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Sept. 1, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:46
20220901_piers-morgan-uncensored-what-do-the-public-truly-t
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Boris Johnson's Uncertain Legacy 00:14:13
So you might have heard it's not just Bojo leaving this weekend.
It's my last Piers Morgan show tonight.
Yeah, I think it went all right.
Everybody seems to be quite nice.
The crew were amazing.
I think, yeah, we got on with it.
Sorry, hold on a minute.
Sorry, what are you doing?
Who are you?
Oh, you're the pizza man.
We've been waiting hours for you.
Do I look like the pizza?
Oh, you, be careful with that photograph.
That's my prize.
I've had enough of this.
I'm getting the boss on the phone.
Where is he?
Right.
Company phone mate.
Sorry.
No phone, no show, nothing.
This is what you get for five weeks.
You're sitting for him whilst he's on his big yacht.
Then he gets his private jet and iMystery.
the titles good evening my friends Well, I guess that better go in there and the box better be tied up.
So the nation can breathe finally.
A huge sigh of relief.
The old boy is finally off.
And what a tumultuous time it's been.
Party's galore, a general air of shambolic chaos and confusion, and the perennial whiff of scandal.
Yes, it's the final edition of Piers Morgan Uncensored with me, Jeremy Carl.
What else could I have been talking about, for goodness sake?
Judging, though, from this tweet from Piers, it's not just Boris he'll be delighted to see the back of.
But one line we may have to get used to hearing over the coming months from Team Bojo is that it was the people who overwhelmingly gave the PM his mandate back in 2019.
Yet it was a small group of bitter MPs who ended up throwing him out.
Just a message for you, Morgan.
I've been getting on very well with your crew and your team, just saying, big man.
But how true is this feeling about Boris Johnson?
What are people out there in the United Kingdom think about this man?
We went outside, talk TV Towers, to find out how you see Boris Johnson's legacy.
And yes, by the way, we did warn them this was airing before the watershed.
Take a look.
So how would you describe Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister?
The worst.
There has been no worse Prime Minister, I think, definitely my lifetime.
It's only been five.
Yes, if I had to describe Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister, it's underwhelming.
I think he did a really good job.
Got us through the pandemic well.
Very bizarre.
Absolutely dismal.
Just horrendous.
Absolutely horrendous and a massive waste of time.
He had a lot to do with and I feel a bit sorry for him to be fair.
I think Boris was a useless liar.
Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister in a sentence.
Well I can say it in a word.
Hilarious.
So what is Boris Johnson's legacy?
Talk to his political editor Kate McCannis here along with former Labour MP Luciana Berger.
Kate I start with you.
What is Boris Johnson's legacy from a political analyst like yourself?
I sort of think politics will never be as fun again, but on a serious note, is there a legacy or was it tarnished beyond repair?
Well I think the big worry for Boris Johnson and you can see it a little bit in his last couple of weeks in office is that he's not quite sure what his legacy is going to be.
I mean COVID-19 made it really difficult for him to achieve some of those things he talked about on the steps of Downing Street and look you heard from people there really mixed bag but people have strong opinions about him and about what he achieved.
He set out to do something that was quite unique.
He managed to harness votes from a group of people in the country that very rarely come the Conservatives way and the thing that always sticks in my mind about Boris Johnson is the night after he won that election.
He came back and he said look I know that I've essentially borrowed your votes and I know that I need to deliver for you or you will never vote for my party again.
He understood the implications of it and the pressure on him and I think for him he will be frustrated and probably a little bit sad that he's not been able to deliver fully on the things that he pledged and that would have been cost of living.
It would have been so-called levelling up.
Now we've seen some of that in new railways.
We've seen some of that in New Money.
But even there, there have been accusations that perhaps it's not gone as far as it should have.
Perhaps it's been a little bit hollow and it may well not change the lives of people in the way that he wants it to.
So Jeremy, what will it be?
Boris Johnson wants it to be the green agenda now in Ukraine.
I think potentially Ukraine may stick in a lot of people's minds.
Luciana, a huge critic of Boris Johnson.
We'll talk more about how you left your party, the man that Johnson defeated in 2019.
Anybody could have defeated Jeremy Corbyn though, couldn't they, to be fair?
I mean, it was all but a foregone conclusion that certainly at that election that Boris Johnson and the Conservatives were going to win and Boris did so off the back of saying he was going to get Brexit.
But I mean that's an interesting one.
I've said this to Kate before privately.
I mean I'm not a marketing guru or a political analyst but I remember the 2019 election really clearly.
The Liberal Democrats said we're not going to do what the British people, the majority of the British people want.
The Labour Party said we haven't got a clue what we're going to do and all he had to say was get Brexit done.
That was done COVID very, very quickly.
I always use this example and I'm going to throw this at you straight away.
I had somebody on the radio the other day and I can't swear so I won't.
But he basically said Boris Johnson is a lying whatever but he is my lying whatever.
Now this man despite his flaws despite the lack of attention to detail and his rather shady relationship with the truth that we all know still to this day resonates with the British people and we talk to fair.
None of us would be surprised if he didn't make a comeback.
I think it resonates with some British people but certainly his popularity has decreased significantly since when he first came into office and the gap in the polls now is the greatest that it's ever been.
