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Aug. 24, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
44:38
20220824_piers-morgan-uncensored-ukraine-gun-crime-and-megh
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Liverpool's Gangland Trauma 00:05:32
Tonight on Piers Morgan I'm censored with me Jeremy Kyle.
Police are closing the net on the gunman who shot dead a nine-year-old girl.
The question is, a Britain city is tangled in ganglang terror.
After just six months of war, just how do we end the pain in Ukraine?
And climate lunatics stick themselves to petrol pumps.
One of these protesters is about to come unstuck because he'll join me live in the studio.
Good evening and a big welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
I'm Jeremy Kyle.
Now nine-year-old Olivia Pratt Corbel was supposed to go back to school next week.
Her teacher said she's a ray of sunshine, a lively soul, extremely popular with all of her classmates.
But the truth is that Olivia is never going back to school.
She was shot dead in her own home in Liverpool on Monday night in front of her own mother and somebody in Liverpool knows who did it.
Tonight the police are hunting the killer responsible for one of the most sickening and senseless murders this country has ever seen.
The front page of today's Liverpool Echo, for me, says it all.
If you're keeping quiet because you'd rather surrender the city to thugs, whose side are you on?
They're right.
We all know which side we're on and which side every decent person in Liverpool and this country is on.
Olivia's devastated family today described the killer as scum and said this picture of their beloved girl will haunt whoever did this forever.
Now shockingly it's exactly 15 years since that great city lost another innocent child to gun crime.
Rhys Jones was murdered aged 11, caught up in ganglang violence he shouldn't even have known the meaning of.
Community leaders on Mersey's side say Liverpool is a changed city now, united by tragedy.
The city and our country have yes, made progress.
But another child is dead tonight, dead, at the hands of another ganglang criminal's gun.
And if that progress and that unity is to mean anything at all, the people surely of Liverpool must find this animal that did this and bring him to justice.
I'm delighted to be joined first up tonight by former Scotland Yard detective Peter Blexley and security and terrorism expert Will Geddes.
But first, we're joined by the auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool, Tom Williams.
Bishop Williams, welcome to the show.
You tell a few people and you've said today that the Liverpool Echo front page is wrong.
They want to sell papers.
What do you mean by that?
Well, I think I saw the interview with the Chief Constable at the beginning on the first day of this and she came out with that phrase directed directly to the perpetrators.
The Echo headline was talking to the whole city and I think in some ways it divided the city and saying you're either for or against.
I think the city is 100% against these criminals.
I think the and the comparison with the child that died 15 years ago, the city is different since then and that was a watershed.
But I know in our schools, the school that the child goes to, within their class, there would be possibly four or five children from different cultures, different backgrounds.
The schools are more integrated.
The people are more integrated.
If you look at our hospitals, you can see where most people come from.
They don't come from Liverpool.
They come from all areas around the world.
Bishop Williams walk down the street.
Bishop Williams, I absolutely understand where you're coming from, but the problem I have is this.
And religion, I think, should know this.
There's a difference here between right and wrong.
There's a difference between good and evil.
I know all about the forgiveness, right?
But the truth of the matter is, by writing that page, the Liverpool Echo are simply saying to a criminal underworld or a criminal fraternity, do the right thing.
And I'm sure there are plenty of schools and there are plenty of opportunities over the last 15 years since that poor boy Rhys died that advances have been made.
But I repeat what I said at the beginning, a child is dead.
And what I think the Liverpool Echo is absolutely right on, it is saying, look inside yourself, look at your consciences.
The problem is that cities and organisations, governments as well, don't like to admit there's a problem.
Of course, you're saying Liverpool's fine, but it isn't with respect, Bishop Williams, because a nine-year-old child was gunned down on Monday.
And I think what they're saying is, let's deal with it.
I think their newspaper headline is responsible and correct, don't you?
Well, I do, yes.
I think because it's directed to the criminals, I think that it was misleading in the sense that it's a trauma for everybody, and everybody makes the right decision.
And the thing, when you think about the people of that community in particular, the real problems of everyday life are finding food on the table, food banks, and the real everyday problems of paying for heat.
And then this absolute trauma takes place.
Everybody, everybody would be dead against that.
And I think it's one of the most awful things anyone's ever heard of.
Guns and Food Banks 00:07:09
Absolutely.
Peter Blexley, we've spoken many times before.
You, I know, have spent time in Liverpool.
Whenever we do a story like this, people will say, we're over egging it.
A nine-year-old girl shot in her own home.
What's the reality?
The reality is there are a number of people in Liverpool, like in most of our major cities, who are beyond contempt, who operate on a completely different plane to anybody with any shred of decency.
And they will take firearms out onto the streets in order to settle their scores because they operate in an illegal world.
And so you can't settle a dispute by going to court, for example, and having a judgment handed down.
You can't get solicitors to exchange letters.
What they do is they arm themselves.
They're untrained, by and large, and they're thugs.
