or ultimately he's going to be dragged out the place screaming and kicking.
	It's not an edifying sight, to say the least.
	What do you think of this extraordinary situation when Nadeem Zahawi is promoted to Chancellor last night and now appears to be leading the cabinet coup against the Prime Minister?
	I think there's so many things that have gone on over the last few years, Piers, that we wouldn't have anticipated that you think, how on the earth did that happen?
	And this is just the latest in that.
	But, you know, if these ministers don't have confidence in Boris Johnson, they've got a duty to resign.
	They shouldn't be sitting around that cabinet table.
	They need to make sure that the pressure is up by leaving office.
	This is a Prime Minister that no longer can fill the ministerial seats that he has.
	The government is having to pull bill committees tomorrow because they haven't got ministers to do them.
	It's a government that's no longer functioning.
	A phrase I used at Prime Minister's questions.
	He might be in office, but he's not in power.
	This has to be brought to an early end.
	We're in the middle of a crisis.
	We've got the cost of living crisis.
	We've got the war in Ukraine.
	And I regret that we weren't talking about these things today.
	We should have been, because this is all about Boris.
	He's the problem.
	He needs to go and he needs to show that he can actually be a big man and recognise for him that the game is up.
	His time is up.
	What if he just simply refuses to go?
	What if he says no?
	Sorry.
	And if you do try and change the rules to get rid of me, I'm not going to.
	What if he pulls a Donald Trump?
	I'm just not going to accept it.
	Sorry.
	And what do we do?
	Well, we know this is the man that doesn't play by the rules.
	And let's not forget that this is a man that pro-rogue Parliament.
	He shut down Parliament.
	He was found guilty in the highest court of the land.
	So we know that he is prepared to crash the bus.
	We know he's prepared to do anything.
	You know, first and foremost, I think Tory MPs have got to do their job and I believe that they will do so.
	But if that doesn't prove to be successful, even if he loses a vote of no confidence and he tries to sit in at 10 Downing Street, then Parliament's got to come together and place a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister and do it that way.
	He can't be allowed to stay.
	We're besmirching our democracy with all the things that are going on.
	Who would have thought that we'd be having these conversations, Piers?
	It can't be allowed to continue.
	Well, I've had friends in America, I have to say, today, emailing me going, what the hell is going on with your country?
	What's happening?
	It looks like total chaos.
	And if an American's saying that right now, given the state of the United States, you know we've got a problem.
	Ian Bladford, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	My pleasure.
	I'm joined now by former aide to Boris Johnson, Lord Jonathan Marlin, a former Conservative MP, Rory Stewart.
	Lord Marland, if we go to Lord Marlon first, I think, if he's there.
	I'm here.
	Lord Marlon, I'm sorry.
	We're just trying to get you up on camera.
	I think we've got you coming now.
	We have.
	Lord Marland, you've always been a stoic defender of Boris Johnson, but even some of his really stoic defenders, like Pritty Patel, have now turned on him.
	Do you still offer your full support to Boris Johnson to stay as Prime Minister?
	Well, the first thing I couldn't work out was whether you thought he should go or not, Piers.
	You weren't very clear on that.
	I don't like to sit on the fence, Lord Marland.
	You know me.
	I'm a straight talker.
	I thought he should have gone for a long time.
	I take no pleasure, by the way.
	The word uncensored is brilliant.
	But look, I suspect what's going on is that Graham Brady is talking through the semantics.
	The real issue here, as your expert panel will attest, Parliament has two more weeks to just effectively two more weeks to go.
	How do they coalesce around a group of people who all want to be leaders of the party?
	So it's all very well.
	Boris resigns.
	There will then be five leadership campaigns.
	How can they select a leader when Parliament isn't sitting until September?
	So there's that period of a lame duck Prime Minister in actually an incredibly awkward time running the country with all these issues going on.
	So I suspect they'll be talking about that.
	And it will really be the semantics.
	You seem to be either suffering from poor hearing, Lord Marlon, or you didn't hear my question or you didn't want to hear my question, which was simply...
	Sorry, I obviously didn't hear your question.
	Well, let me say it a little slower and more clearly for you.
	Does the Prime Minister still hold your full support to stay as Prime Minister?
	It's a kind of yes or no thing, really.
	It's not a yes or no answer, I'm afraid, from the...
	No, he is.
	He either stays or he doesn't.
	No, no, it's not a yes or no.
	The answer is I'm irrelevant to this particular part of the equation because I am not an MP.
	I wouldn't have let it get to this stage at all as I was lucky enough to appear on your programme before and say so.
	This whole thing is a complete shambles.
	It should never have happened.
	It will cost the Conservative Party dear, this brutal bloodletting.
	And it should never have got to this point.
	And your previous commentator, Ian Blackford, could end up in a government with the Lib Dems and Labour.
	And that, of course, is a threat to the Conservative Party and to those ministers and MPs who are coming in to tell him to go.
	So they've got to balance that.
	All right, Lord Marlon, I'm going to try one more time.
	I'm going to put it down to your hearing issues.
	You're too clever for me to do that.
	Honestly, I'm not.
	I'm so irrelevant to this equation.
	I just simply ask you a very straightforward question.
	As one of Boris Johnson's most vocal and loyal supporters, is it time for those words et to Lord Marlon Bruto?
	Thank you very much.
	Look, I didn't want it to get to this point.
	It's entirely up to him whether he goes.
	He's not a complete fool, as you've tried to point out.
	He knows the reality, and I'm sure he will be considering his position overnight and will determine it tomorrow.
	So you think you should go?
	Good one, Piers.
	Thank you very much indeed.
	Lord Marlon, honestly, to be honest.
	I'm not a stupid person.
	I'm reading the language.
	Well, I'm not a stupid person.
	No one's ever said that.
	Just for some reason, you're not prepared to actually say you don't think you should carry on, are you?
	Because you're loyal.
	I get that.
	But you're silent.
	I'm not going to say not saying that the signal is golden.
	First and foremost, I'm a loyal Conservative.
	I don't want to see this happen.
	I don't like seeing the Conservative Party tear itself apart.
	A lot of people are behaving extremely badly, and it will cost us.
	Who do you think is behaving bad?
	I didn't like it.
	They didn't like it with Margaret Thatcher.
	It took us 16 years to recover.
	The first person who won an election after 16 years was Boris Johnson.
	Look, forgive me for a moment, but I would argue that Boris Johnson has behaved more badly than anybody else.
	Who do you think has been behaving badly in all this?
	Well, I never believe that people should go to the press and the media and air their dirty linen.
	If I have an issue with David Cameron or Theresa May or whoever, I will go and talk to them behind closed doors and make my position clear.
	Can you give me a few names of these traitors that you're talking about?
	Well, you've seen all the letters that have come out, all the public grandstanding that's happened over the last year.
	So Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid and all these people, to your mind, this is wrong.
	They shouldn't be doing it.
	I think they should be telling Boris behind closed doors that his position is no longer tenable and he should listen to them and consider his position.
	I think what has been done is not right.
	It is not good for the Conservative Party and the British public will not forgive us.
	And I'm sure experts like Mr. Kavanagh and others who have seen much more of this than I have will attest to that.
	Yeah, well, we'll see.
	I've tried hard.
	I'm going to leave it there, Lord Marlon.
	I'm going to keep back.
	You are a brilliant man, and I love your programme.
	And I'm so grateful for you having me on it.
	Well, you're exactly what the show is all about, uncensored, right to the point where you wouldn't give me a straight answer about Boris Johnson.
	But I love having you on as a guest.
	Lord Marlon, thank you very much for joining me.
	Very kind of you for having me on.
	Thanks so much.
	All the best.
	Well, I'm now joined by former Conservative MP Rory Stewart.
	No fan of Boris Johnson.
	Rory Stewart, thank you for joining me.
	My mother thinks you should be the next Prime Minister for what it's worth.
	That may be the kiss of death or the kiss of life for your political fortunes, but she does represent Middle England in a way, lives down in East Sussex.
	And, you know, mothers tend to know these things, Rory Stewart.
	So, A, do you want to be considered to run the Conservative Party?
	And secondly, what do you make of what's going on tonight with Boris Johnson?
	Well, I think practically, Piers, as you know, I'm being thrown out of the Conservative Party by Boris Johnson.
	I stood against him over the Node or Brexit and the program.
	But all bets are off now, aren't they?
	I mean, everything's changing very fast.
	You could be brought back in a heartbeat, and if you weren't brought back in a heartbeat, many people would think you should be running for James.
	I would be...
	That's very kind, Piers.
	I'd be honoured to serve the country in some way.