So yes that was certainly the case when he came in in 2019.
That is not the case now and we have to only look at his record and what he has either.
What do you remember him for?
And what he hasn't done to see why that is the case.
And I think in my mind certainly he's brought the office of being a prime minister into disrepute.
I mean when else in our history have we seen what we've seen just looking at what happened with Partygate for example.
But what do you say to the people?
I'll bring Kate in as well.
What do you say to the people across Europe and the world who are in complete, I don't know, confusion that we got rid of a democratically elected Prime Minister who won a massive majority in 2019 because he had a piece of cake.
What do you say to that?
But it was more than just a piece of a cake and it was a, you know, you can call it just a piece of cake.
It was many pieces of cake.
It wasn't just one piece of cake.
It was many people enjoying the cake.
And it's what it symbolised to the British people who I think have a very strong sense of justice and fairness at a time when people had to make massive, massive sacrifices.
People were not allowed to mourn.
People were not allowed to go, you know, not allowed to be with their families and their friends and not allowed to associate.
And here he was a man who's behind closed doors, behind the gates of Downing Street, was having parties, was living at large when people couldn't enjoy those things that we normally take for granted.
And it was a sense of injustice, I think, and unfair to expect people to, you know, it wasn't just a piece of cake.
I think that's a really interesting way to describe it, Kate, a sense of injustice.
And yet, during this ridiculous, long-winded Tory leadership thing that's gone on for about seven years, it seems, and we have a new Prime Minister on Monday.
We'll talk about that in a sec.
Frighteningly to think that 70-something percent of the Conservative membership, if his name was on the ballot, would still be voting for Boris Johnson.
So has his popularity gone?
Well, look, I think this has a lot to do with the difference between how the Conservative Party in the country, so Conservative members, and the Conservative Party in Westminster feel.
They don't necessarily feel the same way, not about what they want out of a leader, and certainly not about their own Prime Minister, about Boris Johnson.
Now, that's been the case for a while, and there are some in the Tory Party who've recognised that and have tried to bring the two closer together and fix it, but they haven't succeeded.
And that's a fundamental problem for whoever gets into number 10 next.
And it's probably going to be Liz Truss because the party has got used to this idea of chaos.
And remember, there's a whole new load of MPs who came in in 2019 who are not wedded to the Conservative Party structure.
They are not bound by a sense of duty or by any sense really that they have to wait their turn for a ministerial job.
They feel emboldened by winning in seats where the party never won before.
And crucially, they feel like that's down to them.
And that's given them the freedom to act out, if you like, and behave in a different way.
And that split between the party in the country and the party in Westminster is problematic.
That's very true.
Luciana, also, one of the things that I hear repeatedly from Tories is not about his behaviour.
Far more traditional right-wing Tory voters complain that he didn't deliver the Tory manifesto, the traditional Tory things, lowering taxes.
He was hell-bent on a green agenda.
He seemed to concentrate on things that aren't traditional Tory voters.
Now, Kate's absolutely right.
The Tory party is in turmoil.
We have Sunak or Truss.
Every poll points to Liz Truss becoming the Prime Minister on Monday.
Sunak will not accept a job because she'll offer him something that's not good enough.
What becomes of the Tory Party?
Because I guess your ex-employers, the Labour Party, should be rubbing their hands with glee.
But I still find it astonishing, by the way, that they're only 13 points in front.
They should be out of sight, shouldn't they, by now?
Well, it was 15 points.
And I salute you for walking out on that lot because Corbyn was an absolute disgrace, genuinely.
Yeah, and it was every good reason why I left the Labour Party back in February of 2019.
Just to answer your question, I think part of the challenge is that on what he pledged, Boris Johnson did not deliver on so many fronts.
You touched on levelling up.
You have to look at the most recent GCSE results to see the disparity between the North and the South, whether it was all the hospitals that he said he was going to be building, that's gone to the wayside, the festival of Brexit, which we find out today costs millions of pounds.
And again, didn't deliver it.
There's a litany of things that he did pledge.
And if you make a promise in the election manifesto, you have to...
Who do you fear most, Truss or Sunak?
Well, it's going to be Liz Truss.
Like every poll points in that.
We're not allowed to say that because we have to do straight down the line.
But every poll says it will be Liz Trust.
She's the continuity candidate, isn't she?
They're both continuity candidates.
They've both sat around the cabinet.
I don't understand.
Do you know?
Kate, I'll bring you into this.
You lot are political.
You're high flyers.
I think the Tory party is a really strange beast, right?
They waited months for somebody to be courageous enough to stand up and basically, with the greatest respect, stick a blade between Boris Johnson's shoulder blades.
But whoever did that was never going to be trusted.
And that comes out in every Hustings and it comes out in every poll.
When he resigned, Sunak, right, having supported all these things that people disagree with, it folded like a deck of cards, didn't it?
And he would never be trusted by the traditional Tories.
So I think the Labour Party...
What do you make of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer then?
I think you see the Labour Party make massive strides to, first of all, actually come up with kind of proper plans.
You've heard from the Labour Party just in the last few weeks, a plan, which we should have had from this government.
We should have had from Boris Johnson in his last few weeks.
