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Sept. 14, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:23
20220914_piers-morgan-uncensored-should-everything-stop-for
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Labour Party Conference Politics 00:09:59
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Her Majesty lies in state, thousands lying to pay tributes to the late Queen after an emotional procession to Westminster Hall.
From royal customs to a very real crisis.
Should our politicians scrap party conference season and get on with fixing the country?
And how much is too much?
Food banks, funerals, even medical treatments are all cancelled for the funeral on Monday.
Is that right?
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored, another emotional day for the country.
Another day of Britain doing what it does best.
Pomp, pageantry, class, and remembrance for the greatest of all monarchs.
I don't know about you, but I watched that procession of the coffin today with a lump in my throat.
It was incredibly moving, and it really did show us at our best while celebrating one of the worst moments that we've had to deal with as a nation.
It's felt like the world's been on pause, hasn't it, since the late Queen died?
And quite rightly, the death of any head of state, never mind one as beloved and enduring as she was, is a moment of history.
We've all been living that history in real time with the respect and affection that this moment commands.
But it was only eight days ago that the new Prime Minister shook hands with Her Majesty and took charge of a country that frankly has been falling apart at the seams.
And as much as we've stitched ourselves together to get through this latest blow, there's an unholy mess waiting on the other side after Monday's funeral.
I've got no issue with Parliament being suspended for these days of national formal mourning.
But it's unfortunate they've just spent seven weeks on summer holiday in the worst cost of living crisis in memory.
And frankly, it's utterly ridiculous that they're about to pack up for another 26 days so they can have their party conference season.
For the uninitiated, party conferences are like music festivals for political swats.
They all crammed together in big sweaty halls, listening to pointless, self-aggrandising outpourings about why they're better than the other side.
And then they all go and get blind drunk night after night after night.
Is that what this country needs right now?
The Conservatives literally just spent six weeks in a rolling party conference to elect their new leader.
Enough of the chat.
Our country is in crisis.
After the funeral, they should get back to work.
Well, joining me now is some columnist Tony Parsons, talk-to-view contributor Esther Krakow and socialist author and commentator Grace Blakely.
Well okay let's start with this Grace Blakely.
I would imagine you're a regular attendee to the Labour Party conference are you?
Unfortunately yes.
So you know that when I say it's just a great big jolly up it is.
Why would we want to be seeing these scenes of our members of parliament on the lash night after night at parties when they should be dealing with this crisis?
I don't quite agree with you on that Piers because whilst it is true that conference is often relatively fun it is also part of the democratic process of the Labour Party and that is part of the democratic process in this country.
I agree with you that it is reprehensible that basically politics has been put on pause and I don't actually think that's right.
I think that these politicians should be getting back to dealing with the cost of living crisis, the massive recession.
What can't they do in Parliament that they're going to be doing their conference season?
Particularly the Labour Party conference, right?
Because the Labour Party is supposed to be a democratic organisation where members can get involved, where unions can get involved and say these are the issues that we're facing, put these policies into your manifesto.
That needs to happen because quite frankly, the people at the top of all of these political parties aren't listening to anyone at the moment.
Right, Esther, I just don't think they should be doing this.
I've been to these party conferences many times.
They are just an excuse for a good old jollier.
But I don't think they should have even had the summer recess.
Honestly, I think it's been covering the Tory leadership race.
I think that reflected very badly on the Conservative Party, but I also think it reflected badly on the other parties in Parliament because they didn't say, actually, we need to get back to work because this country's on its knees.
I completely respect sort of the formal morning period.
But again, these conferences can wait.
They can wait till next summer or whenever.
But now is not the time.
We keep talking about, you know, we're going through this winter of discontent where people are going to have to choose between eating and heating.
And you literally have these parties that are not going to be working for the next how many weeks.
Tony Parsons.
It's ridiculous.
What do you think of this?
I can't object to the party conferences going ahead because I'm not sure who they are.
I don't know if Keir Starmer supports the strikes or he doesn't support the strikes.
I don't know if it's a new Labour Party or if it's just a Jeremy Corbyn tribute ban.
I don't really know if the Tories have recovered from Boris Johnson's Greta Thunberg tribute act.
You know, I mean, I really think it's important that the identities of these political parties are defined before the next general election.
They might argue, well, that's why we have the party conference season to actually work out what it is.
I don't think they've got time to be in this vanity project.
Most of these party conferences, I would say 90% of the speeches are completely irrelevant to the national interest.
A lot of it is young politicians wanting to make a name for themselves.
The speaker, the leader make their big speeches.
So what?
I want to see them in Parliament thrashing out the way to save this country from what could be very, very quickly the most serious financial crisis we've ever faced.
I think the idea that people are going to be choosing between heating and eating is kind of behind the curve, really.
I think that there are going to be plenty of people that can't afford either.
And I think, you know, so I think...