	I don't think I can run for leader at the moment.
	I'm not a member of the Conservative Party.
	I'm not an MP.
	But if a sensible, moderate party reformed itself without Boris Johnson, I'd be delighted to help and serve him any way I could.
	But I think the more practical thing at the moment, of course, is your big question is, when is this guy going to go?
	It's extraordinary.
	I mean, it's unbelievable.
	Over the last few months, there have been any number of things which any normal prime minister would take as the time to go.
	And he's somehow clung on, clung on through every kind of scandal, shame, the KGB, the wallpaper, the prorogation of parliament.
	And now he's losing ministers at a rate that literally, historically, nobody has ever lost this number of ministers in 24 hours.
	And he still seems to be trying to hang on.
	Well, it is a completely ridiculous situation and embarrassing for the country and all these things.
	You've been very eloquent, Rory, about the state of the Conservative Party, and particularly about the need to restore integrity and honour and decency and the old-fashioned values I think many Conservatives are crying out for right now.
	If it's not going to be you by becoming an MP again and getting fast-tracked, as some people would undoubtedly like, who do you think represents the values that we've lost under Boris Johnson, which we could regain under a new Conservative leader?
	Who is that person?
	I think there are people there.
	I, for example, I admire Sajid Javid.
	He was somebody who I felt for the nine, ten years I worked with him in Parliament was a very decent guy.
Cabinet Resignations Begin 00:05:01
	Nadin Zahawi, I'm surprised that he accepted the role of Chancellor, but he actually is somebody who's popular with his civil servants.
	He's a decent man.
	I travelled with him.
	I did a lot of work with him.
	I mean, I like Nadeem Zahawi, but no, no, I don't want to jump in here.
	But I mean, Nadeem Zahawi in the last 24 hours has behaved like something out of Game of Thrones.
	I mean, he's, you know, he's taken a job as Chancellor, a massive promotion.
	He's gone on all the airwaves this morning, pumping up Boris Johnson, the government, everything else.
	And then a few hours later, he's leading the cabinet assassination mob, reportedly.
	It's pretty extraordinary.
	The other thing is that the other thing is that, as you know, I think you're about to have on your show my fellow podcast presenter, Alistair Campbell, who seems to have got into Nadam Zahawi's head, because one of the things you will have noticed this morning is Alastair Campbell.
	It was so weird, but Nadeem Zahawi kept talking about Alastair Campbell.
	Alastair Campbell's ego will have been exploding, but the idea this has all been driven by Alistair Campbell is for the birds.
	When Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid resigned from the two top jobs in the government, that's not Alastair Campbell's fault.
	Much as I'd like it to be.
	It's extraordinary.
	And of course, there are many, many other things too.
	There's the Tiverton by-election loss, which is...
	Rory, if you could hang on one second, we've got some breaking news, which I want to get your reaction to.
	Brandon Lewis, Northern Ireland Secretary, has now resigned.
	So as I suggested a little earlier in the programme, it may be that tough conversations are going on with Boris Johnson and they're not getting some of these cabinet ministers the answers they want and they are now publicly resigning and withdrawing their public support for Boris Johnson.
	This could be again a flurry tonight of more cabinet resignations.
	And again, I just simply, I'm curious.
	I mean, you're a political animal.
	At what point does Boris Johnson look in the mirror and go the game's up?
	Well, I think first thing is that's a very important bit of breaking news because he kept his cabinet together overnight after Rishi Sunak left, after Sergeant Javid left, and presumably all those people, including Brandon Lewis, made a sort of deal with him to stay in the cabinet.
	The fact that he's now losing them 24 hours later is very, very dramatic.
	That shows that what was a drip-drip of resignations, some of them quite junior this morning, is going to turn again into a tidal wave as these cabinet ministers begin to leave.
	And look, Piers, it's impossible for him now to hang on because he's not going to be able to replace them fast enough.
	I think he's lost almost 40 of his ministers now, and he's losing them as fast as he can put them in again.
	And I don't think he can make it.
	Ultimately, I mean, the real answer to your question is, in terms of the brutal politics, is that if he tries to hang on any longer, Conservative MPs will very reluctantly have to vote with Labour and Lib Dem MPs in the House of Commons in a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister to take him out.
	Yeah, it's an extraordinary situation.
	Rory Stewart, thank you very much for joining me.
	I appreciate it.
	We're watching a special two-hour edition of the show.
	Stay with us.
	Breaking news.
	Brandon Lewis, Northern Ireland Secretary, has just resigned.
	We're expecting probably more resignations while we're on air.
	Maybe we're going to get the big one.
	Maybe Boris Johnson's watching this show.
	And if you are Prime Minister, you may want to look in the mirror and just ask yourself one question.
	Why am I still looking in this mirror?
	We'll be back with our panel after the break.
	Well, I'm joined now back in my studio by the Talk TV host Julia Hartley Brewer, political columnist Emily Sheffield, the son of political columnist Trevor Cavanaugh.
	So we broke that dramatic breaking news before the break that Brandon Lewis, Northern Ireland Secretary, had resigned because the BBC told us he'd resigned.
	The BBC's now deleted the tweet telling us he's resigned.
	And we're told by sources close to Brandon Lewis he hasn't resigned yet.
	However, he is on his way to the Prime Minister.
	So by the time I even finish this retraction of the BBC's mistake, and to make it clear, it was their fault, not ours, by the time I finished saying this, he might have resigned.
	So we're going to keep aligning.
	One person who has resigned is a PPS called Jacob Young, who significantly was working for Michael Gove.
	What does that mean?
	Does that mean Govey's on manoeuvres?
	We're going to find out as the night goes on.
	A lot happening.
	And as we can tell, it's a very febrile atmosphere.
	And we've got to be sure we know exactly what is happening, which means we won't be trusting the BBC Twitter account in the next few minutes.
	But Brandon Lewis, something's going on with him.
	So we'll find out.
	We'll keep you in touch with that when we get there.
	Trevor, I want to get your reaction.
	We had three interesting interviews there.
	Ian Blackford, obviously, full-on, but making some good points about this is a ridiculous situation.
	I think we probably all agree with that.
	You then had Lord Marland, who would not commit anymore to fulsome support for the Prime Minister, which I think was quite significant given how much he normally does.
The Brexit Conundrum 00:05:16
	And Rory Stewart, basically pushing Sajid Javid and offering a future for the party.
	What did you make of it all?
	Well, I thought that your question to Lord Marland was actually answered with a silent yes.
	He is no longer supporting Boris for the Premiership.
	I think that Rory is misguided in thinking that a Remainer, someone who actually voted Remain, even though he was probably more of a Brexiteer than he would admit at the time, I don't think that the party will back.
	So that's really interesting because there is going to be a choice coming up.
	Assuming Boris does eventually go, they're going to have an election contest for a new leader.
	And it's probably going to come down, I suspect.
	You'll probably have someone on the Remain side and someone on the Brexit side.
	Is it feasible that a Remainer could come through and take over the party?
	There'll be two names put on the ticket to go to the grassroots.
	The grassroots will not support a Remainer.
	And that's it.
	They will go for a Brexiteer no matter what.
	And that's one of the dividing lines of British politics.
	It will remain the dividing line right through to the next general election.
	Trevor, could I ask, someone like Liz Truss was a Remainer.
	A lot of the now loud, shouting Brexit supporters were Remainers.
	Liz Truss seems quite popular with the grassroots.
	But I feel with people like Liz Truss, because they were Remainers, then they turned to Brexit, that they sort of, rather like Boris, sort of shout angrily about Brexit all the time.
	But I feel someone who was originally a Brexiteer, someone like Rishi Sunak, who can say, look, I'm an original Brexit, he was one of the first people to say to David Cameron, I'm sorry, I'm not staying with you.
	Who do you think the grassroots will go for?
	Like a sort of pretend, what I would call a sort of pretend Brexit person, or someone who was really there from the beginning?
	Or you think they won't care?
	Well, I think, to be fair to Liz Truss, I think she's actually changed her position and quite convincingly.
	Whether she's the sort of person that they will go for as a prime minister is another question.
	There's a big question.
	Isn't she Maggie light, Liz Truss?
	Well, very light.
	Extremely light.
	I think so.
	She says what she thinks will get her the same.
	And I don't think there's much conviction there, honestly.
	Who would your money be on, Trevor?
	Your nose is normally pretty plugged into these things.
	Well, I think that Rishi Sunak, despite everything is still the man.
	Yeah, I agree.
	And I think that we are into a financial crisis, which is going to be much more profound and long-lasting than anyone has yet quite grasped.