We should have had Parliament's rejoining the Protestants.
Yeah, I mean that, you know, in advance of the off-gem Porris cap, the energy price cap rising as it did at the end of last week.
And what we have, at least from a party, a party of opposition, under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer.
Would you rejoin him?
Is it probably cost of plan?
I'm not allowed to rejoin.
No, but in two years' time, would you rejoin him with Keir Starmer in charge instead of that anti-Semite, Jeremy Corbyn?
Let's see what happens in two years' time.
It's academic for this moment in time.
Kate, quick question.
We know about Monday the Queen is not going to receive her new Prime Minister.
15th Prime Minister in Buckingham Palace is going to be in Balmoral.
The priorities for the new Prime Minister, I mean, who'd want the job?
This country is broken.
The energy crisis, the cost, everything.
I mean, it's a pretty hard task, isn't it?
Forever takes over.
It's going to be a mammoth task.
And the most difficult thing for Liz Truss, if it is Liz Truss, and as you say, the polls point in that direction, is that she has spent the last however many weeks making quite significant promises to the Conservative Party members, which have been heard by the rest of the country.
And she may well find it difficult to deliver on hardly any of them because of the scale of what she's going to have to do.
She's going to have to tackle energy prices.
That will be her first major intervention.
But there's also food prices, inflation.
And remember, every decision she makes could potentially fuel inflation.
Some people saying, some experts saying it could be 22% by next year.
Everything feeds everything else.
If you help, for example, those at the lower end with energy bills, but not those in the middle classes who maybe could get through it, well, they might stop spending.
They might stop going out to pubs and restaurants, stop spending on clothes.
And we know those businesses are really struggling too.
The government can't help everyone.
Truss has been clear about that.
But essentially, that's what she's going to be asked to do.
And she's going to have to find a way to navigate that alongside everything else, including the war in Ukraine.
And that very quickly is what I find astonishing because Sunak, if you strip it down, is a more traditional Tory in terms of he's talking about prudence and he's saying we can't make promises and we can't do that.
And yet they're seemingly going for that continuity candidate.
But it speaks again to what we've seen from the Conservatives over the last 12 years because that's how long they've been in office for.
We are in this crisis at this moment in time.
I was a former shadow energy minister for three years between 2010 and 2013.
And we didn't as a country do what we should have done to save when it rains.
We're in an absolute crisis now because we have this over-reliance on foreign imported gas.
We haven't seen the investment that we should have had in nuclear.
We're in Ireland.
We've got wind that blows.
We've got tidal power.
We should be using solar, the whole thing.
We could be powering millions of homes.
We could have done so much to insulate.
Properties across the UK.
We've got some of the most leaky properties across Europe.
We could have seen millions of people not spending money, which just escapes through their door.
And that's why we're in such a dire situation now with, you know, we're facing inflation.
Listen, we've done this every single night.
And I say to both of you, we've done it every single night about broken Britain and the cost of living crisis.
And you get to a point where you feel, what more can we say?
People are struggling.
The Roots of Educational Inequality 00:14:12
And it's not just those on lower incomes.
I talk about the jams every single night.
They're just about managing people who pay all their bills and do all of that and are struggling.
Hard, hard times.
But Eta Keffel said, the head of ADF said, come January, 50% of households in this country.
Boris said, buy a kettle.
No, we'll be spending more than 10% or more of our disposable income on our energy bills.
This is not just about the country.
I agree.
It's about the whole country.
I'm going to ask you both what I ask the good people of the United Kingdom.
One word, Kate McCann, in your mind, personal opinion, sums up Boris Johnson.
Oh, you can't ask me that.
That's impossible to answer in one word, especially in a personal opinion, which you know full well I'm not allowed to.
Oh, just give one word.
Difficult.
Interesting.
You see, that doesn't get you into any trouble.
I like the jacket very much.
One word.
Devastating.
Devastating.
I would say unique.
Thank you very much indeed, Luciana.
Thank you very much indeed.
Kate McCann, next and uncensored.
Broken Britain, we've been talking about it.
The country in a mess.
And frankly, the only thing on the up is the crime rates.
The one thing today I was reading in the paper, could the decline of the traditional family unit in any way be responsible for what's happening in the country?
We'll discuss that next after this break.
We're coming right back.
Thank you very much indeed.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Now, a new report out today shows that 23% of Britain's 8.2 million families consist of only one parent.
get this.
49% of children living in lone parent families are in relative poverty compared with just 25% of those living in married or cohabiting families.
During my time on the show we have repeatedly and quite rightly I believe focused on broken Britain, a country in a mess with crime running rampant, masked men fighting with four-foot machetes in Leeds, an armed robbery in broad daylight in West London, the shocking murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt Corbell in Liverpool.
Now as well as talking about broken Britain, we've also been talking about its causes.
And actually one of the real causes, it says in a newspaper article today, could indeed be the social decay.
Is it staring us in the face?
Is the breakdown of the traditional family unit part of the reason?
Have a look at this.
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.
The issue is that we have an element of criminality, which I would say is more of an issue that relates to poverty, a cost of living crisis.
The scale of the crisis that is about to engulf us, both customers, consumers, ordinary general public and the businesses, is so immense.