Do you think Liz Truss's policy on energy, for example, it's a gigantic sum of money.
She's committed to bailing people out with this cap on energy.
Will it be enough?
Is it the right thing to do?
She's creating a massive rod for our back.
They should have kept the Brexit promise, which the great government bojo Brexit promise was to scrap all the EU green tariffs, scrap the VAT on energy.
Well, they've already done that as part of this package, and it's not nearly enough.
And then scrap more, scrap more or scrap all the way back to the country.
You know, you can't get that way.
Well, you can't get there with just scrapping extra taxes.
I mean, the issue here with this plan, and this is why Parliament needs to be in session to scrutinise this plan, to scrutinise this legislation, because Liz Truss has effectively just said, let's give £150 billion to the energy companies, right?
Particularly to the big energy companies, the fossil fuel producers, and cap people's energy bills of £2,500 a year.
Fine with the cap, but it's not actually a cap.
It's a massive subsidy to some of the biggest and most profitable corporations that we have.
I do not understand why she didn't do a windfall tax on the energy companies.
They shouldn't be making anything.
Even the windfall tax, because the thing is, unless you're willing to tax these companies at 100%, which they won't do, it's completely unrealistic.
The windfall taxes actually make up a very small.
Well, then, so you ask them to contribute to the business.
No, but the point is that he gives the money they're scaling to shareholders.
When the state gives money, what we're really doing is we are going to have to pay this back.
We're giving money to BP shares.
Well, the thing is, this is actually the most fiscally responsible thing to do at this critical moment.
And the reason for that is, if you cap it, right, if gas prices fall, the difference that the taxpayer actually has to pay is less.
If you just say, we're going to give families £1,000 a month, you have to stick to that commitment for however long, regardless of what the market prices for gas are.
So actually if the prices fall, we pay less.
As a Brexit supporter, it seems to me, I took a position that I've only remained.
I wasn't completely sure.
I found it was a very complex argument.
My gut feeling was I'd rather stay in Europe.
And my issue is that we've had the pandemic.
We've skewed every way of analysing it, really.
But as we've come out of that, as we get back into real life, the number of people who say to me, Brexit is causing me problems, massively outweighs the number of people saying, thank God for Brexit.
It's really helped me in this way.
At some point, Brexit has to work, doesn't it?
Well, I think it's in the last chance saloon with this remainer prime minister, because for me, it's a massive disappointment.
For me, I feel the promise has been completely betrayed.
Who do you blame for that?
I blame the politicians that sold us Brexit and didn't keep their promises.
Boris Johnson?
Yeah, Gove.
And for me, the benefits have not been worth the pain that it's caused.
You know, we have terrible relations with, you know, it's a ground war in Europe and we have terrible relations with France.
It's insane.
It's absolutely right.
Well, I thought what she said about French refugee was insane.
Chris, let me ask you.
I mean, on Brexit, Labour's position under Keir Starmer has been, we won't try and reverse it.
But is there going to be a moment, not necessarily right now, but when we have a clearer run at analysing whether Brexit is working, if it demonstrably is against the national interest and we can't seem to make it work, is there an argument for Labour to be a little bit more aggressive and say what I suspect a lot of the polls are moving to, which is actually maybe we should have another referendum on this.
I mean, look, Brexit tore the Labour Party apart and it tore the Conservative Party apart in many ways.
It tore the country apart.
And I think going back over it and trying to rehash the referendum.
It's actively damaging.
Because the thing about Brexit was that the actual vote said one thing.
And after that, there was a process.
The Brexit was always a process.
It was never a fixed thing.
That was in the hands of politicians.
And it was up to them to try and manage that process in the national interest.
They resolutely failed to do that, at least in part, because of the massive divisions that there were within major political parties.
And obviously, you know, the Remainers within the Labour Party basically brought down Corbyn's government, Corbyn's Corbyn's government, Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party.
The problem is, Liz Truss's heart is not in Brexit.
She voted Remain.
So I just don't think she's going to be able to do it.
I think she's an advocate for it.
I think she's made that.
She's got the zeal of a convert.
I disagree.
I think she is.
She's diplomatically sound.
How can you possibly say that, insult one of our greatest allies, France?
I'm not sure.
I want to move on.
I want to move on to the national anthem.
Brexit Process and Politicians 00:07:49
I had a big problem with all the football being cancelled last weekend.
I thought that was the right thing.
They should have cancelled it this weekend.
Well, if you're going to do it, cancel this weekend, but they didn't.
And so now you've got a few games back on, a few games back on.
Interestingly, they've announced now that at every Premier League game and league game actually here, there's going to be, when they're played over the next few days, there will be a minute of silence.
They'll then play the national anthem.
And then on the 70th minute, there will be applause, which I think is a great thing for football fans to be able to have their chance to pay tribute.
But interestingly, UEFA, who run, of course, the Champions League and the UEFA leagues, they have said you cannot play the national anthem.