	And you need someone who actually knows the way around the system.
	I think that there are many things about Rishi that were pushed off course by Boris.
	Had he been allowed to be the Chancellor he wanted to be, we wouldn't be in quite the position for Arms.
	Can't take a short break.
	When we come back, Julia, I'll come to you after the break and get your assessment of this.
	It's a really interesting conundrum for the party.
	Once, and assuming he does, Boris Johnson goes.
	What's your special two-hour edition?
	Piers Morgan Uncensored.
	Boris Johnson, as I say this, still Prime Minister.
	He may not be by the time you come back after the break.
	Stay with us.
	Dramatic night.
	Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
	You're looking at number 10 Downing Street, where there is a deafening silence and lack of movement.
	Boris Johnson, the greasy piglet of British politics, refusing to go, slipping away as best he can from the ever-increasingly large net from his own party and his own cabinet.
	Pretty Patel in the last two hours has now apparently turned on him too.
	So even his most loyal and devoted ministers are now saying enough is enough.
	Julia Hartley Brewer, Andrew Neal's just tweeted that he doesn't think Boris Johnson's going to voluntarily go at all.
	The 1922 committee, he thinks, will meet next week.
	They'll change the rules.
	There'll be a new vote of confidence in Boris.
	He will lose it massively and then everyone can get on with the future.
	What do you think of that?
	Well, that assumes that he goes when he has a vote of no confidence against him, as I think he inevitably will, because he's not going to fall on his sword.
	And there's been lots of debate today about whether or not he would obey that we talked about earlier, the conventions.
	Would he actually then leave or would he go to the Queen?
	Would he try and ask for Parliament to be ended and call a general election?
	You say very likely the Queen would say, no, someone else can actually form a government and that would be more viable.
	But this is the thing, there is no way to predict right now, because he doesn't obey the conventions.
	Realistically, if he had any sense, he would be going now.
	We talked earlier about his legacy.
	But this is the crucial thing.
	If he genuinely believes he's got more support than he thinks, and he's, as he talked about at the Yazing Committee, this mandate for the 14 million people who voted for him.
	Now, ignoring the fact we don't have a presidential system, he doesn't have a mandate individually.
	I think his mandate is eroded literally by the second.
	By the second, indeed.
	We see that you go snap poll last night.
	54% of Tory 2019 voters, including those Red Wall Labor voters we went over, they have turned on him now.
	I'm joined now by political commentator and historian, Sir Anthony Selden.
	He's very kindly broken off, I think, from attending the theatre tonight.
	So thank you, Anthony.
Will He Survive 00:03:13
	I appreciate this sacrifice for your country.
	I just wanted to ask you: if Boris, you've written fantastic books about British prime ministers.
	If Boris Johnson was to fall on his sword, which seems, well, either he'll be made to fall on it or he'll do it voluntarily.
	Where would he rank in the pantheon of British prime ministers?
	Well, Piers, great prime ministers are often made by great events.
	So you look at the figures like Churchill or Lloyd George or Thatcher during the end of the Cold War.
	They're all there, the top tier, at times of real national consequence.
	And Boris Johnson, one has to say, the Ukraine war could be still the third World War, the time of Brexit and getting Brexit done, the coronavirus, the worst epidemic in this country for 100 years, getting a landslide election victory.
	I mean, these are historic things, but there's a big buck coming there, Piers.
	Those are historic things, but there's quite a big downside to all of those equally.
	So it's hard to place him.
	And I certainly think he's not adding one inch to his standing or reputation by staying on as he is at the moment.
	Very peculiar.
	Putting your historian hat on, has he got any chance of coming through this and coming out the other end and remaining Prime Minister?
	He has as much chance as I have of Gareth Southgate picking me for Cato, which, by the way, is not insignificant.
	And that's no doubt what Boris Johnson felt.
	I've seen the impact you've had on school footballers, my son, and the joy of being taught by you.
	And you're quite a nifty footballer, actually.
	So Southgate may be something around.
	Thanks.
	So there is a chance.
	I'm certainly waiting.
	I would actually say there's more chance.
	I think there's more chance of you being picked for England than there is of Boris surviving, actually.
	Absolutely.
	It's just simply not the way that the system works.
	You cannot carry on as Prime Minister.
	You are there by consent.
	You need the support of your MPs and you need to be able to form a government.
	You need to be able to have enough people to get the jobs done.
	I mean, the Prime Minister doesn't do the stuff.
	The Prime Minister merely appoints the team.
	At the moment, he's running the risk of being Gareth Southgate, but only able to turn out three or four people on the pitch rather than 11 because they've all gone off or they refuse to serve him.
	So I think I actually tweeted earlier, it was a very popular tweet, who I thought should replace Boris Johnson was Rob Key, who now runs England cricket, who's made two decisions: one to appoint Ben Stokes as captain of the test team, one to appoint Brendan McCullum as the coach, and we've now turned into the greatest world-beating, aggressive, passionate, fantastic test side in the history of England cricket and made us all feel great.
	If Rob Key can do that with just two decisions, I think put him in number 10.
Running Out of Players 00:12:10
	Well, I think he has to be a definite contender.
	There are one or two problems that he's not a conservative, mind you.
	So quite a bit of a trend.
	Nor is Boris Johnson.
	Who are not conservatives in that government, absolutely.
	So Anthony, I've got to leave it there.
	I know you've got a second half to get back to.
	Thank you for joining me.
	I greatly appreciate it.
	Many thanks.
	Well, it's been a busy day.
	We'll be back after the break for another hour of breaking news, dramatic news going on tonight.
	Lots of resignations coming in.
	Will it include Boris Johnson?
	We have all the reaction and expert analysis after the break.
	Well, good evening.
	It's bang on 9 o'clock.
	You're looking at Parliament, which is a hotbed of feverish gossip, intrigue, betrayal, backstabbing.
	It's like a Shakespearean play down there tonight.
	But as I speak, Boris Johnson remains British Prime Minister.
	He's not going anywhere.
	He's making it clear he doesn't want to go anywhere.
	And the question is, can his own party force him out?
	Is someone going to have to physically go in there and drag him out?
	If so, do I need to volunteer?
	Do my British civic duty?
	This just about sums up where we are, I think.
	This is Stephen Swinford from The Times.
	He just tweeted extraordinary.
	Nadeem Zahawi today told Boris Johnson he should resign.
	Tomorrow, he's agreed to launch a new economic plan alongside Boris Johnson in a bid to shore up Johnson's leadership.
	This is according to Sky News.
	Today, said Mr. Swinford, is bewildering by any metric.
	Well, it certainly is.
	As is the fact that last night, Nadeem Zahawi was made Chancellor and only 20 odd hours later, he was leading the cavalry of assassins to whack Boris inside number 10.
	Quite extraordinary scenes going on.
	I'm joined now in the studio by talk TV contributor Esther Cragger, political commentator Ava Santina and the Son's political economist Trevor Kavanagh.
	Well, Ava, your thoughts?
	On the Nadeem Zahawi plan, that is entirely expected.
	I think I was reading yesterday that yesterday morning's broadcast realm was one of the most expensive in history.
	Something like Nadeem Zahawi pledged around 21 billion in tax cuts to the public, which is obscene.
	And this is all to save Boris Johnson.
	Now, this cost of living pan, whatever they're going to come out with tomorrow, great, that's fantastic.
	But why do the public only get a little, you know, a little slice of the pie when Boris is about to get ousted?
	Like, why isn't this help consistent?
	Surely the public can see how transparent.
	Esther, week is getting played here.
	I mean, it's Boris basically said to Nadeem Zahawi, look, I know you don't want me to be Prime Minister, but right now you can make yourself look good if you go out and do all these tax cuts and make yourself look like Father Christmas to the British public.
	And Nadeem's like, you know what?
	That actually could play quite well for me.
	And if Boris does then have to go, the public think I'm Father Christmas.
	I mean, is that your simple?
	I think Nadeem was very, because I thought he had a brain aneurysm when he accepted the role, because Boris's IKEA cabinet can't stand for very long.
	But I think his plan was to at least be Chancellor through the summer, right?
	Because at least he knows that if he accepts this role, he's going to be in it for the next two to three months so he can kind of show up some public support.
	But I don't understand Boris's strategy in the sense that there's nowhere to go but down from here.
	Really, he's in a pit.
	He needs to, I don't understand his strategy here.
	I'm actually confused.
	I mean, when I saw his, you know, his hearing at the 1922 committee, he was, he actually seemed a bit emotional.
	He actually used the word duty.
	And I don't think Boris and the word duty should ever be used in the same sense.
	We are in a bizarre situation, Trevor, aren't we?