People on universal credit, if they're young, they get less than £300 a month.
That's not enough to carry their electricity bill.
I have a very dysfunctional family of my own to discuss it in the uncensored studio.
Campaign director at the Conservative Group's Citizen Go, Caroline Farrow, welcome.
Talk TV legend Mike Graham and political journalist Ava Santina.
Can I start with you, Caroline?
It seems particularly unfair to label one-parent families as the cause of the problems in this country, doesn't it?
Yeah, I would agree, actually.
I would push back against any sort of gross generalisation.
But it doesn't, if you look at the stats, and nobody's destined to be a statistic, but being brought up in a one-parent family makes it, your chances of being involved in crime, of having low exam grades, of being homeless, they're all doubled.
And that's...
Is that absolutely true?
It's not just a made-up statistic.
No, that was...
Because I know many, many, many people from one-parent families who have been given the most loving, caring honesty.
And I know many people from families of people who have argued non-stop and their kids are affected by that.
Well, that's right.
You can't generalise.
And I think we all know of one-parent families where the mother or the father has been an absolute heroine or hero.
But if you just think about it sort of objectively, and this is, it's very difficult to talk about this because people tend to think that you are blaming or shaming or trying to ascribe blame to people.
And very often people in one-parent families, it's not through their own doing.
This is not necessarily something they've chosen.
But look at it objectively.
And I know this from my own experience, and I've been a single parent myself.
It is so much harder raising children by yourself when you're just one pair of hands.
But then to read statistics, you tell me there's a lot more instances of mental health problems in children from untraditional families and they don't do well at school.
That's a sweeping generalisation, isn't it?
That isn't quite the generalisation I made.
But when we were talking, when I was talking to the research team, yes, it is true that children who come from single-parent families are more likely to experience mental health problems and the outcomes for them are not so good.
But that does not force anybody to become a statistic.
Where does that research?
So that research is from the Centre for Social Justice and the report that was released today.
But isn't the problem really now about sort of ability and about parents and how good if you've got one parent who's brilliant, then you're going to be fine.
If you've got a parent who's a criminal, you're probably going to be a criminal.
What is a traditional family, bud?
Well, I'm a family.
I've luckily contributed in many ways to this particular debate personally by having children within a marriage, children outside of a marriage.
I've lived with the mother of my children.
I've been separated from people.
You know, when I get to fill out that form where it says, you know, what are you, single, married, divorced?
I don't even know what's a problem.
I don't just go everything.
Yeah, thanks.
I'll take it all.
You know, the point is, it's all about, if you've got two parents who are separated and you're technically being raised in a single parent household, it doesn't mean you're going to suddenly go off the rails.
I mean, I think what we're talking about here is class.
We're talking about opportunity.
We're talking about education.
And we're talking about...
In the end, you tend to do what your parents do.
See, that's the point, isn't it?
And who can say that one parent isn't a role model?
I know, as I say, plenty of people brought up in the most horrendous situations where they're at each other's throats and patently the kid would have been better served if they'd been, you know, separated parents and they visited them each.
What's your view on that?
Yeah, no, definitely.
I mean, like, nuclear family, when we talk about that, it's basically like a narrow template where for some reason we still think that a mother and a father and two children is the best way to run things.
But you're right.
Arguments in a household are horrendous.
I know.
I think that I actually find the idea of a nuclear family quite backwards.
I actually find it really.
I don't think we should go that far.
Well, I do.
I do.
I think.
Well, she wants to revolutionize everything.
No, no, no, but look, listen.
I mean, we can say that we shouldn't be tarnishing single families with all your kids are going to be criminals fail at school.
But we then shouldn't say that the traditional family, right?
I'll give you an example.
My parents are married for 60 years.
And I used to say to her, this is genuinely true.
You say, did you argue with him?
She said, honest to God, she said, I went deaf after six months.
She said to me, but the way we were brought up, we stuck around and we got our heads down and we had kids.
And that has changed.
People do walk quicker.
And I, yes, you know.
I think you have to look at the statistics as well.
So when we just look, if we're wanting society to be better and we're wanting outcomes to be better for children, we know from looking at all the research, all the statistics, all the studies, that children who are raised by both biological parents have a much better chance of doing well in life.
I don't think that's what I'm saying.
But what do you mean by that?
But it's not because of the fact that they're being raised by biological parents.
It's because of the place that they come from tends to be a better place.
So what you're doing is you're taking a group of statistics and you're turning them on their head.
What you should be saying is that actually the reason why people who don't do as well as they do is because of where they've come from.
It so happens that many of their parents have split up.
No, but I think you also have to remember is that when parents are, you know, when you've got a mum and a dad, you've got, you know, two people who've biologically parented that child and they are together and they have got the, you know, they've both got the child's best interests at heart.
Far more so.
But again, you can't say, I'm sorry, I consider myself as good a parent as the women I've had children with.
And I don't understand how you're saying that if you stay together, that that makes you a better parent.
I'm as good a parent.
No, no, but nobody is saying.
But you've just said that two biological parents being together gives a kid a better chance.
I completely disagree with that.
But that's what the statistics show.
Statistics.
Yeah, that's why statistics are pointless.
You know, Boris Johnson's parents split up at a very early age.