And what's been quite interesting is people have decided to take on UEFA.
So tonight, Rangers were playing Napoli, and this happened.
Now, that is the correct response to UEFA, isn't it, Tony Parsons?
Absolutely.
I think future historians will look back at this week and see it as the week that Queen Elizabeth II secured the union.
I think, increasingly, I think that she knew what she was doing when she went up to Balmoral and she stayed at Balmoral and she and the first few days were completely Scottish.
If you're Nicholas Surgeon, you would have been watching the last week, not publicly saying this, but thinking to yourself, this has put back, I think, the cause of Scottish independence quite considerably.
I don't think that historians will look back as this on the week that the union was saved.
I think historians will look back on this week as the week that free speech started to die in this country because, you know, we're on your show, Piers.
This is Piers Morgan uncensored.
And at the moment, there is massive censorship happening in this country with people being arrested for holding.
Why not?
People are being arrested.
You actually bothered to come in this week and you were supposed to.
I was not supposed to be in the future.
If you both were to come in, you would have known I have led a tirade against this.
Good.
I'm glad to hear that.
Because I do, that's utterly ridiculous.
I've been complaining about being censored for years.
Yeah, exactly.
And now suddenly when it's not there, when it's not...
Yeah, it's not a question of people.
It's like, can people...
Who do you think here disagrees with you about that?
Well, I don't know.
I presume that you want to.
Well, there we go.
Nobody's having their doors kicked down at three o'clock in the morning.
You know, a few, you know, spotty yobs get collared because they're not going to be able to do it.
No, no, hang on.
I interviewed a guy, I think it was on Monday night, and he had been arrested because he passed one of the scenes of what they do with the new king, the proclamation.
He passed it, and he shouted out who elected him.
And for that, he got arrested.
Well, I tell you, I was a punk during the Silver Jubilee, and you risked getting a kick in every time you stepped out of the house.
So, you know, I mean, things are being killed.
So anyway, it's not the point of being civilized.
Things are much more civilized.
I think, you know, if you, you know, if you shout at someone when they're walking behind their mother's coffin, you know, we're part of the world I come from, you know, you're lucky to keep your front teeth.
Never mind.
Yeah, but tell me, there's an interesting point.
Even if that person is marching in a public display of the royal family who has just paid a woman, who he claims he never met, $10 million to make a court case go away.
Imagine if he had now, it'd be really, really exciting.
Exactly.
But my point being, this is probably the most serious allegation against a senior royal in my lifetime.
He paid all these millions to a woman he claims he didn't meet who made serious allegations of sexual assault against him.
And there he is marching in a very public way.
Is it actually that outrageous that some members of the public were really offended by Andrew's presence there?
I think that's the thing.
I saw the footage of it.
I saw the footage of the guy and I just think that there's, you know, to keep it in proportion.
The guy wouldn't stop.
He kept on, you know, it's Scotland is around working class Scots.
I'm afraid if he just didn't know how to make his protest, make it in an appropriate manner, he just thought that the world should hear his opinion.
You know, he's a church.
I sort of agree with Grace.
I sort of agree with Gracie.
Oh my God.
I know.
It's turned upside down.
Everything's changed this week, right?
But the reason I say that is I do think that if you actually start to suppress people's opposition to the idea of a monarchy, in any form they want to express their protest, if you do that, I think you actually hasten the beginning of the individual.
But you can't just let when that coffin is walking down the Mau or Whitehall, you can't just let some.
But these people weren't there.
Unfortunately, actually, I think you can.
I think the thing about free speech, I think it was Churchill who said, you know, some people think free speech is whatever they think.
And if you disagree with them, it's an outrage.
The point about free speech is actually that you tolerate people being very distasteful, if not offensive.
And the most tip away at that.
No, I get all that.
You lose free speech.
That, but it's just a really naive middle-class supposition to think that you can just stand in a crowd, you can offend all the people around you, and there'll be no reaction.
You have to react to it.
There'll be no reaction.
There's a difference between there being a reaction.
You can have a reaction state response to you busting your protests.
I think there's hardly a police thing.
There was a man there who literally said, I have a blank piece of paper here to a policeman.
If I was to write, you know, F the monarchy on this, would you arrest me?
And he said, Yes.
I mean, it's scary.
I want to move on to a moment today where Sharon Osborne was out meeting people who were queuing to come and pay their respects to the Queen.
And Sharon, I think you took a bit of a turn.
The interview she had with the members of the British public.
Take a look.
I've just realised that.
I love these Morgan.
I'm such fans.
All right, send me your love.
Am I going to be live?
I'm going to be on Language.
You'll be on Language.
I love you.
I love everything you stand for.
You should be Prime Minister.
I love you.
Dear God, we can't.
We can't let these crazy people.
These crazy people.
Just go and show what I've always said.
The British public have sound judgment about these things.