	Where Boris Johnson, by common consent, has had a good war, as they call it, you know, with Ukraine.
	He's shown leadership.
	He's done the right thing, I think.
	He put Britain forward pretty well first off the traps to help President Zelensky loves him, talks him up all the time.
	As he did well with, for example, the COVID vaccine programme.
	He's had moments through this tenure where you look at him and think, well, that's leadership and well done.
	The problem is all the other stuff.
	Well, this is why he's not going.
	He believes that he's done the right things and that even the things he's done terribly wrong weren't actually wrong at all.
	They were just somebody else's mistakes or he was misinterpreted.
	So this is his legacy.
	His legacy will be to be the most notorious ex-prime minister in history.
	Really, you think so?
	Well, he is.
	I mean, he is ex almost, isn't he?
	Yeah.
	And the fact is that he will be remembered for this and this alone.
	Well, not alone because of Brexit, because of the vaccines and because of Ukraine.
	But the most enduring memory of Boris Johnson will be the way he left office.
	But you can tell he's actually quite angry because he believes he's gotten the Tories to this point.
	He won them that massive majority.
	And he genuinely doesn't feel like there's a solid enough reason for him to leave.
	He feels like he still has this British public mandate to be in office and to enact his plans.
	Well, technically he does in the sense that he remains an elected prime minister with a massive majority.
	The problem he's got is his own party is turning on him.
	I'm joined then by shadow Chastis Secretary Steve Reid, who's with me now.
	Steve Reid, if I was a member of the Labour front bench right now, I'd be thinking keep Boris Johnson there as long as possible.
	Every day he stays in power is a good day for Labour, isn't it?
	Why are you all so keen to get rid of him?
	Well we have to put the interests of the country first I think and right now we've got a man who appears to be delusional and desperate squatting a few hundred yards down the road from here in number 10 Downing Street and he's allowed the mechanics of government to freeze up entirely.
	We now have government departments like the Education Department that have no ministers.
	No one is there taking decisions anymore.
	This is affecting the country and it needs to be got out as soon as possible.
	You know the Tories have got collectively a record that we are prepared to go and face them on and beat them on I think in a general election.
	But right now the imperative has got to be to get out a disgraced and debased prime minister for number 10 Downing Street so we can get this country moving again.
	What happens if Boris Johnson goes and then next week Durham police come back and fine Sakir Starmer over beer and pizza gate?
	What happens then?
	Well, you know what what you're talking about there is a very clear distinction between the approach of Keir Starmer's Labour Party and Boris Johnson's Conservatives because Keir has said and rightly in my view that if he was issued with a fixed penalty notice for breaking the lockdown rules he would do the right thing and resign.
	Boris Johnson has had that fine already and he squatted there in power because he believes he's above the law.
	He's an extremely entitled privileged human being who believes that the laws are for the little people all of the rest of us and that's all of a piece with what he was doing.
	He didn't just break the lockdown rules once.
	He was having regular weekly parties with suitcases of booze being wheeled in to 10 Downing Street while families were saying goodbye to their loved ones.
	Well that is true.
	That is true, but actually he was a piece of money.
	That is true.
	But as we talk, he's only been fined for one of those offences.
	And if Sakir Starmer was fined for one offence, they would actually be 1-1.
	In other words, in terms of least fining them for breaking lockdown rules, they would be in exactly the same position.
	And Keir Starmer has already said he would go.
	You could even lose your number two as well, Angela Raynor.
	I mean, my point being, you know, as a British citizen watching this chaos and thinking, my God, in the space of a week, we could lose the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.
	Where are we going to be going for leadership?
	Well, Keir hasn't been found yet, hasn't been found guilty of breaking any rules at all.
	And the big difference here is we had the Sue Gray report, didn't we?
	And what that found was a failure of leadership in allowing a culture of rule breaking to be put in place in 10 Downing Street.
	There were more fixed penalty notices issued in Downing Street behind me than in any other street anywhere else in the United Kingdom.
	And yet that is the place that made the rules that said you cannot go and see your loved ones.
	Can I ask one question about Kier?
	One question about Kier Starmer.
	I interviewed him for my life story show a couple of years ago.
	I actually liked him.
	He's a likable person with quite a moving backstory.
	You know, he's not been handed any silver spoon stuff in his life.
	He's a self-made man and impressive to get to the top of several professions now.
	One thing is clear, though.
	He hasn't galvanised the British public in any way at all.
	I thought he was pretty good in PMQ today, as a good zingers and stuff, but he's got to find a way, hasn't he?
	If there's this vacuum with the Conservative Party, this should be the greatest time to ever be a Labour leader.
	And yet the polls are not reflecting that yet.
	Why?
	Well, he was great in PMQs today.
	And actually, if you look at the polls, the one I saw last night got Labour 12 points ahead, which is enough to get a majority.
	Polls don't actually matter.
	The only one that matters is when people vote.
	And to be honest, with the lockdown and everything we've gone through, people have not been focused on party politics.
	They wanted the country to pull together to get us through that mess.
	They certainly didn't want a prime minister breaking the rules the rest of us were obeying to try and look out for each other.
	But I believe, I know Keir really well.
	I backed him for Labour leader.
	He is a man of integrity and principle and a massive contrast to the moral void that we've had as Prime Minister under Boris Johnson for these last few years.
	Now, I hope Boris Johnson will be gone and we'll have a different Conservative leader to face at the next general election.
	But whoever it is has got around their neck the millstone of their economic record.
	The highest rates of personal taxation for 50 years, highest rates of inflation for 30 years, the worst decade for wage growth since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
	And now we've got the lowest rates of growth of any of the 20 biggest economies on the planet, except for Russia, which is subject to major international sanctions.
	I mean, it certainly applies to all of them, not just Boris Johnson.
	Yeah, I agree.
	And look, let's be honest, whoever takes over, if Boris Johnson goes, is going to be handy one of the biggest hospital passes in political history.
	It may be a very poison chalice for anyone that takes over.
	Thank you very much, Steve Reid.
	I appreciate it.
	Just a pleasure.
	Great to be on your show.
	Some extraordinary tweets here from Anna Michailova from the Man on Sunday.
	Two sources say Boris Johnson's game is now to plan a reshuffle now.
	And he's apparently told allies he's calling Graham Brady's bluff.
	Tory MPs say they're totally baffled by the bunker mentality.
	One tells me, I wish he'd just take the cyanide.
	So very cheerful stuff down in Westminster.
	Every time we think they couldn't plummet even lower, down they plummet.
	You're watching a special two-hour edition of the show as Boris Johnson fights to stay in number 10.
	More dramatic tweets and nothing else.
	More cyanide after the break.
	Well, welcome back.
	You're watching live pictures.
	There he is.
	Brandon Lewis, the man the BBC said had resigned and then the BBC deleted that claim.
	Apparently he hasn't resigned, but he's gone in and he may resign or maybe he won't resign.
	Trevor, fascinating stuff.
	So number 10 is briefing this tonight.
	I'm going to read it in full to get your reaction.
	The number 10 source, there is no lectern outside number 10 tonight.
	The PM fights on.
	There will be a couple of appointments tonight, but it's not true that a procession of cabinet ministers have told him to go.
	You will find out, some may have been beyond redemption, but he's been spelling out to them that 14 million people voted for him.
	And if the party wanted to deprive him of doing that job, they have to take that mandate off them.
	He's called their bluff.
	Graham Brady said there's a 1922 election on Monday.
	New 1922 committee by Tuesday.
	That committee could decide to change the rules.
	momentum today is not going to dislodge him.
	As he explained to cabinet ministers tonight, the chance is not, the chance is not Boris or no Boris.
	Choice, I'm sorry.
	The choice is not Boris or no Boris.
	The choice is giving him a new change with a fresh chancellor and a new program that Rishi was not prepared to do.
	Tax cuts or spend months rip each other apart to elect a leader without a mandate.
	Coalition of chaos, Labour who will break up Britain.
	That's the real choice.
	It's time the party gets real with that.
	Your reaction?
A Coalition Of Chaos 00:08:57
	You're describing a brand new Boris Johnson.
	I've never known him to be so decisive or as strategic.
	Could it work?
	I doubt it, but it's very interesting and we're going to be absolutely transfixed by this for days and weeks to come.
	We are.
	Well, I'm joined now by author and conservative economist Douglas Murray and former Downing Street Director of Communications under Tony Blair Alastair Campbell.
	Welcome to you both.
	Douglas Murray, not finding many people prepared to stand up for Boris Johnson.
	Are you prepared to be in that number or do you think it's all over?