They are the scum of the earth.
And they take firearms out onto the streets.
And poor Olivia, rest her soul, is the victim of that.
We'll get a security expert.
People will watch this and they'll go, it's 2022.
How on earth is it so easy in our society to get a gun?
You've brought one in.
We have to point out this is a fake gun.
You've got a lot to say about this.
An awful lot to say.
I mean, I think people are probably from what they've seen on TV and dramas and movies.
The reality is that people probably recognise that firearms can still be accessed, regardless of the fact that the legislation changed after Dunblaine's massacre, that obviously firearms were restricted in terms of certain licenses.
However, we've seen a huge influx of weapons coming in from Romania, from the Balkan states, even from the United States.
But how the criminals operate is on different levels.
You have the very major organised crime groups that will be using the sort of military level of armaments, clocks, berettas, those kind of weapons.
But then when you scale it down to the local scumbags and the drug dealers, they'll be getting something very similar to this.
So this is a fake gun, but the point of this is to point, to prove actually how easy it is to get this.
It's frighteningly easy.
Very, very easy indeed.
So this, for example, is a gas-operated CO2 operated pistol.
Now, you can buy one of these for about 150 euros in Calais from a shop, very simply.
You can bring it back with a very, very minor amount of work on a lathe and engineering.
This can become what we call a fire and forget.
So that is a weapon where the criminal, the scumbag, could use this for maybe five to six to seven rounds before it would actually just collapse.
But that's sufficient.
That could kill somebody.
With a nine millimetre round?
Absolutely.
And most nine millimetre rounds now on the black market about five pounds per round.
So it's not an awful lot of money.
Peter, what are we supposed to do?
If you can go to Calais and get that, no wonder these gang members are running a mark.
What are we supposed to do?
Last night we talked about, you know, weapons.
We talked about knives.
There was some footage today of machetes in Leeds.
People going, what are we supposed to do to make our streets safe?
If for anything, the memory, look on the screen now is, you know, youths with machetes in Leeds just attacking people just in broad daylight.
How do we protect kids like Olivia?
We could be here for the entire show talking about what the police need to do to regain some kind of control on the streets.
But what we need to do immediately is if we know something, if we've heard something, we need to contact Merseyside Police or Crime Stoppers anonymously, 080055, 111.
And yesterday, I contacted Merseyside Police because I've spent a lot of time in the last three and a half years because I'm hunting a criminal from Merseyside who's wanted for two murders.
So I've immersed myself in the underworld to an extent of people from Liverpool.
And one of my sources contacted me yesterday and they said they are fairly sure that much of the recent spate of violence in Liverpool is being orchestrated by a man who is in prison.
Now, interestingly today, the man who was arrested, the intended target of the attack, who was shot and went to hospital, he is being recalled to prison.
So that might add some credence to what I was told.
Regardless, the police will listen to gossip, rumour, tittle-tattle, anything you hear.
Please, come on, do the right thing and contact them.
Was the paper irresponsible, gentlemen, briefly to the Liverpool Echo?
I thought their front page was spot on.
The bishop says that it was divisive.
What's your response to that, both of you?
Not in the slightest.
There is no grey areas here.
What side are you on?
Are you on the side of the scumbags?
Or are you a right, righteous, upstanding person who wants to see Olivia's murderer captured?
But I think the problem is, regardless of the facts and the morals and the ethics that people should feel obligated to report that information through, we know with organised crime, Peter will know this, these individuals will not tell on each other, you know, snitching.
You don't believe that anybody will shot this guy.
The abhorrence of this attack wouldn't even matter.
I'm not trying to paint a picture that criminals have, but there is an unwritten rule.
Am I not right in saying that criminals, when anything happens to a kid, or is there not any morality at all, are you saying?
Well, of all the time I spent in Liverpool, a lot of the time I heard this mantra that people are born and raised into believing you don't grasp, you don't talk to the police.
There are certain things that go beyond the pale.
Absolutely.
Shooting dead of a nine-year-old child is exactly such an example.
Can I bring Bishop Williams back in?
We've talked about the front page, and I understand, Bishop, what you're saying.
There's a fear that if a newspaper does that, does it then give the message it's not safe for the kids to go on the street?
And there's a lot going on.
But for me, it's absolutely spot on here.
The people of Liverpool should be doing everything they can to bring...
And the family, by the way, described this man as scum today.
What's your response to that?
I agree.
Yes, I agree.
I'm not saying that the echo was wrong.
I was saying that it was...
They were quoting what the chief constable said to talk to the families of the criminals and the people who knew relating to what's happened.
What I was saying was that it was addressed to everyone.
It was out of context.
The context was addressed directly to the criminals' families.
And I agree with that completely.
And the ones who know them, somebody knows.
And I agree with exactly everything you've said about that.
Thank you very much indeed.
All I'm saying is that there's a lot of good people there.
Absolutely.
There are a lot of good people in Liverpool.