One that we're going to be able to do.
Would you like to say this, Mr. Grace?
Unfortunately, Piers, I don't think that that would be my ideal democratic situation.
We actually agree with more things than you realise.
I want to play a clip that went viral today.
It's actually, it turns out it's quite an old clip, but it just made me laugh.
This is a bunch of vegans marching into a supermarket to throw roses on meat.
Roses, real roses, onto slants and meat.
Apparently, in honor, as an honor for the fact that the animals involved had lost their lives.
Here's my question: which is, they are murdering roses to do that.
They are ripping roses out of the ground, ending their lives.
They are murdering living roses to go and do that.
Asylum System Solutions Needed 00:03:21
Outrageous.
Who thinks there's a roses in this?
Do you?
I mean, for God's sake, Piers, I'm not even a vegan, and that's a silly argument.
Quick question before I let you go, because we're going to throw you out a minute for someone who likes the royal family.
Again, I haven't even mentioned that yet.
Republican.
The issue of migrants is not going to go away.
We've had record numbers coming over the channel.
Everyone agrees this can't go on like this.
You can't have the numbers just exponentially rising.
Everyone thinks it's horrifying and dangerous, especially for the young people that are coming over as well.
What do we do about this?
The Rwanda plan seems to me completely the Rwanda.
The dumbest idea is the dumbest idea of all time.
Rwanda, it's never going to work.
It's wrong on every level.
It's never going to work legally, morally.
But people are coming from France.
And one of the things that I regret about Brexit is that there's a ground war in Europe and we're acting as though the French are our enemies.
It's absolutely insane.
One of the best speeches about the death of the Queen was made by a Macron.
And I share the standard.
The standard view of Macron as someone who smeared the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.
Totally unforgivable.
He gave a beautiful tribute from mine got rid of their monarchy several hundred years ago.
What do we do about the sheer volume of people trying to get into the country?
You know, it's illegal, but I believe in asylum.
I believe in the refugee system.
But clearly, our system is not working.
You can't just have an opening.
No, but the only moral solution is that you smash the gangs.
You smash the games.
I mean, again, this is always brought out as a solution, and it's impossible because basically you're arguing to fight grounds.
What do we know?
There has to be a lot of people.
We need to have, again, a sensible system of asylum for people who need to come here because, let's say...
We tried everything.
What is that sensible system?
And we haven't tried everything.
Because they're young, very able-bodied men getting ahead of the world.
What we're seeing right now in terms of the energy crisis, the food crisis, this is just the beginning of a global crisis associated with climate breakdown that is going to see millions of people forced to move away from their homes.
We need to come up with a solution that allows people to move when they need to move.
Anyone can say that.
Basically, we need to work together as countries that are on the receiving end of migrants.
By the way, the vast majority of migrants are in countries in the global south next to countries that have been in the world.
What is this solution?
It means, you know, we need to basically come up with a way of sharing out the burden of hosting.
And actually, it's not even often a burden because, let's be real, we are running out of workers for the NHS, for the social care.
And if we can't immigration, then there is just not having anyone to do it.
Have you spared a thought to what social cohesion would look like if you have all these people from different parts of the world just get crashing?
We are already a diverse and sharing country.
But you have to have a stable process.
Having a stable process of managed migration that allows people to come over here.
We have a stable process.
Work in our NHS.
We have tens of thousands of people.
If the Queen was a mother of someone, just a normal person, who would be looking after her?
It would be a Filipino nurse.
It would be a nurse from somewhere in East Coast.
Do you think the people who come in the people who do really need?
Monarchy Future with Charles 00:15:17
No, exactly.
And that's why we need to have a managed system.
We're not talking about the legal process of immigration, which in which it's kind of we are.
We're talking about people who don't come here through the legal process.
Well, exactly.
We're talking about the whole thing together.
That's always been the case.
Are you under the impression that these people coming in dinghies are doctors, engineers, and people who can't do the NHS?
Some of them actually are.
That's why they're coming illegally.
It's because they've often been booted out of their country.
They've been forced to leave.
It's completely true.
I think we should always leave Grace Blakely with someone calling her ridiculous.
So I'm glad it was you, Esther.
Grace, we're going to lose you because you don't want to talk about anything to do with the rules.
You don't care.
I don't mind talking about them.
I've just...
I don't care.
And also, I'm a Republican.
I think that this should be the point at which the monarchy ends.
All right, well, I think, exactly, we've called you ridiculous.
Now we're burning you up.
That's fine.
I'm quite happy to be booted up.
Thank you very much, Grace.
As always, a joy to see you.
What coming next?
You two can stay.
Already criticised for his frustration with various types of pens.
Should King Charles be held to the exact same standards as his late mother?
We'll debate that after the break.
Well, it was the longest apprenticeship in history, but King Charles III is here as our monarch.
It's going to take some getting used to for everybody, including himself.