	No, I said in April of 2021 that it was clear what the problems were.
	Boris Johnson was elected on a very clear mandate, a thumping mandate from the British public, mainly to do one thing, which was to deliver Brexit.
	And to his enormous credit, he actually managed to do that, which of course his predecessor had not managed to do.
	He had saved the UK from the menace of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.
	And after that, it was not clear what he was doing.
	It wasn't clear what the agenda was.
	It was clear that he had a sort of lefty greenery sort of obsession, which lost a lot of his grassroots voters.
	And I said in January of this year in The Spectator that we'd got to the stage by the time the Downing Street parties that basically, although Boris Johnson had a remarkable political gift, which was the gift to make the public feel better, and almost no politician in our lifetimes has actually had that gift.
	And it is a striking gift.
	Nevertheless, after the revelations of the lockdown parties, I wrote in The Spectator, the laughter had died.
	It was the day that the laughter died.
	The joke had stopped being funny.
	And I think he's always been hanging on pretty much since then.
	I don't think the revelations of this past week are as extraordinary or thunderclap as people are making them out to be.
	I think they're simply, as Sajid Javid said in his Commons resignation speech, basically the last straw.
	Alasta Campbell, I mean, everyone knows your position about Boris Johnson.
	You can't stand him.
	You think he's a lying, cheating, fraud, and should have gone ages ago.
	So let's not have that debate again.
	I'm more interested in actually, with your political expert hat on, having been in Downing Street for a long period of time.
	What is going on there tonight, do you think?
	If you were, you know, trying to keep Boris Johnson in place, what would you be doing?
	Well, I wouldn't be keeping him in place, Piers, because he's a lying crook.
	But as you say, you don't want to have that debate.
	Look, it'll be complete chaos in there, but this is what happens when you elect to the highest office in the land, one of the most serious jobs in the world, somebody who's fundamentally not serious.
	What's happening in there is that he's surrounded himself with pretty second-rate people who do nothing but trying to prop him up.
	Now, some of the ministers have decided they won't put up with it anymore.
	Civil servants don't really have that choice.
	Some of them may feel in the end they just can't put up with it anymore and they'll go.
	So he's got political advisors as well.
	But what's going on in there at the moment?
	He's basically, deep down he knows the game's up.
	And, you know, Douglas was talking there about Boris Johnson got Brexit done.
	That's turned out to be a bit of a disaster.
	Yes, he won an election, but as he says, it was against Jeremy Corbyn.
	And his majority wasn't that big.
	It was 80.
	I mean, it's enough to, you know, to get a program through.
	But what is the programme?
	What is the vision for the country?
	What is the plan for the country?
	So I've got to be honest, Piers, if I was in there now, whether I was a civil servant, whether I was a special advisor, whether I was one of these ministers, I'd say, look, you know, you've had your time.
	Jump in.
	Alistair.
	It's a complete disaster.
	You've got to go.
	I just want to jump in because we've got some breaking news.
	The BBC is reporting that Boris Johnson has sacked Michael Gove.
	I would imagine he's been wanting to do that for quite a long time.
	Well, that presumably is because Michael Gove told him to resign.
	Alistair, what do you make of that?
	Well, look, Michael Gove, I think, has been clear for some time.
	He's been very, very quiet in recent months.
	And I think he knows that this has just been a car crash in the making.
	He also knows, I think, that because he's got a reputation for having been, you know, disloyal, turned against Cameron, turned against Johnson at different points, that he didn't want necessarily to lead the charge.
	The charge was led last night by Sanjay Javan and Rishi Sunak.
	But this is, look, what you're seeing here, Piers, is just you're seeing a guy in the bunker.
	I mean, what's going to happen?
	Who's he going to, once he gets rid of, look, he hasn't, he's got the weakest cabinet in British political history.
	Who's he going to appoint to this cabinet?
	Even the people that were appointed yesterday.
	Yeah, I mean, look, you make a good point.
	I mean, Douglas Murray, I'm not sure he's got many MPs left to actually fill all these vacancies.
	We've now got 39 resignations.
	Gove's been fired.
	He's got to fill 40 of these places.
	I'll tell you what, Douglas, before you answer that, let me just get the news on Michael Gove so we know exactly what we're dealing with there.
	Kate McCann, our political editor, is live in Westminster.
	Kate, Michael Gove sacked.
	Is that right?
	That is correct.
	The Prime Minister has sacked Michael Gove.
	Now, we know that Michael Gove went into Downing Street this morning.
	He was the first one of the cabinet to go in to speak to Boris Johnson to say, look, the time may well be up.
	He then stepped back.
	He wasn't part of the delegation who went in again this afternoon.
	He felt that he'd done his job.
	My sources were telling me that over the last couple of days, 24 hours or so, Michael Gove has been sounding out exactly what's been happening in the House of Commons.
	Now, some said that was because he was wondering who next to back as the leader of the party.
	Others said it was because he was loyal to Boris Johnson.
	I can confirm that he has been sacked by the Prime Minister.
	Now, number 10 sources confirm a reshuffle or essentially new appointments of ministers are ongoing tonight.
	But the Prime Minister is absolutely defiant.
	He is not going anywhere.
	He believes that he has enough support within the cabinet to carry on, Piers.
	But this is an incredible move.
	Remember the relationship between these two men.
	Michael Gove and Boris Johnson used to be as thick as thieves.
	It was a suggestion that Michael Gove had stabbed Boris Johnson in the back over the last leadership race.
	They then managed to come back together.
	Boris Johnson and Michael Gove has worked well together in government.
	Gove has been seen as someone key in the cabinet.
	And now this, I mean, you really thought it couldn't get any more unbelievable.
	And tonight it has.
	Yeah, I mean, it's a quite extraordinary situation.
	Kate, keep working your sources.
	Let's try and get more information about this.
	We'll be back to you in a few moments.
	I want to go back to Douglas Murray.
	Douglas, you know, Michael Gove, big beast in the jungle there.
	Obviously, a lot of history with Boris Johnson.
	But the fact that Boris Johnson is now sacking people of that stature in his cabinet, this is a big moment, isn't it?
	It could well be.
	I'd make one particular observation first, if I may, which is something Alistair Campbell just said.
	One of the things that has kept Boris Johnson in power for longer than he might have been has been the ability he has had.
	And it's not without something to it to say, look, the people trying to get me out are the anti-Brexit people.
	The people trying to get me out are the Remainers, the bidder remainers, people who want to take us back in.
	And I'm the only person who can make sure that doesn't happen.
	And the more that the Remainers and that Remain lobby continues to talk in the terms it does about Boris, the more I think he has a single cause for hanging on.
	But when it comes to Gove, this is a very important development.
	And I'll explain why if I may.
	Michael Gove has just been, as Alistair Campbell said, has a reputation as a backstabber.
	Quite unfair.
	Michael Gove backed Brexit on principle in 2016, which was not stabbing David Cameron in the back.
	It was fulfilling the logical endpoint of his own ideas as expressed in his columns for decades.
	But what did he do when Boris Johnson stood for the prime ministership, stood for the leadership of the party?
	Michael Gove, everyone said, stabbed him in the back.
	In fact, Michael Gove said, I have seen things about Boris Johnson in recent days that persuade me he is unfit to run the country.
	Now, who might have been vindicated in the last couple of years in that judgment?
	Michael Gove.
	Michael Gove stood for the leadership, saying he had seen something in Boris Johnson's behavior that persuaded him he was not suitable prime ministerial material.
	Here's a wild possibility.
	Maybe Michael Gove was right.
	Well, why did he, in which case, why did he sit in the cabinet the whole time?
	What I can't stand about these ministers now, Sunak and Javid, fair enough, they led the way yesterday.
	They've been defending the indefensible for years.
	They've known their whole lives what Boris Johnson is like.
	They decided to back him because he was leading on Brexit, because they thought he was a winner.
	They've always known he has no moral compass, he has no real sense of what he's in politics for.
	And that, you know, it was always, always going to end like this.
	And they're now finding that he's also a complete narcissist, probably with sociopathic tendencies, which is why he's sitting there now shooting.
No Moral Compass 00:09:25
	Of course, he is.
	Listen, this is a guy, Douglas, who only cares about his own interests.
	If you're not going to be able to do that, I'm going to say, though, I mean, whichever side you're on, whichever side you're on, though, Douglas, about this, there is a touch of the Donald Trumps about what's going on tonight, isn't there, with Boris Wayne.
	Where he's basically getting rid of all the enemies.
	I mean, this is a number 10 source about Michael Gove talking to Chris Mason from the BBC.