He's been prime minister of this country.
You know, he didn't do too badly for himself.
He might say he's not much of a parent himself because he follows his parents.
But he didn't do badly as a result of being raised in a single parent household.
Well, I think when you look at the research that is actually showing...
I don't like research.
I just don't like it.
Because you can twist it.
But then we all talk about evidence-based research and policy.
Yeah, but it doesn't mean anything.
But policy should be based on that.
Are you saying that if a couple stay together and are married, their kid is going to have a better chance of life?
Statistically, yes.
Well, you keep saying statistically.
I mean, sorry.
I don't know.
When we're talking about policy and when we're talking about...
I think that's too sweet.
When we're talking about children and our society's future and how do we make things better, then actually we do have to look at the evidence and we do have to look at the research.
And at the moment, you know, there's kind of a mindset where people think, oh, yeah, what happens in school?
You know, that matters.
And, you know, poverty, which of course is a huge, huge, massive fact.
If you grew up in a two-parent household, biological parents, and you haven't got any money and you go to a terrible school, you're obviously going to turn out badly.
And you live in a state where you might get stabbed to death.
So how do we then?
How do we?
We've got a couple in poverty.
How do we make life better for the couple in poverty to be able to raise their children?
You give them social mobility, which has disappeared in this country, which used to exist in the 1980s.
You do away with public schools for a start, and you can't put kids in public schools, and then everybody goes to the same school and everybody starts to get to know each other, and there's no strata in society.
I'm a bit naive, okay?
And we're in the middle of a crisis that's affecting major swathes of this country.
I'm still naive enough to believe that everybody should and hopefully gets an opportunity, but there is absolute proof.
I'm not going to say research because I tend to agree with Mike on this a lot.
I believe that that research, that sweeping generalization is an insult to many, many millions of decent single parents.
And it's also an insult to kids who are brought up in a single parent family and who have gone on and made something of their life.
Because trust me, I know many people from my ex-life who stay together and have kid after kid with absolutely no regard for them.
I'll tell you what, I do think.
I think traditional family values, when you are in that unit, sometimes could be a lot better.
But that could be a single parent or two parents together.
Same-sex couple.
Yes, same-sex couple.
We have to look at this objectively, okay?
You know, because everybody has their own emotional baggage and their own emotional state to bring to this.
But saying, look, X-situation is statistically better than Y situation is not the same as actually kind of dissing on a whole section of society.
I've said all along, nobody is destined to be a statistic.
But if you know that a certain situation is going to be better for children, then why don't you incentivise this situation?
Or incentivize people to stay together when they don't get on?
No, I think we can do a lot more.
What do you make of single same-sex relationships?
I thought we'd get onto this.
I think what adults choose to do is consenting adults choose to do is up to them.
However, what I would say is, and I'm very clear on this, and it will get your ire, I do not agree with taking babies away from their mothers.
You know, I feel very strongly...
Where do you have couples?
Where do you have babies?
Where you have two men who are having a baby, where's that baby come from?
Where's the mother?
What are you talking about?
Are you abuse?
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
So, okay, how do you make a baby?
Okay, I understand the biology, but you say like a child who's been adopted, that's not a valid parent.
No, I'm saying that where you have a situation where a child has been adopted or removed from its parents, that is...
No child has been removed from its parents.
But you believe in two parents parenting and giving love.
And if two men can give that to a child.
But where's the mother?
Again, we know that young babies need their mothers.
And you only remove a baby from their mother if the mother remotely than you've had at dinner, so I'll tell you, I'm not a parent on my kids as many people.
I am not dissing your parenthood.
No, I can't.
It's about love.
And it's about love.
Two men, two women can give that love.
I'm not dissing.
I don't mean value.
I'm not saying that, Jerry.
Nobody's saying that two men can't give a cut.
But you're saying where is the children?
But you're talking about a baby's needs.
You're talking about an infant and a baby.
You've been talking a lot.
The point is this.
Nobody takes a child away from its mother.
Many of the mothers who provide a child for a same-sex couple have done so willingly.
They've decided to be a surrogate mother and they've done it out of their own choice, which they're totally entitled to do.
I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's their choice, right?
People have freedom of choice.
Lots of children are abandoned by their mothers because either they can't handle it or because they're mentally not well enough to look after them.
They go to adoption.
Plenty of people get adopted and have very successful lives.
They do.
They talk about women having children literally ripped away from them.
It's bonkers.
Nobody does that.
Absolutely not.
Adoption is a least worst option, okay?
Adoption.
Can I tell you one of the things that I could talk about from now to the end of time, but I haven't.
We have the most antiquated adoption laws in the world.
There are thousands of children, and we'll disagree on this.
There are thousands of children in this country who should be adopted.
These people that go, did you know what?
Our laws are ridiculous.
And I think, and maybe I'm wrong, a loving parent on its own, that's what we started about.
Two of the same sex, loving, that's fine.
I go about traditional family values.
I think a lot of those have dissipated, but those values can be part of a one-parent family and a two-parent family and the same-sex family.
It's down to the parents, isn't it?
They can, but where you have a child in need of a home, a child has lost a mother and a father.
Dangers of Smart Motorways 00:10:17
We'll have to agree to disagree, but listen, you know, listen, everybody is in touch.