The new sovereign's already faced criticism for his past record of asserting political opinions, as well as negative press this week about redundancies at Clarence House.
He's also been lambasted by the traditionally sensitive corners of the internet for his frustration with a leaking pen.
The late Queen have reacted in the same way, asked the trolls.
Well, probably not.
But should King Charles face constant comparisons with his mother?
Is it time to embrace King Charles for the man he is rather than the woman that his mother was?
So joining me now is King Charles's goddaughter, India Hicks, plus Tony Esther is still here.
India, thank you so much for joining me.
You are going to be at the funeral.
You're also going to be at the committal of the Queen's body at the very end of this extraordinary period of mourning.
What are your feelings about all this as someone who's obviously so close to the family?
I think that we're seeing, in general, an overwhelming unification of people wanting to pay their respects.
I think you've been highlighting a few incidences here and there.
I think we can all agree that our kingdom, our Commonwealth and the world have come together to really thank an extraordinary woman for the job she did.
We now have to rely on an extraordinary man, which I think King Charles is, to be anything like as good a monarch as his mother, which will be an incredibly tough challenge for anybody.
It doesn't matter.
In my view, she was the greatest monarch we've ever had.
Knowing him as you do, is he up to this job?
Princess Diana famously said in the Panorama, I think the top job will be beyond him.
But it looks to me from the first few days, it's not beyond him at all, and he's rising to his challenge.
I think what's interesting is he's so completely different to his mother, so that it'll be a blank canvas on which to paint his own picture, which is important.
He will have a very strong queen beside him.
We know that Camilla is a very strong woman.
Look what she's survived already.
And I think together they have a very good chance at doing an awful lot of good.
And I think Charles has been vocal in the past about what he feels his passions.
He was prescient in his view on ecology and the environment.
He did things that none of us even began to think about.
The word green sustainability, all of that didn't exist.
But he can't do that now.
He can't.
Why did you think he can keep to that pledge?
I think that I'm an ambassador for the Princess Trust.
I've been there for two years, so I've seen up close and personal the change that that trust has done.
It's been in place since 1976.
Who imagined that he would be able to do that?
That is now a global foundation.
The astonishing amount of good it does is incredible.
And I think that he can step away from that.
That will continue to be its own motor, its own course.
And he will be able to now step into the shoes that he has to face.
Has he got to keep his temper when his pen's leaking?
I think he is someone who is grieving.
He is exhausted.
He has had to be on show publicly every minute of the day for the past five days.
It's an enormous thing to undertake.
I think you're allowed to have a bit of a temper tantrum when your pen leaks.
I actually thought it was quite endearing.
I've blown my stack over pens before, especially when they're leak all over your hands.
Tony, what do you think?
I mean, you wrote a great piece today in the sun, and it was about why the queen was the biggest star of them all, bigger than the Beatles.
I've always felt that.
And you can judge it by the sort of overalled way that even American presidents behave when they were around her.
But Charles has got to start all over again now.
He's been this apprentice, but now he is king.
I think the reason hereditary monarchy works in this country is that every monarch earns the love of our people.
And I think that the Queen, to me, what's incredible is that she became more important in her extreme old age.
She was absolutely, I can't remember one word that a politician or celebrity said during the COVID pandemic, but I can remember with total clarity those two four-minute speeches in the spring of 2020.
Two four minutes, unless, you know, so brief, so brief, so devastating, you know, just those words, you know, our streets are not empty, they're full of love, seared into the national consciousness.
Yeah, my parents were not monarchists.
My parents were not royalists, but the photograph where they look happiest is when they were 20 years old going to Buckingham Palace to meet King George VI to collect my dad's Distinguished Service Medal.
And they loved that king.
They loved that shy, kind, brave king.
Right, and Indy, you were saying about your mother that she's on the verge of a quite extraordinary, possibly unprecedented triple coronation.
Well, and I love what you've just said.
You know, you don't have to be a monarchist to find pride in those moments.
They're leaders.
These are leaders of our country's leaders of the faith and leaders in so many ways.
Yes, my mum went to King George VI's coronation at a little green cape, and then she went to the Queen's.
And if she has the stamina and the strength to survive another year, she could well be into her third coronation.
I think that's Guinness for that.
Nobody's ever done that.
That's quite amazing.
That's an amazing person.
She's an amazing person.
She's the same breed as the Queen.
They are extraordinary women, women who have survived in a tough old man's world.
Think when the Queen took that throne, what she had to do, who she had put up.
You were a bridesmaid, weren't you?
A Charles and Dinah's.
I was.
What was it like?
Do you remember it or not?
I remember it very well.
It was amazing.
I tell you what was amazing, looking back now at this grand old age, 55, was the crowds.
And it's very rare that you see crowds who aren't grieving or aren't angry or aren't demonstrating.
These were crowds who were jubilant.
They were jubilant.