We make that point.
And I don't think that paper in any way was implying there wasn't.
I think what he was saying, the echo, and I salute it, was, look, it's not okay.
We can't dress this up.
Somewhere in Liverpool is a man who's killed a nine-year-old, and society in its entirety in Liverpool should do whatever it can from whatever sector to bring that scumbag, as you quite rightly said, to justice.
Final word from you two.
Thank you, Bishop Williams.
Peter, is this situation, last night we talked guns, you saw machetes there in Leeds, is this going to get worse and worse?
What needs to be done?
Ukraine Beyond Borders 00:11:54
Very briefly.
The police need to patrol the streets.
There needs to be greater police presence, greater community cohesion, greater neighbourhood policing as a priority.
And Will?
I mean, that.
Yeah.
The reality.
We need to do something about the ability for people to just bring weapons into the country.
There are just a variety of different routes where they're being brought in.
I mean, for one example, a lot of the illegal smuggling of people coming over, rarely do those ribs come over with just people.
It will have contraband.
And within that contraband will be things like weapons.
So these weapons will filter through.
People can still get them.
You can even look at antiquated guns like Webley's, which, although the ammunition isn't necessarily available these days, you can buy one at a market for maybe £3,000, but it's not that difficult to make the munitions for it.
I have to say, you'd watch, thank you both very much indeed, Will and Peter, you'd watch this and you'd think, I don't know, what is happening to this country?
There's a cost of living crisis, there's knife crime on the streets and a nine-year-old murdered.
Welcome back, my friends.
Now, it's 31 years to the day that Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union.
It's also six months to the day that Russia invaded in a bloody but so far failed attempt to take that independence away.
With crisis and costs everywhere we turn at home, you'd be forgiven for writing off Ukraine's suffering as a quarrel in a faraway land, somebody else's struggle.
After all, we're all worried about food prices, fuel prices, energy shortages.
But remember, they're all the same thing.
They're all tied to Ukraine's fight for survival.
And the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom are also fighting for the fundamental principles of our free world.
That's why Boris Johnson returned to Kiev today, restating Britain's unwavering support.
If we're paying in our energy bills for the evils of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood.
And that's why we know we must stay the course.
But despite the billions in aid and support from around the world, there is absolutely no end to insight to Ukraine's misery.
And in a nutshell, this is why Russia is illegally occupying swathes of Ukrainian territory, killing thousands of Ukrainians in the process.
If Ukraine gives up this land in any kind of peace deal, Putin will simply regroup and then come back for more.
President Zelensky told this show exactly why that can never happen.
We are not prepared to exchange or trade the territory of the independent state of Ukraine.
We have no right for this.
First of all, we are the government because this land belongs to Ukrainian people.
And sad news this evening, this just in more civilians killed in Ukraine.
President Zelensky says 15 people have died and another 50 have been injured in a Russian rock strike, a rocket strike on a train station.
So with no pause in the misery and no imaginable end to the war, tonight we're asking, how long is this going to go on?
Joining me now and I'm delighted to have Kira Ruddik, a Ukrainian member of parliament, and Tobias Elwood, chair of the Defense Select Committee in the United Kingdom.
Kira, I'll start with you.
I've said this for many months.
One of the things that concerns me is that this conflict, which is so horrendous, the best way to put this, I'm not sure, but becomes, it's happening and we get on with our lives and we forget and we must never forget these atrocities.
What, six months in on the day of independence, what is the feeling in the Ukraine from your own people?
We are happy that we are alive and we know that being alive and still fighting is actually a sign that everybody was wrong about us.
You remember six months ago, most of the intelligences of the world were saying that we don't stand a chance and we will fail in like a week or two.
And it's six months and we are still standing and we are fighting and we're here to tell that we are not giving up on our territories and we are here to say that we will be fighting till we win.
We know that it's incredibly dangerous that it will become new normal for the world what's happening in Ukraine right now.
And this is why we are calling for everyone to help us to make this push to give us more weapons, to give us more support, because you see how effective and efficient we are with it.
And when we are not facing Russians empty-handed, we are able to make the progress.
We are able to win our territories back.
So this is our aim.
This is our goal.
And this is where we are at the six months of war and 31 years of independence.
Today, of course, Boris Johnson came on Independence Day announcing 54 million pounds in aid.
If I can bring in Tobias Elwood.
Tobias, welcome to the show.
Probably a tricky question, but one I know you'll be prepared to answer.
I think that anybody in the world that would look at what's going on in Ukraine knows it's not just Ukraine's war, it's the world's war.
But when you consider back home, the daily strife, the cost of living crisis, people unable to pay their bills, unable to do very obvious things, and many families are going to the war.
Do you worry, do politicians worry that people will go, it's in a faraway land, I'm struggling.
I'm not saying that's right, but do you have concerns that, I don't know, war fatigue could set in mentally for people?
Yes, that's absolutely right.