	You cannot have a snake, that's Michael Gove, who is not with you on any of the big arguments, who then gleefully briefs the press that he's called for the leader to go.
	You cannot operate like that.
	Calling him a snake.
	Look, first of all, I don't think it's appropriate for Alistair Campbell to be throwing out pseudo-medical terms about political leaders.
	And frankly, I think most of the British people will think they will think.
	Oh, you can.
	And I'll just say that.
	The show's called Piers Morgan.
	I'll say what I like.
	And I'll say Douglas Snake, Alistair.
	Alistair, you can't.
	And I'll say what I like, which is the sorry.
	Guys, guys, time out.
	Time out.
	Alistair, let Douglas have his say, then respond.
	Right?
	You're both unsensitive.
	You can say what the hell you like.
	Douglas, did it.
	Most people remember Alistair Campbell's career.
	Most people recognize him as being more responsible than anyone in our lifetimes for degrading the idea of truth in politics.
	Most people in Britain want to hear Alistair Campbell talking about truth about as much as we want to hear Jeffrey Epstein talking about the age of consent.
	The idea that you're going to bring me on as any kind of expert on truth or decency is absolutely laughing.
	All right, Alistair, your chances are you're going to bring me on to talk with these right-wing non-entities who are part of the problem in this country anyway.
	We can talk all you want about this guy, people like Murray and the spectators.
	Why don't you talk about David Kelly?
	People like Murray from the spectator where Johnson was spawned, they are part of the problem.
	They created this beast.
	They created this man who has got no morality, no honesty, no objectivity, no openness.
	He has trashed every single one of the standards in public life.
	And Piers, I've got to tell you, I thought I was coming on to talk to you because you're quite a serious person.
	I've got Sherwood on pause downstairs.
	Take Douglas Murray, take him back, put him in his 55 Tufton Street bin, and I'll see you later.
	All the best.
	Thank you, Alistair Campbell.
	Nice.
	Quiet, Piers.
	Take care.
	Lots of love to Erin.
	Thanks for joining us.
	Lots of love.
	Thanks very much, Md for joining us.
	We've sadly lost Alistair Campbell.
	Douglas Murray, given you've had the grace to stay with me, would you like to have the final word?
	Sure.
	As I say, Alistair Campbell and some of the very bitter remainers have just been one of the reasons why Boris Johnson has been able to stay because he's always been able to say, look, there are these very powerful figures who are at the center of politics, have been at the centre of politics, who want to drag us back into the EU.
	We've even had it from Tory MPs in Boris's own party.
	And so his one thing of holding on to power has been, look, I'm Mr. Brexit.
	I know what I'm doing.
	And outside are all of these forces that want to drag us back into the EU.
	But I reiterate my point.
	We do not need to hear about the concept of truth, decency, or integrity in politics from Alistair Campbell.
	That's a long, long time gone that we wanted to hear.
	Well, I would give him a hundred years ago.
	I would give him a final write of reply, but he's unfortunately left.
	He's a good boy, didn't he?
	He did.
	And Douglas, you stayed and thank you for staying.
	I appreciate it.
	Really appreciate you joining me, Douglas.
	What dramatic night tonight, not least between our guests.
	39 resignations now.
	Michael Gove sack, what else is going to happen?
	We've got half an hour more of this two-hour special.
	We'll be back with our panel immediately after break.
	Stay with us.
	Anything can happen.
	Probably in the next three minutes.
	We're looking at the sun setting on Westminster.
	Is it setting on Boris Johnson's premiership as the leader of his country?
	Well, not yet.
	He's hanging in there.
	However, I did warn you before the break that there might be a few more resignations while we were off air.
	And sure enough, there were two.
	So while we were literally having a commercial break, James Daly, MP, has quit as PPS to the Secretary for Work and Pensions.
	David Mundell, MP, has resigned as the government's trade envoy to New Zealand.
	So we're now at 41 members of the government who've resigned.
	Trevor, I'm not even sure how many there are.
	How many are there?
	Well, he's running out fast.
	Is he going to be able to replace them?
	That's the big question.
	Quite extraordinary.
	Ava, what do you make of this?
	I mean, you're a lot younger than me and Trevor, so we've been around the block of this kind of chaos a few times, but I can't remember anything quite like this.
	What do you think about our political system right now?
	Well, it's rats running from a sinking ship, isn't it?
	I mean, these two latest resignations are totally inconsequential.
	These are just people who are now panicking that they're not going to get voted back in.
	Like James Dalia's 2019 intake, he's just worried about securing his seat again.
	David, he was trade on envoy to New Zealand, so I guess that's kind of, you know, what is that, our post-Brexit trade deals?
	We've now got this great agreement with the New Zealand.
	That's quite important.
	Okay, yeah.
	But also completely inconsequential to our GDP.
	So, you know, proper inconsequential resignations.
	These are just people who care about themselves.
	And actually, sorry, I'd love to go back to what you were discussing earlier and that briefing that number 10 have put out.
	That is not a different Boris Johnson.
	That is exactly the same Boris Johnson.
	Look on the third line where he says that no cabinet minister has asked him to resign.
	That is a flat-out lie.
	It's still Boris Johnson lying.
	That is same Boris yet again.
	Trevor?
	Well, I think Boris has a distinct disrelationship with the truth.
	And that's been part of his life ever since he entered the world of even journalism.
	The reason Max Hastings sacked him and so on.
	Long and checkered history.
	It's almost sociopathic, isn't it?
	Well, I do think there's a chumpian streak in Boris where I think he doesn't think the rules apply to him.
	He doesn't care about truth particularly.
	And he thinks he can just kind of barrel his way through stuff because you know what?
	Like Trump, actually they both rose to the biggest office in their countries by doing that.
	So let's go to Adam Bolton.
	Adam, Michael Gove, is this a...
	I've seen your tweet, quite intriguing tweet, suggesting this might be a very positive thing for his own leadership ambition that Boris has fired him.
	Yes, I think so, because I think it shows that Michael Gove is a man of principle, tells the Prime Minister what he thinks.
	Important to remember, Michael Gove, an ex-Times columnist and the Times newspaper this morning was calling for Boris Johnson to go and is ready to face the consequences.
	I think we can work out now, Piers, what's been going on this evening, which is that Plan A to get rid of Boris Johnson has failed.
	Plan A was that those cabinet ministers who went in to see the Prime Minister said to him, if you don't resign, we're going to resign.
	And he called their bluff, as they say in that note from the Downing Street Briefer.
	He said, okay, well, I'm not going to resign.
	And guess what?
	They didn't all resign.
	And now they're beginning to try and resurrect their careers as servants of Boris Johnson.
	Now, I think all that this means is that Plan B now becomes more important.
	And Plan B is the 1922 committee in the parliamentary party going through various processes to change the rules and to have a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson next week.
	That looks like where we're heading.
	Boris Johnson will try and bluff it out of the weekend.
	He'll say, I've got great ideas.
	I've been treated unfairly, blah, blah, blah.
	But it seems to me that the die is cast, that the parliamentary party has decided they want rid of him.
	And that's how they'll do it.
	There'll be a brutal drag out until then.
	Fascinating.
	Thanks, Adam.
	Esther, Boris Johnson sacking someone for disloyalty.
	Is irony just dead?
	Oh my gosh.
	Well, I don't think those two words should be in the same sentence.
	Boris and loyalty.
	But, you know, you know what's ironic?
	Chris Pincher has not resigned.
	Can we just have a moment of the original groper Pincher is still there?
	Exactly.
	And this is the madness that is now our politics.
	I must say, as entertaining as this is, this is also extremely disappointing because it's just showing the worst of Boris.
	I don't know if this is what was his intention.
	I don't know.
	Well, Matt Chawley here from Times Rodio, a very funny guy at the best of times, said nothing in his life became him like the leaving, and he is leaving it like a chaotic, forgetful, deluded, selfish, directionless, friendless, childish, thin-skinned, confused, narcissistic lunatic.
	Tell me what you really think.
	Trevor?
	He must now sociopathic.
	Well, I don't think he's going to go, not of his own volition in any way, shape or form.
	He'll have to be kicked out or dragged out.
	And that's eventually what's going to happen.
	All the way to the Tower of London.
	We're going to bring in former MP Neil Parrish, who, of course, fell on his sword after the, well, Pawn Gate, I think it was called, wasn't it, Mr. Parrish?
	What are your thoughts?
	What are your thoughts about Boris Johnson this evening?
	Well, I think, you know, sacking Michael Gove is like sort of creating a Duke of Buckingham.
Dragged To Tower Hill 00:02:54
	You're going to have, he's going to mass his troops on the side now and come in against Boris.