They were in jubilation of the whole thing.
And they were excited.
And at that stage, it was a fairy tale wedding.
We all believed the fairy tale was going to end in the most wonderful way.
And that was really remarkable.
A lot of people came out.
A lot of people came out.
Yeah, amazing.
Esther, one of the poll came out this week, very supportive of Charles, his popularity surging as people think he'll be a good king from 30 odd percent to 60 odd percent in the space of three months.
So immediate reaction from the public, very, very positive.
94% loved his first TV address.
The only issue he has is age profile of support.
Younger people under 50% are supportive of him, whereas older people are much more supportive.
What does he do about the young?
Given he's 73, you know, my 10-year-old daughter looked at the TV and went, he's very old.
She thinks I'm very old.
What does he do about the youth?
How does he connect with them?
I think it just, it's kind of, he just has to settle into his role.
I think people develop a love for the royal family when they actually connect with them on a personal level.
You can't keep comparing him to the Queen because, you know, he's not 26, just married with kids, right?
He's a lot older.
So he just needs to settle into his role.
And the love will come.
He has to curate his own image and keep doing what he's been doing.
So, well, that's why.
And I also think if you look at sort of stratification as well, so it depends on sort of your community background, whether you come from a family that already loves the royal family, sort of what your allegiance is to, I suppose, the Commonwealth and to the United Kingdom.
That all plays a role in who warms to him.
Final words.
Well, I was going to have a thought there, which is I think that actually Charles and Camilla, it's a sort of fantastic four.
They've got William and Kate.
That's very powerful.
William and Kate do have the attention of the younger generation.
I think we're in good hands.
I think the bloodstock is good.
Yes.
Good to see you.
The pens are a little faulty.
Yeah, the pens are a new pen.
Tony, stay with me, because we're going to debate after the break whether the real spanner in the works of all this could be Prince Harry's tell-all book about the royal family, including his father.
Should he pulp it, as I think he should, or is he allowed to have his say?
We'll talk about that after the break.
And thank you very much indeed for coming in.
Good.
Really appreciate it.
Well, Harry and Megan join the rest of the royal family today, presenting a united front for the procession of the late Queen's coffin.
Princes William and Harry walk side by side behind the coffin as it left Buckingham Palace.
The family enter Westminster Hall together.
Oprah Winfrey has suggested that the late Queen's death provides an opportunity for peacemaking.
Is she right?
Or is this just a temporary truce to get through a week that should all be about, of course, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II?
Well, of course, the big spanner in the works that's looming for the royal family, something I know personally they're very, very concerned about, is Harry's apparently explosive tell-all memoir, which has been written and is ready to roll off the presses.
Do you want me now to discuss this?
Sun columnist Tony Parsons, talk-to-contributor, Esther Kranku, Laura Megan supporter, Paula Roan-Adrian, and best-selling author Douglas Murray is in New York.
Let me start with you, Douglas.
Welcome to the show.
I read a comment on the New York Post that really hit a nerve this week about Harry should pulp this book.
That now we've had this dramatic event, we've lost the queen, his father is now king, and he made a statement saying it's time to honour my father, King Charles III.
How is that compatible with a tell-all book, which will be presumably, as most of his upbrings have been about his father, very critical of the king?
Yes, I think they're not at all compatible.
And I think this must, in some ways, be a very lonely time for Harry.
By all accounts, on the day of the late Queen's death, he was having to arrange his own travel arrangements and was being reminded of the fact that had he been part of the family still, he'd have been looked after by them, but he had to sort of go his own way because he said he'd go his own way.
Now he's seeing some of the costs of that.
One of the costs of it, I'm sure, is a certain coldness for members of the family.
How could you not guard what you say when a family member has said so many things about the family and wanting to say more?
How could he expect, he ought to expect to be treated entirely warmly?
And they've already said so many untrue things about the royal family, so many hurts for things, and are promising more to come.
Of course, he should pull the memoir.
It's the decent thing to do.
He's made plenty of money from other deals, from Netflix, from Spotify, and others.
Doesn't need to release the memoir now.
I completely concur with that.
But Paula, you think he should be able to publish the book?
Of course he should.
Of course he should.
Why?
He should have the opportunity to have his say.
He hasn't stopped yapping for two years.
Literally.
He and his wife, barely a week goes by without them sticking the knife into the royal family and the monarchy.
So what do you mean he's got to have his say?
He doesn't stop having his say.
And we could say we could say that about the press too, couldn't we?
We could say that about the millions of stories that have been reported in the press about Twitter going wild.
We know that reports have been done, haven't they?
When you have two members of the royal family constantly publicly attacking the royal family and the monarchy, of course the media are going to respond.
People say to me, when are you going to stop criticising Meghan Markle and Prince Harry?
When they stop attacking the royal family, my mind is just even in the tone.
It's very aggressive.
They're attacking the royal family.
They are.