Right.
I first met Kira Radik exactly six months and four days ago in Kiev, just prior to the invasion.
Nobody believed that Russia was going to invade.
The Ukrainians believed it.
I believed it.
But everybody was in denial and they thought, well, this is a far-off place.
What's it got to do with us?
They're not a member of NATO.
Let's leave them to their own devices.
We now recognize that this isn't just about Ukraine.
This is something far bigger going on.
This is Russia re-exerting itself.
Putin wanting to reinforce his Slavic vision and influence in the eastern part of Europe.
If we don't put this fire out in Ukraine, it will spread elsewhere.
And there is a direct link between what is happening here with that cost of living crisis, which I'm pleased you made the connection with.
You know, oil and gas prices have gone up here, as have food, in part because of what's going on in Ukraine.
We need to lean into this.
I'm pleased our prime minister is there committing more money.
But every day the Ukrainians spend about 40 million pounds on ammunition.
40 million pounds a day.
So this isn't going to last very long at all.
We need greater political resolve to look Putin in the eye and say, we've had enough of this.
We're going to stand up to you.
Completely agree.
If I can get back to Kira, what would your message be?
Of course, it's very interesting for me because I'm sat here doing a program in the United Kingdom and the cost of living crisis is central to so many people's lives.
And yet, you're right.
We look at what's going on in your country and it pales into insignificance.
Absolutely.
But what would you say?
A Ukrainian who's trained to have a gun, who's a member of parliament, who's fighting literally personally to protect your country.
What would your message be to people watching this in the United Kingdom who think We can't afford our own lives?
Why should we be giving money away?
What would you say to them, Kira?
First of all, I would say thank you for your support.
And thank you, Tobias, because you were the first one of Western politicians who did believe in what we were saying.
We will never forget this.
But coming back to the people, look, we are comparing the situation that we are having right now with the energy crisis and cost of living with some ideal situation and hoping that things could be as they were at the past, but they cannot.
Putin started ramping up prices way before the war in Ukraine started.
It was like November or even October.
And I do not think that if Ukraine loses, Putin will come back to dropping them and will become a lovely person who will forget about his dream of conquering the world.
Does anybody even think that he will change his behavior if Ukraine fails?
So we should compare the situation that we have right now when there is indeed a ramp up in prices.
There is indeed a very complicated situation to the situation that would be much worse.
And that would be if Ukraine loses.
Because then the energy bills would be 10 times higher.
Then the price of the food will be 10 times higher.
And then the migration crisis that we're seeing right now would be absolutely different.
It will be on tremendous level.
On your show, you were talking about guns.
We right now gave up up to 7 million of guns that only the ones that I know in Ukraine.
What would happen if all those people will have to move to Europe?
What will happen with the general strategy?
So when somebody says that they don't have a plan on how to resolve situation to help Ukraine win, I have a question.
How are you going to live if we lose?
Absolutely.
Because that's an absolutely unpleasant picture.
I completely agree.
And I think that international support for Ukraine must continue.
And we must be steadfast in our support.
And one of the reasons we wanted to do this on Independence Day was to make Tobias the point to people that it is not going away.
It does affect us all.
It might, as we said, be in a faraway land, but it will impact on so many parts of our life.
Can I just finish, Tobias, by saying, we know Boris Johnson was there today on Independence Day, 54 million.
We know that Boris Johnson will cease being the British prime minister in a couple of weeks.
He has built very close ties with Zelensky.
And in fact, some of his, even his critics said that the job that he's done for this country in Ukraine has been one of the highlights of his premiership.
Do you believe that that closeness, that concentration on helping Ukraine will continue under the new prime minister?
And will you be pushing for that, Tobias?
Absolutely.
There is a bond that's developed between our two nations, which is second to none.
We've stepped forward more than other countries have in NATO, I have to say, straight from the start in supporting our friends in Ukraine.
But more needs to be done.
This is where you need international leadership.
I'm afraid I have to say that we're not seeing it from Britain, from Germany, from France, or from the United States.
Yes, we're giving operational equipment, but we need strategic analysis and direction of travel that shows that we have a policy direction to stand up to Russia.
We had a speech last week from Putin, who made it very clear that the global baton of leadership must now be handed away from the West to a non-West nation.
He was implying Russia and indeed China.
That is the era of insecurity, a new decade of insecurity that we now face.
This is 1937 all over again, and we need to wake up.
Couldn't agree with you more.
Kira, thank you so much indeed in Ukraine, Tobias Elwood, both from the talk.
And actually, to me, there's a similarity between that situation in Ukraine and our first story.
Right and wrong, good and evil.
It's particularly obvious to anybody with the brain cell that Putin will not stop and has to be prevented from taking over that independent sovereign nation because it will impact on all of our lives.
Next on uncensored, goodness me.
Royal Family Scandals 00:12:14
Princess Pinocchio's latest podcast, Bombshell.