	I imagine it was, you know, having watched a lot of Westerns in my youth, I imagine it was which one got to the draw first, really.
	Boris, I imagine, fired him before he thought Michael Gove was going to resign.
	So, I mean, it's crazy situation.
	You know, I mean, the Pincher situation, he should never have been there.
	You know, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have put, you know, it's like putting a fox in charge of your chickens.
	I mean, this is a man, and I'm not being funny about this, this is a man, Pincher, who actually was a welfare of our members.
	And not only was he sort of, you know, touching people inappropriately, he was also saying, you know, you can go far in the Conservative Party.
	And this is a man who is there to help us.
	I mean, it's crazy stuff.
	And then, and of course, Boris, you know, first of all, you know, a few days ago says, well, I won't take the whip from him because he's done nothing wrong.
	And then over a period of several days, he has to refute all of that.
	And then he comes out yesterday and said, of course, I knew all about it.
	And he was a terrible man, Christopher Pincher, and he must go.
	And of course, meanwhile, people like Therese Coffey and others have had to go out and defend the Boris situation only for five minutes later for it to be refuted.
	I mean, many.
	Mr. Parrish, many people might agree with you, but they might think it's pretty rich coming from you, given you had to resign for watching porn in Parliament.
	I mean, do you think you're the best guy to take the high moral ground with Pincher?
	No, no, but come on, Pierce.
	You mean I'm a pretty obvious question, isn't it?
	I mean, I'm demoralising away about Pincher.
	Yeah, yeah, no, I did.
	You know, I stand by what I did and I stand by.
	I stand by watching porn in the chat.
	I stand by the fact that I resigned and I did the right thing.
	And so therefore...
	But you resigned because you did the wrong thing.
	Well, yes, but it was right to resign.
	And therefore...
	Right, but it was wrong to do what you were doing.
	I'm just wondering whether you think you're the right guy to put the halo on and play the high moral ground with old Pincher.
	I'm not putting it on.
	Aren't you all basically collectively to blame for the impression the public has got that you're a bunch of sleazy people who are actually betraying the British taxpayers?
	I mean, that's what many people think.
	Yeah, look, Pierce, you know, if you don't resign, you're sleazy.
	If you do resign, you're sleazy.
	I mean, I made the right decision.
	I stand by what I did.
	What you can't do is put somebody in a position of power, which, you know, can influence the jobs in government and then leave them there.
	Pincher had a minder, all of those things.
	And so that's what I'm saying to you quite clearly.
	Look, MPs at the end of the day will make a decision on Boris.
	Is he a winner?
	Is he a loser?
	They've largely come to the conclusion now that he's losing votes, he's not winning it.
	And therefore, we can't trust what he says.
	And, you know, I like Boris, believe it or not.
If You Don't Resign 00:12:42
	But you go in to see him.
	I mean, I was looking after agriculture as that committee chair.
	I go in and say, Boris, you know, we've got to protect our food standards on trade deals.
	And he'd say, yes, absolutely, Neil.
	I'll look after the farmers.
	Then the free traders go in and we need a complete free trade deal with no complications, Boris.
	So that's what we get, you see.
	So, I mean, I think one of Boris's great weaknesses is he likes to be loved by everybody.
	He likes to tell you what you want to hear.
	But, of course, in the end, he can't deliver it.
	Well, that's the problem.
	I'm afraid he's just full of hot air.
	He'll say whatever he thinks will please whoever he's talking to at the time.
	Neil Parrish, thank you for joining me.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you.
	He's another resignation while we were talking to Neil Parrish there.
	Adam Bolton, I think, has the breaking news on the latest resignation.
	Adam?
	Yes, this is Danny Kruger, who's resigned as a parliamentary private secretary at the department, Michael Gove's department.
	He's basically said he's doing it in support of Michael Gove.
	He is, of course, perhaps best known as the son of Prue Leith of Bake Off fame.
	He's also the MP who last week said that a woman couldn't have total sovereignty over her body in relation to abortion if she was pregnant.
	But he's decided to go.
	That takes it, I think, up to 43 now.
	And it really does, if you do the maths, make it very difficult to see how all these posts can be filled by the Prime Minister.
	I mean, in fact, there are no ministers left at the Department of Leveling Up, which remember was...
	So we can't have any levelling up because there's no one to actually do the levelling up.
	And that was the key promise of 2019.
	Quite unbelievable.
	Adam Bolton, thank you very much.
	If we come back to Kate McCann now, who's got a bit more meat on the bone about Michael Gove, I think.
	Kate.
	Yeah, hi, Piers.
	I've been having a quick chat with sources behind the scenes in number 10.
	I think it's fair to say we can expect more action coming from that direction in the next half an hour or so.
	They are now talking about what they call a wider reshuffle.
	We might call, as Adam says there, trying to refill some of those positions which have been left vacant.
	But they say that this has been a long time coming, that Michael Gove was never going to be allowed to stay in the cabinet after, and I quote, being so treacherous.
	They see his actions this morning, essentially going in to speak to the Prime Minister, warning that the Prime Minister's time is up, and then briefing the media about it as the final straw.
	Really, that was what Boris Johnson drew the line at today and decided that Michael Gove had to go to the city.
	Well, I actually have some.
	I have a bit on that myself, actually.
	My impeccable sources tell me that Gove gave Boris an ultimatum: go now or I will quit by 9pm.
	And so, as they got to 9pm, Boris sacked him.
	Yeah, and you know what?
	There's been a fascinating suggestion that half of the ministers who've been going into Downing Street tonight, the ones who've been saying, look, Prime Minister, your time is up, that they are saying exactly the same thing.
	And even those allies close to the Prime Minister who say, look, his position, that he's going to stick it out, that he's going to fight, that actually might do him more harm than good.
	Because those cabinet ministers who said, if you don't go, then we will, it will prompt them to cross that line.
	And then the Prime Minister will not be able to go back from that.
	So over the next couple of days, maybe Piers, even the next couple of hours, we should start to see the result of those briefings that we're getting from the Prime Minister, which are incredibly punchy to say the least.
	It's funny though, because as we're talking about this, Nadine Dorries, the most loyal of the loyal, has tweeted the PM's priority is to stabilise the government, set a clear direction for the country and continue to deliver on the promises he made and the British public voted for.
	Well, as Adam pointed out there, one of those key priorities was levelling up and housing, and there are now no ministers at all in that department.
	I think you should probably give all the main jobs to Nadine Doris and give us all a good laugh.
	Kate, thank you very much indeed.
	We'll be back with you.
	We'll take a short break.
	Resonations coming and going so fast we can't keep up with them.
	Don't even want commercials, to be honest.
	All hell might be breaking loose.
	But we will be back in a couple of minutes.
	See who's gone by then.
	Welcome back to Piers Morgan La Censi looking over Parliament tonight.
	All hell's breaking loose down there.
	People resigning every few minutes, up to 43, we think now.
	42, I'm sorry, members of the government, so hard to keep up with them.
	Michael Gove has been unceremoniously fired by Boris Johnson tonight.
	And the mystery car is apparently now in Downing Street.
	We think it's either about to come in or leave.
	It may even be a hearse, a political hearse.
	We're not sure what's going on.
	Tim Shipman, political editor of the Sunday Times, has just tweeted.
	One can only assume as events unfold that they are pretty effing far into the suitcase of wine in number 10 tonight, which I think reflects my own views.
	It is total carnage tonight in the heart of British politics.
	Ava, we've got to assume at some stage this gets overwhelming and Boris does go.
	How can we recover as a country from this kind of madness and party gay and all the stuff that's gone on?
	You know, American friends of mine, French friends of mine, they're laughing at our democratic system, at our politicians.
	Well, I think we keep...
	Breaking news, a car did come into Downing Street and it's now turned round and left.
	It's pulled at Anastas Campbell.
	It's slid round the back.
	What does that mean?
	That means whoever is in that car, either somebody's in that car who doesn't want to be seen or someone's going out the back who doesn't want to be seen.
	So we'll get to the bottom of this.
	Kate McCann will be on this.
	We'll find out before the end of the programme.
	Ava, there's a serious point, isn't it?
	This is so damaging all this for the reputation of Britain as a great leader of democracy.
	Yeah, I mean, I think we soiled our reputation, you know, the last couple of years, actually, with this entire government.
	This is not just down to Boris Johnson.
	It's the Boris Johnson cabal.
	So you've got Pretty Patel.
	She's not leaving.
	She's the person who introduced that disastrous Rwanda policy, which looks like it's going to stay.
	And the only reason that came in was to save Johnson's back the first time.