You're looking at...
No, but it's because we're just demonising.
We're demonising same-sex couples.
No, they're not.
What we're doing is we're talking about children, same-sex couples going and rip children away from mothers.
I think that's a mental thing.
No, it's not mental.
I think where you have two men raising a baby, that baby has come from a mother.
You have removed.
We have to go, listen, listen...
I'm going to go to the bathroom.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Time out.
It's my luck.
Time out.
You can continue backstage, ladies.
Thank you very much indeed.
Mike and I, it's the only time in our lives when we said very little right next to an uncensored.
Here's a good one.
Should smart motorways and speed limits be scrapped if Liz Truss, as expected, becomes our next Prime Minister on Monday, they might well be.
Is she right?
We'll do that after the break.
We're coming right back.
Thank you very much indeed.
Welcome back.
Now as part of her final appeal to Tory members, Liz Truss suggested scrapping smart motorways.
Now, I want you to listen to this excerpt from a 999 call from a family who broke down on one.
And just a warning, some of you might find this distressing.
I'm stuck in the middle of the M6.
My car's broken down.
I've passed Knutsford.
I'm going northbound.
Got the hazards on.
What else can I do?
Because I've got a family of five in the car.
Don't worry.
And you say there's five people in the car.
Yeah, my...
Oh, sh.
Hello.
Hello.
Unbelievable.
Thankfully, I have to tell you, nobody was killed in that accident.
But joining me now is Claire Mercer, who has campaigned so strongly for smart motorways to be scrapped since her husband Jason was tragically killed on the M1.
Claire, thank you so much indeed for joining us on Uncensored.
Tell us your story, if you'd be so kind.
Yeah, Jason had what should have just been a minor incident on the motorway on the way to work one morning.
Him and another motorist, minor bump.
But where it happened was a sign saying no hard shoulder for four miles.
It didn't give any other information.
They couldn't get their vehicles out of the live running lane because of the crash barrier and they couldn't get over the crash barrier because of a 30-foot drop onto the road below.
So they were hemmed in basically.
They were stood in a live lane with their vehicles that they couldn't get out of a live lane and a HGV hit them and killed them instantly.
For your loss, I'm so sorry.
When you, who has fought so long to have this ridiculous system cancelled, you must be delighted to hear that the, well, the favourite to be the next Prime Minister wants to scrap them.
What's your response to that?
Yes, it's good to hear.
I don't trust the word of somebody that is campaigning for a job that they really, really want.
You know, I don't believe they're going to do everything they say they're going to do.
But it's interesting that it's been picked up by both candidates as a vote-winning bargaining chip.
What hurt was her dismissing it as an experiment.
The smart motorways experiment has failed.
You know, our loved ones got killed in that experiment.
You know, do they really have to experiment with people's lives?
But it's interesting that it's been picked up as a vote winner.
Well, you know, it's interesting, and you have obviously real emotional interest in this story, but you're right.
It's interesting how many people are questioning the sorts of things that are being said repeatedly by the candidates.
But your desire and your wish is that smart motorways should be cancelled forthwith, right?
Yes, yeah.
I mean, they can call it what they like.
They can there's a lot about saving face and a lot about excusing the money they've already spent on this failure.
But I don't care what you call it.
We just need a hard shoulder on every single motorway.
Claire, thank you for now.
I'm joined by Mike Rawson, former road traffic cop, and Steve Berry, former top gear presenter.
Help me out, Mike.
These are ridiculous things, smart motorways, aren't they?
They're almost unbelievable, Jeremy.
When you think since 1959, we built these motorways.
We've always had a hard shoulder.
It's the most important safety feature on a high-speed road.
And the planners in 1959, when they built the M1 between London and Birmingham, they realized there are no junctions, no roundabouts, no traffic lights, no farm vehicles, no cyclists, no pedestrians.
What is there for the motorists to do?
And the biggest danger is the stopped vehicle in the live lane.
That's why they spent the money on putting in hard shoulders because it's a major safety feature.
But Jeremy, nobody claims that it's a hundred percent safe environment.
But I tell you one thing: it's a jolly sight safer than being stopped in the path of a 40-ton Arctic doing 56 miles an hour.
Steve, I freely admit, you know, when I started this five weeks ago, I'm delighted to say I've learnt an awful lot.
This is ludicrous, man.
How are people, how did anybody ever think who sat down and went?
This is that woman's story.
Oh, do you know it's a really good idea?
If you break down, there's nowhere to go.
You are a sitting duck.
Yeah.
How did anyone ever think it was...
I had about six months ago, you probably haven't spent much time on the hard shoulder in the swanky motors that you thought about him, but I had a bit of a problem in my big old Citroen.
I was batting along flat tire.
No, any car, no matter how old or young, or reliable or unreliable, can catch a flat.
I had time to get over onto the hard shoulder, then get out of the vehicle as they advise you to do.
When they're telling you, on one hand, to get out of a vehicle on the hard shoulder and get over the armcore onto the other side, but they're also saying, oh, yeah, smart motorways are the future.
Well, they're at the opposite ends of the safety spectrum.
So, what is you've talked about speed limits?
What is the future?