She says baby Archie's nursery caught fire during their recent tour of South Africa.
The heater in the nursery caught on fire.
Everyone's in tears, everyone's shaken.
And what did we have to do?
Go out and do another official engagement.
But does the story check out?
I'm joined by someone who was actually on that tour and disagrees.
Back in three.
Right, welcome back.
So hold on to your seats, my friends.
Megan Markle's in the headlines for stretching the truth again.
Also, tonight on the show, the Pope is Catholic, and bears do defecate in the woods from where it's pumped directly onto Britain's beaches.
Ba-boom.
Yes, Meg's at it again.
She's regaled the listener to her new podcast with the terrifying story of how son Archie narrowly escaped a fire in his bedroom on a royal tour of South Africa.
The heater in the nursery caught on fire.
Everyone's in tears, everyone's shaken.
And what did we have to do?
Go out and do another official engagement.
Despite being shaken and in tears, she and Harry bravely, and I mean bravely, resumed their duties.
But it turns out that Archie wasn't even in the room when it happened.
And royal sources today told the press that they don't even recall any fire at all, merely an overheating heater.
You try saying that.
Now, this isn't the first time Megan's face claims that a truth isn't necessarily the truth.
Our investigative units and a top team of data journalists have produced this forensic visualization of Megan's fibs.
She famously told Oprah she married Prince Harry intimately and in secret days before their televised bash in Windsor.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said, oh no, she didn't.
Megan claims the royal family took away her passport, leaving her a princess trapped in a tower.
But investigation by her own The Sun found she took at least 13 foreign holidays during the period in which she was apparently grounded.
Megan also claimed a member of the royal household expressed concerns about the, I can't do this, the colour of her unborn child's skin while she was pregnant, but she's never been able to say who it was.
And she says she barely knew anything about the royal family, the nose can't get any bigger, before she met Harry.
Friends have said she was a royal fanatic who visited BP as a child and wanted to be Diana 2.0.
There you go, my friends.
Lies, damn lies, and the dustage of Sussex.
Or as the Queen herself put it, recollections may vary.
Joining me now is Robert Jobson, Royal Editor at the Evening Standard and tonight's panel, Esther Craiki.
I can't wait.
Former Labour advisor, my good friend, Richard Powersaid.
Welcome, people.
Hello.
Thank you.
Let's start with you, Robert.
Why is this woman such a divisive character?
Why does she generate the column inches, the comments?
I mean, she seems to annoy slash excel in people's brains so much.
Why?
I mean, I think that the Oprah Winfrey interview didn't help.
I mean, that was pretty awful as we went through the Pinocchio stories there.
But look, I think it's a, I was talking about the guys.
If we all landed in LA tomorrow, I think there would be a difference in the way things, to be fair to her, the way we address issues.
But as I say, I was in South Africa on that case.
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying that all our residences meet the requirements, health and safety requirements.
Tried contacted all the three people that were at the AIDS there today, and none of them would answer any questions because, unlike this programme, I think that the palace is somewhat censored when it comes to Meghan Markle.
They're a bit scared of her.
They're a bit scared of what they should say about her as well because of the reactions.
But I was there.
I don't recall any fire engines.
I mean, we didn't get the story.
Obviously, we were all pretty rubbish at our job, but there were no stories.
And the whole of the South African press didn't cover this incident.
There were no fire engines called to the residents.
You know, we have to ask questions about that.
But she's saying that, you know, it was the smoke was in the room.
I'll tell you what my issue is, Richard, just to bring you in a sec.
I know what my mate is.
I was asking the crew earlier, and one of the cameramen said, I sort of feel she gets bad press.
But my argument would be she comes across as lacking in ingenuity.
Why wasn't this said at the time?
It all seems to be this orchestrated campaign to gain popularity, which I sort of want to tell her, she's never going to regain.
You've taken your 118 million.
Be quiet.
I mean, it seems to me that you could say something quite similar of quite a lot of different members of the royal family.
Yeah.
Look, I think she's not got very many very interesting things to say.
I feel quite sorry for her because I think she's been obsessively, kind of slightly creepily obsessed over by the British media.
Do you think she thought, do you think she came from California, that different lifestyle and thought, I'm going to change the world, I'm going to modernize the monarchy, I'm going to save Harry from the misery that he's going through, I'm going to be this beacon of light.
And very quickly, people went, well, I'm not buying what you're saying, love.
I mean, if she thought that, then she was incredibly naive.
But she might quite reasonably have thought that, you know, there's one prince who's going to become head of state who thinks it's fine to undermine our democracy and sort of, you know, what was he doing?
Taking enormous donations from somebody who his chief aide then makes sure this Saudi billionaire gets citizenship and a knighthood from the Queen.
I mean, it's really, really rank.
That's what one of them's doing.
The other one's friends with paedophiles and frankly is probably not telling the truth about it.
She might quite reasonably have thought that she wasn't going to be the most unpopular member.