Is that the case?
Is it the case that they are telling their truth, that they are finally getting an opportunity to do that?
What is someone's opportunity finally getting an opportunity to have their say?
There is no such thing as someone's individual truth.
When Meghan Markle talks about my truth, it doesn't exist.
There is the truth, which are facts, and there's everything else.
And the problem with that.
You don't have your own version of the world.
The problem with that argument is that is exactly why they needed to have this book, because you will deny.
You will deny their truth.
And you can't continue to do that.
You have to say that.
Why should they be allowed to tell blatant lies about the royal family?
Well, because they don't believe they are telling blatant lives.
Let me give you an example.
And we don't have to give an example.
Meghan Markle told Oprah Winfrey that their son, Archie, was not going to be a prince because of his skin colour.
That's what she inferred in that answer.
So you're very careful there, Pierre.
As you may now know, you're very careful there, Piers.
That is what she inferred.
That's what she said, which is how you started this conversation.
And this is why we need to be careful, because this is such an emotive topic during this, of course, exceptionally sad period of time where we know that they are a grieving family and we know that they have done their absolute best to show a human life.
I'm not talking about now.
I'm talking about when this book lands.
Tony, I think it's going to be like an unexploded bomb when this thing goes off.
It's going to be something which has been ticking away, ticking away.
I know the palace are incredibly concerned.
Much more so now Charles is king, because they also fear Harry might have a go at Camilla, who's now the queen consort of this country, to try and settle scores going back to his parents' marriage breaking up.
I do think there's the law of diminishing returns.
I don't think anything will ever have the impact of that Oprah interview.
I don't think anything will ever drop like that.
You have a book from Harry?
Because, you know, it was so unchallenged.
Oprah looked like the worst journalist in the world.
Everything that was put out there, that was put out there was completely unchallenged.
And I think people were shocked and hurt in this country because I was among the crowds at Windsor the day they got married and there was a genuine, real love and there was no racism whatsoever towards Meghan Markle from the press in this country.
None.
Nada zero.
Meghan Markle Goodwill Lost 00:03:02
I know what I read.
I know what I wrote for you.
Because you don't know what this country embraced the whole thing.
You don't know what existed for her and what she says and what Harry is saying.
Because I noticed that we're focusing on Meghan, but Harry.
You know, the book is about Ziggler.
And what you are concerned about of this book is the truth.
No, I'm not.
I'm concerned about the truth, which is often completely untrue.
Esther, here's my problem with it.
If all they did was tell the truth, that's one thing.
But 17 different statements from the Oprah interview alone were proven to be untrue.
We still don't know who this supposed royal was who raised concern about their child's skin.
Because I do wish that they actually said who it was, because I thought it was very immature for them to know.
Smears them all.
I don't have a problem with Harry coming out with the book, actually.
He's lived quite an extraordinary life.
No, 10 years in the army, you know, I don't have a problem with that.
But I think, I suspect, with good reason, that it's not going to be tasteful, that it could be an attack on humanity.
He understands now the fictional truth behind Meghan's disastrous experience.
I'll tell you what.
Let me ask Douglas Murray.
Douglas, there's a kind of perception here that they're doing all this because it plays really well for them in America.
But the New York Post cleared its front page for a very mocking image of Meghan Markle recently, looking like a toddler in a tiara throwing tantrum after tantrum.
What is the mood, you think, amongst the majority of Americans about what they've been doing?
Well, there's a deep skepticism about it.
Some support, but also, I think, just a lot of embarrassment.
A sort of embarrassment about the fact that Markle joined the royal family.
There was, as several people have said, incredible goodwill towards her and towards the EU.
I never saw anything in the British press that was even remote of Meghan herself.
On the day itself of the wedding, it would have been a happier day.
The sight of Prince Charles walking his new daughter-in-law up the aisle, escorting her mother in St. George's chapel.
It was such a sign.
As it was, the photographs of the Queen meeting her first great-grandchild of Meghan and Harry.
These were such healing things and there was so much goodwill around the world.
And I'm afraid that Meghan and Harry have, through their own, just thrown that goodwill away on both sides of the Atlantic.
And the trouble started, actually.
The trouble started when the whole fury over her father blew up and her decision to then completely disown him.
And from that moment on, you can see the trajectory of the criticism in the media building and building because they then embarked on this huge victimhood tour where they kept being rankly hypocritical about things like, you know, preaching about carbon footprint and catching private jets all the time and so on, but also constantly whining, playing the victim.
The complete antithesis of what the Queen, for example, stood for.
Douglas, thank you for joining me.
As always, spot on.
Royal Funeral Bank Holiday 00:05:49
Thank you to my panel.
There is one bit of good news this week.
Greggs have just announced that they are closing their shops on Monday, which means no vegan sausage rolls for the British public.
So there's always a silver lining in every cloud.
We're going to talk after the break, actually, about this closure of the country.