I mean, we all agree, quite patently, listening to her story and listening to that terrible, terrible audio, that there need to be hard shoulders for people.
Absolutely.
Oh, do people need to drive better?
What's the answer?
What's this speed limit debate?
Well, we've had a speed limit in this country since 1965.
When it was brought in as a temporary measure, a bit like they brought in income tax as a temporary measure.
It's still with us nearly 60 years later.
The 70 mile an hour speed limits as old as me and you mate.
1965.
Do you think we should go faster?
Well, think about the cars that came out in 1965.
A Wolseley 1100, a Triumph 1300, and the Peel Trident, which is like a kindereg on wheels.
They would struggle those three cars through 70 miles an hour.
And think about the advances, not just in technology, but in safety.
Back then, cross-fly tyres, drum brakes, and the structural integrity of a brown paper bag with a damp bottom.
Now, every family car is absolutely solid as rock.
Tell that safer zone.
Tell that story about you in Germany when you're on the autobahn quickly.
Well, everybody knows that in Germany, the autobahns are unrestricted.
And when do they have more accidents?
No, they have, if you take it as accidents per mile or kilometer as they prefer, which is the only way to do it, Germany and the UK have a very similar record when it comes to road traffic accidents.
I went out there to test the BMW superbike, got it on the Autobahn, I thought, I wonder if this is speed-restricted.
Got it up to 155 miles an hour and heard the saw the flashing lights and heard the siren and thought, oh, I'm getting pulled.
Yeah, I was getting pulled for going too slow in the fast lane.
155 miles an hour.
Yeah, because as he was lecturing me on the hard shoulder, and you do have hard shoulders, a Porsche came past doing 175.
Well, we all agree there should be a hard shoulder.
Another thing Liz Truss has said, she hints she will act the motorway speed in it.
What's your response to that as an ex-traffic up?
You've heard what Steve has said.
Cars have changed.
People need to move on.
What's your view?
Steve is quite right about cars.
Survivability in vehicles today is incredible compared to years ago.
Seatbelts, airbags, side impact bars have made, you know, surviving hugely different to how it used to be.
But I'm sorry, the standard of driving, partly because there's little or no police enforcement anymore.
They're too busy doing the macare now.
Okay, we've got smart motorways, put signs up, 60 on the inside lane where all the trucks could only do 60, 90 in the middle, unrestricted in the middle.
I would like to say something, you're an ex-traffic cup, you're a top gear presenter, you'll just laugh at me.
I think that as many people cause accidents on motorways by going slow in the middle lane and people have to weave in and weave out.
I'm with him.
I don't think the standard of driving is anywhere near what it used to be.
I mean, you can, a car does it for you, Jeremy.
I just that worries me as well.
You can buy an electric car that you don't have to drive.
Just got a new Audi and drove that, not bought it, but borrowed it as a press car.
It's got lane finder or minder as they call it, so it stays in its lane.
It's got proximity sensors that keep it a safe distance from the car in front.
The thing was even warning me if it thought cars coming up behind me are either the left or the right.
So you would raise speed limits, yes.
You would cancel smart motorways because we all agree the lack of a hard shoulder is ludicrous.
What would you increase the speed limit to?
Like I said, a variable.
Trucks can only do 60.
Yeah, 60 in the inside lane, 90 in the middle lane, unrestricted in the outside lane.
The Anxious Elephant Problem 00:05:53
Come on.
Last word from you, Mike.
Well, I'm afraid we have a 70 limit for a reason.
Now, most people or many people will go up to 80.
I think if we raise it to 80, they'll do 90.
Now, that is fast.
And yes, for Steve and for lots of drivers who are very good and anticipate and they use their mirrors.
Yeah, that's fine.
But sadly, we've got so many poor drivers on the road.
Just saving a few minutes on the journey is going to cost a few lives.
And I'm all for safety.
Listen, guys, thank you so much, indeed.
Can I say a big thank you as well to Claire Mercer for joining us and sharing her story?
Also, Steve Berry there and Mike Rawson.
That is a story that will go on and on, but I don't think anybody watching this would not think that Smart Worterways should be scrapped.
Those horrendous stories, they need to be back right next and uncensored.
By God, I think he's got it.
Just as he's leaving us, Bojo thinks he's worked out the solution to the energy crisis, and frankly, Martin Lewis, he could be out of a job soon.
Do not go anywhere, because you won't want to miss what Bojo said to cure the whole problem.
We're back in three.
Welcome back, my friends.
Before the break, I've told you our current PM, till Monday, thinks he's worked out the solution to the energy crisis just as he's leaving office.
All it takes, apparently, watch this, is to buy a new kettle.
If you have an old kettle that takes ages to boil, it may cost you £20 to replace it.
But if you get a new one, you'll save £10 a year for every year on your £10 a year every year on your electricity bill.
Joined again by Mike Graham over Santina and the legend that is Jem McGrathy.
Very quickly, people.
I mean, God, honestly.
He has no idea how much a kettle costs.
One.
He's probably never ever boiled a kettle.
No.
And also, I thought at one point he was talking about one of his ex-wives there about the old boiler that didn't work.
I mean, what's going on with Boris?
Why is he doing this farewell tour?
It's ridiculous.
I'm going to defend him.