She came there before that, unless she had a crystal ball.
She wouldn't have to do it.
We can't.
Yeah, listen, you have a right to her opinion.
That's what talk is all about, isn't it?
I mean, maybe she has a point.
Is it not the way, Esther, that she does this?
To me, it's so, I don't even know what the right word is, even the name of that goddamn.
Yes, just not lacking in anything genuine.
I just don't buy it.
But I think that was her biggest frustration being part of the royal family.
She couldn't curate her image for the public.
That's the problem she had.
Because I think when you, when you, she says she didn't grow up in tabloid culture, fine.
But there is a way you can manipulate media in the US to try and sort of portray a certain image.
But when you're part of the firm, your first sort of duty is your duty to the firm and to the country.
It's not about curating the perfect image of yourself.
I completely agree that, you know, there are members of the royal family that are less palatable.
I've always advocated that Prince Andrew should be kept in the catacombs of Paris.
That doesn't change anything.
That doesn't change the fact that Meghan Markle is completely unlikable.
And the thing is that she can only milk two years in the royal family for so long.
What exactly does, what else does she have to say?
What else?
What else is there to her, you know, torturous life as part of the royal family?
There's nothing else.
My point is this, and I absolutely support it.
My old man worked for the royal family for 41 years, and he always said, and you talk about the part of the firm, he always said that anybody past the Queen Mother and the Queen has systematically used the press for their own ends whenever they've wanted it.
He included Charles Danner and all of the rest of them.
And he doesn't think that mystique will ever return.
So maybe we're being unfair to Meghan Markle.
And maybe Richard has a point that actually, if they looked at themselves, not William and Kate, I think, but they're all as bad.
Are a lot of them as bad as each other?
Why does she care if we banished it?
Richard's got his viewpoint.
I think he's coming from a different angle.
I think the royal family do a terrific job for this country.
So do I.
And I think that when you see what the Prince of Wales has done in terms of his, you know, the amount of, well, and the Queen and the amount of work they do on behalf of the government, I think, you know, that's the point we seem to forget is that the Foreign Office has asked him to do this.
What upsets a lot of people, I think, is that Meghan was around for two minutes, really, you know, not long enough.
She didn't give it long enough.
I think she could have done a terrific job in the Commonwealth.
She would have given diversity a real plus.
I think that there's a lot of things that she could have done, and he just gave up on it.
And I just don't, this lady's story, she was forced to go out on this job.
I very much doubt anyone would have been able to force her, let alone her own husband, to make a go on this job if she was that distraught about it.
No, no, I mean, if there was a fire in my house, I wouldn't be doing this show.
I'd have been at home.
Exactly.
But what was it?
It wasn't fire, Bobby's winning.
It's quite interesting what Esther says about likability.
I absolutely take your point.
I go back to the old man, and he says that when the Queen dies, and we've had this discussion before, he doesn't believe the royal family or the monarchy will ever be the same again.
Now, a lot of people will disagree with that, but the Queen, I think, will never, we will never appreciate what an amazing woman until she's no more.
But are they as bad as each other?
Is it her likability?
Is it the way she goes about stuff?
That's what it is.
I don't think that the royal family's success until this moment has been based upon likability.
No, I think it's hard work and graft by the Queen.
Right, exactly.
And you know what?
I was saying at the, you know, I think Meghan Markle's podcast sounds quite boring.
Well, you know what?
The Queen is quite boring in a pretty impressive way, right?
70 years of her life.
I disagree with that.
I don't think the Queen's boring at all.
What she does and what she did, when we really needed her during the pandemic, when Boris Johnson had COVID, when the Prince of Wales got down with it, she came in with that statement, which created a sense of calm.
When the politicians couldn't have done that, when you had Boris gibbering away and his two experts about what we should be doing, what we should be doing, showing us various graphs from school about COVID, it was the Queen's words.
You know, we will meet again.
And Prince Hobbes is not going to be able to do that.
Well, I disagree with you too.
I disagree with you.
I think that the Prince of Wales will be able to draw people together.
I think that what Jeremy's saying is right.
But he's a terrifically hard-working man.
Somebody, I think, yes, you'll believe it.
Okay, there are...
Has anything illegal been done with this donation from charity?
No.
Otherwise, he'd be under investigation by the police.
So that isn't the case.
Do you think the police would?
Do you think the police would be investigating?
Well, we do believe in a police way.
Of course they do.
Of course they would.
They investigated Prince Andrew.
Esther, what were we going to say?
I was going to say that I think one thing that has, we all respect about the Queen is her sense of duty.
And aside from the whole likability argument, which we can go back and forth on, is the fact that Meghan Markle never showed a sense of duty.
And that was the biggest issue.
I think, you know, and I don't necessarily blame her because celebrity culture in the US is very different, right?
There's no real sort of, there's no equivalent of the royal family in the US.
You become a celebrity, you get rich, you donate money, and you're God, right?