Is it right?
So many things have been shut down.
Is it right that on Monday pretty much everything shuts down?
We'll debate that after the break.
Well, welcome back to Petersburg and I said, Summer Lake Queen's funeral is, of course, a national holiday.
The idea is that everyone gets to watch it and to say goodbye to our greatest monarch.
It's a state occasion.
In practice, it means school closures, shop closures, medical treatments postponed, a struggling economy on standby, even people having to postpone their own funerals because of the funeral on Monday.
Even the Golden Arches will go dark at least until 5 o'clock.
McDonald's confirmed that it will shut all 1,300 of its UK stores to allow staff to pay their respects.
So is this right is really the question.
Or is it over the top?
I've got two experts with me, Jenny Kleeman, the broadcaster, and Yvonne Richmond-Tulloch, who's the CEO of At a Loss.
So let's talk about this, because when I just heard that Gregg's closing down on Monday, I mean, I did have a wry chuckle because it means no vegan sausage rolls.
Other people, I think, have been ridiculous in their virtue signaling.
The Met Office saying they weren't going to do weather updates because it might be disrespectful.
I mean, it's absurd.
However, I do think that Monday is a unique occasion.
What do you think?
It absolutely is.
Of course, we've seen it on the media, haven't we, all through these last few days?
Our Queen is so special to so many people.
She's part of our heritage as a nation here, but she's valued by people all over the world.
So there is an important moment here in marking her death and in having these 10 days of...
How far do you take it?
Like Centre Parks got themselves into a hell of a mess because they said they were going to basically kick everybody out of their parks because of the funeral.
Then under mounting media pressure, they said, all right, you can stay in, but you have to stay inside.
Now they've even you-turned that, I think, and so on.
It's difficult.
If you're like a company like Centre Parks and you've got thousands of people staying there, what do you do if your own staff want to go and pay their respects?
Yes, I mean, that is difficult, isn't it?
We're very used to bank holidays and in bank holidays, our hospitality industry doesn't close down and so on.
So I think we have to acknowledge that this is a bank holiday, but it's also different because we didn't know it was coming.
And so a lot of people have had things cancel.
Okay, I mean, Jenny, I just feel quite strongly this woman was a unique woman, 70 years on the throne.
We can at least surely give her one day where the country does actually shut down and pays respects to one person.
My concern with all of this is that so it's been left up to businesses to decide whether or not to shut.
And I feel that a lot of businesses are doing this out of fear of being castigated for doing the wrong thing or being seen to be.
Or because their own staff want to pay respects.
There are ways that you can let you, you can say, okay, if you want to go and be in the street, go and be in the street.
If you want to watch the ceremony, you can watch it.
We'll allow it to happen.
But I feel like, for example, particularly with schools, I think schools shutting is a mistake.
I think there's a real opportunity for kids to learn.
You see, I couldn't disagree more.
I really think that's a good idea.
I think every child of the country should actually be able to be at home with their family and watch the function.
How many families, though, Piers, how many families do you think, given this bank holiday, are going to take their kids and educate them about constitutional monarchy?
A lot are going to watch the funeral together.
A lot.
I mean, I would say the vast majority of the country will actually watch the funeral.
I think that if schools had a special day where everybody was watching it together and you could learn about the monarchy, my brother-in-law took a sister to the school.
It's not like a pandemic where you're sending them home for months on end.
I think a lot of kids are going to be stuck at home playing on computer games because there's nowhere to go because there's no 17 years.
Surely we can give the Queen 24 hours, can't we?
I think that I really want my kids to see it.
My kids will be watching the funeral, but the funeral ends at a certain point in the afternoon.
And then I'm not going to be able to give them the education that they would have at school where they would learn about facial history.
Who are you talking about?
Why can't you?
Why can't I?
I'm not a history teacher and I don't know about constitutional monarchy.
Explaining.
Turn them around to my house and I'll give them a little bit of ideas.
But I think most people, when faced with a bank holiday, won't be using it as a learning moment.
And I think that this is a short...
I don't think it's a learning moment.
It's a moment of paying tribute and respect, I think, to Queen Elizabeth II.
This is our last chance Monday, proper chance as a nation to come completely together and say, for today, it's all about this woman and our gratitude.
Yes, absolutely.
But I take your point completely because they're really...
She's wrong on her point.
There are really mixed views, aren't there, about our monarchy?
Actually, it's a very small, there's a small number.
I think the thing about our monarchy is it works because we consent to it.
The majority of us want it.
And once it becomes something where you must have this attitude, it all crumbles apart.
No Republican-thinking person has to watch the funeral.
No one's been forced to watch it, but everyone's been given the chance.
And I think that is the right thing to do on this day.
And that's the important thing.
I've got to leave it there.
Ladies, thank you both very much indeed.
Great to see you both.
I appreciate it.
That's it from me.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
Night.
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