Oh, you just.
She does it.
This is what her reaction is.
This is what happens, right?
This is what happens.
The lefties all end up defending Boris Johnson.
He was making when we attack him.
He was making a point about nuclear energy, about how you need to invest in it, right?
In the same way that you need to invest in a kettle, in the way that Labour failed to invest in nuclear, the coalition government failed to invest in it.
I actually think he was making an I just say I haven't achieved a lot in my career, but I have in five short weeks turned over Santina into a celebrity sort of fan of Boris Johnson.
Gemma?
I think it is the biggest insult.
If it's an analogy, okay.
But if it's actual general financial advice to families who are set to spend half of their income on energy, it's just not, I mean, £10 is absolutely nothing.
I mean, they really, families are struggling.
You're going to have 3 million people that are going to fall into poverty.
Yeah, the bill is £3,500 per year, apparently.
Like an E, Joe, go away.
So £10.
Okay.
It's still £3,500.
So much to deal with here.
One word, we did this earlier on the streets.
One word to describe Boris Johnson's legacy.
Gemma.
It's over.
That's two words.
Two words.
With an apostrophe three.
I say Brexit.
Machiavellian.
Mine is frustration.
I think there was a great chance and he blew it.
Haven holiday mascots.
This is brilliant.
The seaside squad characters have been names have been rebranded.
Bradley Bear becomes a gender neutral renamed Jazz.
Anxious the Elephant and Greedy the Gorilla have named changes to Annie and George, speculated to avoid offending the nervous and the overweight.
Mike Graham?
Yeah, well, I'm not frightened by the greedy gorilla.
I would be one of the people apparently that try to help because they don't want me to think of him as fat.
And the anxious elephant, I mean, who cares, really?
I mean, have you been to Haven holidays?
No.
I took my kids there.
I mean, there's a lot more frightening things at Haven holidays, including the places where you're made to sleep, including the food that they give you, including the state that's simple.
Horrible.
I'll go there.
Another lawsuit, Amy.
Well, I think if this was the other way around and we'd renamed them Anxious Elephant or whatever, you'd all be complaining that we've all gone soft and we care too much about mental health and everyone's doing such a joy woman.
There's somebody inside it dressed as a pink elephant.
It's not really anxious.
Gemma Godfrey doesn't just do financial advice.
Very quickly, the Haven holiday thing.
In terms of mascots, I understand about moving things gender neutral, but taking away the emotion, I agree.
It's actually better to have the emotion there and encourage children to talk about their emotions than just say, we don't have emotions to talk because we don't want to offend anybody.
It's quite good to talk about.
Yeah, I mean, children don't really know.
If you call something the anxious elephant, they don't go, why is it anxious?
They don't care.
It's an elephant.
It's an anxious elephant.
It's still a hump.
Listen, very quickly.
Resolution Foundation analysts have decided today that real household disposable incomes will plummet by 10% over this year and next.
That's £3,000 for the typical family.
But it's also not just about families.
Disposable income is used to spend.
It's going to hit restaurants.
It's going to hit pubs.
It's going to hit shops.
And if that happens, then those companies are going to fire people.
So actually, it's not just about people not having enough disposable income anymore and not having an emergency fund, but it's also going to hit jobs and hit livelihoods.
And I think that's why it's such a terrible thing.
We have talked, and thank you so much for joining us over the past five weeks.
You've been amazing.
We've talked about these problems and we've tried to give constructive hints.
Just very briefly, because I haven't got much time, what would you say to people watching this as we finish our run here?
If I try and pick something that we haven't talked about before, one of the things is smart meters might be quite a good play because there's talk not just about smart meters giving you discounts, but also you could end up being paid if you actually switch off your high energy usage appliances at certain times.
There's also draft excluders.
It's the cheapest and the most effective way to insulate your house and to save on your energy bills.
And also, you know, there's a lot about don't pay your energy bills, but if you do that, you can end up with fees and arrears as well.
Do you worry about, we haven't got much time, do you worry about what's coming?
Worrying About Disposable Income 00:01:08
Yeah, of course.
Of course I do.
Everyone's worried about it.
I'm worried most about what you've just said about people on higher pay packets not having any disposable income and people losing their jobs.
I mean if you were a real small C Conservative you'd be outfunding this because what was the point in funding all of those small businesses throughout the pandemic pouring all that money in only for them to have to turn the lights out because of energy bills?
And they still haven't bounced back yet.
All those bounce back loans they still have to pay back.
They're not yet on their feet.
So this is even worse than the pandemic.
I would love to paint a better picture.
10 seconds Mike, it's not great for people, is it?
It really isn't and it will get worse.
But I mean I'm always an optimist about these things and we will get through it.
You know there are things that go wrong.
You just have to deal with it.
And can I say to you three, my favourite people, Gemma and Mike and Ava, what is it?
Can I say?
Right, what's that?
He's off.
That's it.
Taking the chair.
Great.
It's a bit cruel, isn't it?
As Morgan boards his private jet, having got off his yacht, that is it from me.
The main man is back, apparently, on Monday.
It's been a real pleasure.
I could even say that probably, and a privilege.
I don't know if I'll see you again, but if I don't, it's been an absolute joy.
For the final time,
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