In the UK, in the UK, it's completely different.
You know, there's a real history.
This is why Piers Morgan's in America at the moment to regain his God standard.
But you know, you have to be able to read the room.
You have to have respect for the British public.
There's certain things you just don't do.
And I don't think she completely understands.
I think it's really interesting because I can see all points.
I get what you're saying, Richard, actually, about if you look at, if you point a mirror at the rest of them, actually, there's a lot of them who aren't great.
I think you, though, Robert, have a really good point as well.
She was here two minutes.
People have done 70 years.
Yes, they'll have made mistakes, but it's about duty, isn't it?
Prince Philip.
I mean, look at Prince Philip.
He's an incredible servant to the crown, incredible servant to the Queen.
There's a strength and state.
And I just think that that just was such a, he must have been looking at this, but towards the end of his life and thinking, what on earth?
What a shamble.
What's all the graph, you know, what's all the graph mean?
We don't have.
Go on.
This is a grown-up country.
We should have a grown-up political system.
Why do we have this?
Why do we have this fairytale nonsense?
This is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy.
It's embarrassing.
We're a grown-up country.
What democracy do you want at the American democracy where you get Biden and what do you want to do?
President Boris.
I mean, we could look over at Europe with all these incredibly successful democracies.
MPs, if they wanted to get rid of the monarchy, we have, by the way, got rid of the monarchy once before.
Then the MPs and our system will sort that out.
And work out, my friends, as I draw to a close, how much the American president costs the American people and how much the monarchy brings into British coffers.
But we'll agree to disagree.
Meghan Markle might be in your heart.
You might believe she's the greatest thing since slicebread.
Or you might believe, as Piers Morgan once said, Princess Pinocchio only believes what she says herself.
Welcome back, my friends.
Stopping Oil Disruption 00:07:47
Now, barely a week passes without eco-fanatics sticking their noses into our morning commute, usually by sticking themselves to bits of our roads.
Today, protesters from Just Stop Oil damaged fuel pumps and glued themselves to a service station forecourt along the M25.
Surrey police tell us they've arrested at least 20 people.
Yesterday, the same group caused chaos at oil depots by staging sit-down protests.
Already this year, they've disrupted the BAFTA Awards.
That's not such a bad thing.
And the British Grand Prix, as well as sticking themselves to various priceless works of art.
Joining me now is Just Stop Oil protester Alex de Conning.
I hope that's right.
And former Top Gear presenter Steve Berry.
Alex, I don't want to have a go.
I want to get straight to the point.
I have an issue with this, but I want to ask you a question.
What does Just Stop Oil mean?
Briefly?
Basically, the government are trying to push through another 40 new fossil fuel facilities and we're demanding that there should be no new oil licenses in the UK because we have eight years in reserve, which is more than enough time to have a fair transition to renewable energy and to make sure that oil workers are reskilled and treated properly.
Right, so here's what I'm going to say to you.
How old are you?
I'm 24.
I don't want to sound like your dad, but here's what I'm going to say to you.
If you were 57, young man, right, and you had a family and you had a mortgage and you had to go to work and you had an energy crisis that was about to cripple you financially, would you be sitting in a road or would you be slightly hacked off if these eco-zealots or whatever you call them were making it impossible for you to carry on with your job?
I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, I'm being honest.
Every time I get somebody from Just Stop Oil, they're barely out of nappies.
No disrespect.
Why?
You don't have any experience of the real world.
It's just a bunch of unwashed students giving it large.
You're stopping people from going about their daily lives, man.
Unwashed.
Okay.
First of all, we have many age rangers.
I've been arrested next to people who are age.
You say that with pride, I've been arrested.
Why?
Because this is the kind of action that we need to take.
We are in a climate emergency.
Do you not realize how important the situation is?
Yes, I do, but you're not going to like what I'm going to say.
And you're going to say.
I don't know what Steve says.
We're in a climate emergency.
There are people watching this who cannot pay their bills.
They cannot heat their houses.
They cannot feed their kids.
And do you know what I'm going to say to you?
Leave that a minute and concentrate what's happening.
I'm not saying to leave that a minute.
The cost of living crisis is very closely related to the climate crisis.
We could be fixing both at the same time.
No, we're not going to be able to do it.
We could be insulating homes, which saves almost half people's energy bills.
I'd cut the green levy.
I'd cut VAT on fuel.
I'm not saying that.
I'm £2.5 billion higher than they should be.
Here's another.
Green policies have been scrapped over the last decade.
Here's another.
We subsidize public transport, which we were talking about before we arrived on the show.
That would save people a fortune on transportation costs as well as...
I'm not disagreeing about the fatal energy, I'm talking about how you do it and now.
Bringing in Steve briefly.
Really appreciate what you're saying.
Do we...
Wouldn't it be great to be that young and idealistic?
I was like that when I was his age.
Combat jacket, placard, ban the bomb, down with this sort of thing, vegetable rights and peace.