	Michael Goves leaving.
	He was all right.
	We never found out what was actually going on with the levelling up agenda.
	I don't know if you know what that is.
	I don't know what it is.
	No, but yes.
	Well, everybody in that department has now left.
	So I don't think anyone knows what it is.
	Maybe he'll run up.
	No, we won't, will we?
	Trevor, I mean, look, it's a febrile atmosphere down there.
	Boris Johnson lashing out, firing his critics, people who are calling his bluff.
	He says he's calling everybody else his bluff.
	How long could this roll out, this kind of chaos?
	Well, it could go on for weeks, and I think the point you made with Ava was that this is a very serious situation.
	If he does go, or when he does go, we're going to have to have a leadership election, which can take weeks.
	Then it has to go to the party.
	And then you have the process of a new leader trying to form a government and forge a relationship with the public.
	In the meantime, you might, as you say, and as Ava has said, we might have the Keir Starmer find, and in which case he will have to go.
	Which would be unbelievable.
	We then have the two major parties in the country in total chaos.
	The country will be in total chaos.
	There'll be no leader.
	It might actually work better.
	I think we actually are in chaos now.
	I think our stagnation is chaotic.
	The fact that you've got Keir Starmer replicating Boris Johnson's policies, no one is different at the moment.
	If we get a new leader in, they're going to deliver more of the same chaos that Boris Johnson's already given us.
	Social Democrats.
	Exactly.
	And that's the mission.
	Okay, just want to interrupt, guys.
	Kate McCann, I think you've got James Dutteridge from number 10, who's been sent out to speak on behalf of the Prime Minister.
	Is that right?
	I do.
	I do have him with me, Piers.
	My producers are just micing him up for a quick second.
	So while I let them get on with doing that, and then we can have a chat with you on air with James Dutteridge, who, as you say, is here to talk in support of the government.
	One of the biggest questions, I think, is how we move on from this, how the Prime Minister moves from where he is.
	Can you ask a question from me?
	Can you ask him a question from me?
	Can you make it the first question?
	Just say, Piers would like to know what the hell is Boris still doing there?
	Serious question.
	Well, two seconds.
	Two seconds, and then he will be mic'd up, and I will ask him.
	Okay.
	And I will ask him that question for you.
	But look, at the end of the day.
	While we're waiting for this guy to be mic'd up, if Boris Johnson is supposed to, I just want to say, if you're watching Love Island tonight, you want to switch over because this is more dramatic than anything Love Island can give you.
	This is political Love Island.
	In fact, it's the opposite.
	It's political hate island, where everybody hates each other and they're all trying to kill each other.
	It's Games of Thrones meets Love Island.
	Kate, is he mic'd up yet?
	Not yet.
	Okay.
	Before we get here, this is extraordinary, isn't it?
	We've got a guy from number 10, Trevor, who's been sent out.
	Okay, we're going to go back to Kate McCann.
	I'm sorry.
	Kate, ask him my question.
	So, yes, Piers, I have a question.
	James Sandrey, thank you so much for joining us.
	Always a pleasure.
	Piers Morgan has a question for you.
	How can Boris Johnson stay in office tonight?
	I'm happy to answer questions from you.
	My wife would divorce me if I took questions from Piers Morgan.
	I refuse to go on with him.
	Take this off.
	Because he's terrible.
	I love you.
	You're brilliant.
	What question have you got from me?
	How can Boris Johnson stay in office tonight?
	He's seen a steady stream of cabinet ministers turning off at his door, telling him that he needs to move on.
	He's seen the chairman of the 1922 committee doing exactly the same, and yet he says he's the right man for the job.
	So he can do it by coming out fighting.
	He can come out, do it by making quick appointments to Lennick.
	We expect appointments.
	He can come out by being bold.
	He sacked Michael Gove.
	I wasn't in there.
	I don't know why, but I'm told he was sacked Michael Gove.
	He's listening to people.
	He's going to take action next week with his new Chancellor Exchequer.
	He's going to launch a new economic plan.
	That will include tax skirts.
	I don't know what type of tax skirts, but that was what he promised when he wrote to MPs to read a four-page letter that was delivered on the vote of their confidence days following.
	Does he think he's now Britain's comical alley?
	Sorry, I've got Piers in the end.
	The only person that's comical here is him.
	He should get some of the things that you can do.
	Well, if you can hear me, if you can hear me.
	If you can hear me, you're being...
	I love Kate.
	I will answer to Kate, but I'm not going to answer to you.
	I think it's very, very bad TV.
	I don't mean to be disrespectful.
	Really?
	Well, okay.
	Let me tell you what I think of you, you impertinent little twerk.
	I think you're very bad TV.
	You're the comical alley of British politics.
	Everyone's laughing at you.
	So I suggest you take your little mic off.
	I'm just happy to pop off back inside.
	Rude little man.
	Good TV.
	But, you know, there's crap about it being like Love Island is rubbish.
	We love one another.
	Thank you so much.
	We do have to be able to.
	I think, unfortunately, we've lost our opportunity to talk to James there.
	But James, thank you so much.
	Let me help you unchip that, which is in your pocket.
	There we go.
	I didn't mean to be rude.
	I have to not.
	Quite all right.
	But Piers, look, one of the big things there.
	One of the big things.
	Well, hang on, Kate.
	We can't just pretend what happened didn't just happen.
	Is he still attached to you?
	Thank you.
	Piers, one of the things there, one of the things that we did learn there.
	Well, hang on, hang on.
	You can't just pretend that didn't happen.
	Who is that guy?
	A, who is he?
	And B, how dare he be so rude?
	Who is he?
	Do you know what?
	I feel like I'm in the middle of some beef that I didn't know even existed until 10 seconds ago.
	I never met the guy.
	I don't know who he is.
	Who is he?
	Who's his wife?
	He is here to talk in support of Boris Johnson.
	Well, he was.
	He was here to talk about this.
	Yeah, but who is he?
	Boris Johnson, unfortunately.
	He's gone.
	He's a Tory MP.
	I mean, very supportive, very loyal member of Boris Johnson's team.
	I mean, and there are, you know, there are a few of them out tonight.
	We've heard from Jacob Reese Mark.
	Can you ask him?
	Can you ask him when we're finished?
	Can you ask him if he'd like to bring his wife on the show tomorrow night and have a little two-header?
	Look, I can do my best and ask him, but he's gone to speak to another crew, so I fear I may have missed my testimony.
	Terrible loss for this show for Piers Morgan uncensored, but he is now being called comical Ally, apparently, all over Twitter.
	So I think the loss is probably more his than it is ours.
Another Extraordinary Night 00:01:32
	But Kate, fantastic effort, most entertaining.
	Thank you for all your brilliant work tonight.
	The madness continues, and hopefully we'll get him and his wife on tomorrow night.
	Well, that's about thank you to my panel, to Trevor, to Ava, to Esther.
	Thank you all very much.
	It's been an extraordinary night.
	We've had people who've had to lose their jobs for watching porn in Parliament, taking the high moral ground with gropers called Pincher.
	We've had Alistair Campbell ripping his mic off and storming off because someone had the effrontery to call him out.
	God forbid.
	And we've had some MP I've never heard of tell me his wife hates me and then say he's fell up with me talking about Love Island, which I hate, and he's not going to talk to us anymore either.
	Quite extraordinary scenes.
	I think my fit apparently is a PBS to Boris Johnson, which must be one of the loneliest jobs in the history of British politics.
	Duddering Dutteridge, the comical alley of world politics, has decided he's too grand to talk to me and so is his wife.
	Well, you know what?
	I don't care because you're not going to be in a job by next week.
	And I am.
	So that's that.
	Another extraordinary day in British politics.
	The greasy piglet and his little greasy minions remain in Downing Street in their sky tonight.
	But for how much longer?
	The clock is ticking of Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister.
	And you can take this bet to the bank, Mr. Dodderidge, Dudderidge, whatever your name is.
	You and your boss will be gone by next week.
	Take it to the bank.
	That's it for us tonight.
	Keep it uncensored.
	The line.

Chapters

00:00:00 Boris Johnson Must Go
00:01:39 Why Haven't You Quit
00:14:29 Reputation Ruined Forever
00:17:24 Politics Sends People Nuts
00:33:13 Cabinet Resignations Begin
00:38:15 The Brexit Conundrum
00:43:31 Will He Survive
00:46:45 Running Out of Players
00:58:56 A Coalition Of Chaos
01:07:53 No Moral Compass
01:17:19 Dragged To Tower Hill
01:20:13 If You Don't Resign
01:32:56 Another Extraordinary Night