But it's not patronising.
What I'm saying is.
You're right.
You're entitled to his opinion.
But you are a little...
There seem to be two...
There seem to be two groups.
There's nice, well-presented, well-spoken middle-class young people like that.
And then there's people in their 50s and 60s who look like they worked in the public sector, retired early, and are bored watching antiques, road trip and tipping points.
So they want something to do.
They're asking for stop oil.
Oil is stopping, but there's going to be fossil fuel facilities are in the pipeline.
But there's going to be a transitional period.
Look at the popularity.
The transitional people should start right now.
Look at the eight years of the year.
It was 40 degrees in London a few weeks ago.
40 degrees.
It was that in 1976, but you weren't around to experiencing how we were.
Do you want to see the grass?
I can show you the grass later.
Can I just jump in?
Just genuinely for one reason.
And I've said my piece and fair play to you, you've said yours.
Do you not think there's a more constructive way, and I go back to it, and I never get answered this, than ruining...
Well, what you do is you stick yourselves to these things and you make it impossible for people to get on with lives.
Why are you not talking sense?
As you've actually spoken, hands in the air.
I've learned more from you in two minutes than all of those dullards sticking themselves to whatever and making our lives more difficult.
That's the point I'm making.
But sadly, we would not get on shows like these if it wasn't for stuff like this.
I'd have you on.
You don't have to stick yourself to anything.
I'm waiting for that hand.
Move that hand.
Oh, it's fine.
We're all right.
No, but I'm being aware of that.
No, I appreciate that, but then please invite me back next time instead of having to resort to crazy stuff.
It's the wrong target.
Instead of inconveniencing hard-working people to try and get to work or school or wherever they've got to go, why don't they glue themselves to the yachts of these super rich guys that are making all this money?
Why don't you do that?
And I'll tell you why, because they might have to go outside the UK.
And then they find the sort of policing where they don't ask for your pronouns first, they give you a crack with the stick, which is virtually everywhere else outside of the UK.
Look what happened in Italy when they tried pulling this sort of routine.
People, not the police, just got out of the car and dragged them out of the way.
I will never forget that woman, right, in the range rover who couldn't get to the hospital.
I'm just asking you, Alex, you can't take stuff per...
Do you understand her frustration with you and your friends?
Of course I understand.
So why don't you do it differently?
Why are you not getting the people on the show who have been disrupted because train tracks are spontaneously combusted?
Because Heathrow runways have been melted so flights couldn't take off.
Flash floods so people couldn't get to work in that way.
Why haven't you got people on the show who...
Because I've only got two minutes left and I've got you on.
No, but you're always focusing on this kind of disruption and not the other kinds of climate crisis.
Well, you say we're focusing on disruption, my friend.
That's because you and your supporters are going to be able to do it.
And the only way to stop us and also to stop the other kinds of disruption from the climate crisis is for the government to stop issuing new fossil fuels.
So you won't stop doing what you're doing until the government does that.
Is that what you're saying?
Exactly.
That's what I'm saying.
I'm waiting for a layers.
Why would we stop?
Final word.
You always do it in the southeast of England.
Come to Salford.
Try it up there.
See how you get on lab.
You got arrested in Newcastle, my favourite city.
You were left shaken after being forcibly dragged away.
Yes, and we were very surprised by the response.
I'm doing my PhD in green hydrogen production at Newcastle University.
And I just want to point out that there are so many solutions that I found through this that are just not being used.
We have these.
Well, I'll tell you what, come back on the show, right?
Come back on the show and spend time talking to me about that.
But I will never change.
And I mean that genuinely, because fair play to you.
My issue is, is that the disruption, the disrespect?
I'm not, listen, you might have a very good point, but I think you have to understand that people are really struggling.
And I think that right now, right now, they don't look kindly.
I'm saying, if you want traction from your arguments, I'm not trying to win the X Factor here.
It's not a popularity contest.
We are doing this because we need things to change.
Fair enough.
History has shown that in order to get the kind of radical change that we need and the time scale we have, this is the solution.
Women did not get the vote by voting on it.
No, they threw themselves in front of a horse.
Final word from you, Steve Berry.
Wrong target.
Target these rich, fat cats, not working people.
Really, really appreciate it.
And that is an open offer.
And I mean that.
Man to man, we'll have really much to come around.
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for having me.
Steve, thank you.
Alex, thank you.
Just a quick word, by the way.
GCSE results tomorrow morning.
My aide's getting hers.
Fingers crossed to everybody who's going there.
I know it's a very worrying night, but you've done your best.
And fingers crossed, you get the good result.
That is it from me tonight.
We're back tomorrow at eight o'clock.
And don't forget, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, Piers Morgan made me promise as he sits in the south of France, judging by his Instagram eating prawns.
Whatever you're up to, make sure it's uncensored.
That's a big tick.
Have yourselves a great night.
That's been me, back tomorrow at eight.
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