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Nov. 2, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:13
20221102_piers-morgan-uncensored-is-there-a-migrant-invasio
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Ridiculous Government Plans 00:15:15
Tonight, Piers Morgan uncensored.
She didn't help so much to do.
A child's heartbreaking 911 call exposes shocking police cowardice in the Avalde school massacre.
Also tonight, broken and out of control, the British government admits there's a migrant crisis, but where are their ideas for fixing it?
Plus, as protests intensify ahead of the World Cup in Qatar, is it time for whining sports stars to either shut up or pull out?
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well, good evening, from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
When a country appears to lose control of its borders, as we're seeing in Joe Biden's United States, for example, people feel unsafe and they feel resentful.
So has Britain lost control, as our own Home Secretary says?
Well, look at some facts.
40,000 people have crossed English Channel in small boats this year.
It's already a record.
Many of them are trafficked here by criminal gangs.
You don't care if they live or drown.
There's a backlog of 100,000 asylum cases.
A major migrant centre is four times its capacity with third world conditions and outbreaks of diphtheria.
Another one was attacked with a petrol bomb.
This doesn't look like control to me.
In fact, quite the opposite.
It's fast becoming the first crisis of what's been a reassuringly crisis-free start otherwise to Rishi Sunak's premiership.
Here's what Sakir Starmer said at Prime Minister's Questions today.
If the asylum system is broken and his lot have been in power for 12 years, how can it be anyone's fault but theirs?
Well, he's right.
They told us very clearly when we get Brexit done, we can control our borders.
But we haven't.
The numbers are going up, not down.
And we quite clearly do not have control.
But what the Prime Minister said in response sums up the abject mess that we're now in.
Border control is a serious, complex issue.
But not only does the party opposite not have a plan, they have opposed every single measure we have taken to solve the problem.
You can't attack a plan if you don't have a plan.
Well, he's right, isn't it?
It's very easy to throw rocks at stupid ideas, but what is Labour's solution?
I'm yet to hear a good one.
Royal Navy patrols have failed, throwing money at the French and leaving it with them has also failed.
Ludicrously threatening to fly everyone to Rwanda, which so far has cost £140 million and resulted in precisely zero deportations, has also failed.
And the worst thing of all, this is the woman currently in charge of fixing it.
The British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast.
Invasion is not invasion.
An invasion is what Vladimir Putin's doing in Ukraine with tanks and rockets.
Swella Bravoman knew exactly what she was doing, deflecting attention from her own scandals and incompetence.
What Britain faces is a crisis of its own making and a crisis of talentless leaders with no clue what to do about it.
Sacking Leaky Sioux might be a good place to start, but let's be also clear about another thing.
Britain needs immigrants.
They're the backbone of so much of this country.
The NHS, hospitality.
You name it, we rely a lot on immigrants from this country.
They pay vast fees to study in our world-class universities.
They service in restaurants, bars, shops.
They toil in our fields.
These people work hard, often in jobs nobody else wants to do, and they pay taxes.
We need more legal immigration.
You ask anybody who works in these industries, we need more.
But we also need to control illegal immigration.
And these two things can go hand in hand.
Well, joining me now is the chair of BRIC PC UK and former politician Henry Bolton and broadcaster Jenny Kleeman.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Henry Bolton, when Suela Braverman uses a phrase like invasion, she does it to rally the right, to rally people who think we are literally being invaded by illegal immigrants.
That's not true.
We're not being invaded by illegal immigrants.
They're not invading us.
These are, in many cases, desperate people coming because they have nowhere else to be.
They've been maybe in war-torn countries.
Not all.
Some are gaming the system.
We know that.
But to describe them as an invasion is such inflammatory, stupid rhetoric.
Piers, I'm going to partly agree with you and partly disagree.
We talk about pitch invasions.
Are we saying that that's inflammatory?
The answer is no.
You're comparing refugees and asylum seekers to football hooligans invading a pitch.
I think, actually, Piers, you're comparing the language that you'd use regarding an invasion of a football pitch with compare with what the Home Secretary has said earlier.
You've been answering the question.
You've literally just compared refugees and asylum seekers to football hooligans.
Henry, that again is what I call needlessly inflammatory rhetoric.
Piers, you've asked me a question.
And you've answered it in an inflammatory way.
Because you're now making an accusation about something that's not true.
What I'm saying, what I'm saying is that there is a hypocrisy amongst people in the media who are saying Suela Braverman is wrong to call this an invasion when actually one of the accepted definitions of invasion, for example, you can have an invasion of flying ants.
You can have them...
Sorry?
Have a look in the dictionary, Piers.
Sorry.
So you're now comparing refugees and asylum seekers.
The bottom line is...
Football hooligans and flying ants.
Do you not understand, Henry Brown?
What I do not understand that sounds like a lot of people.
Do you not understand that the majority of people, as you said in your introduction, are highly concerned about this?
And the situation is that what we've got in the media is people focusing on whether the Home Secretary called it an invasion or whether or not the government's got a plan to solve it.
And what I agree with you on is that the government doesn't have a plan.
It hasn't had a plan for years.
And in this situation, it's been going on since 2020.
That's what we should all be focusing on.
Literally, it's the government developing.
But the reason we're focusing on the use of language is precisely for what you've just done.
You've just compared asylum seekers and refugees to football hooligans and to flying ants.
42% of the people.
And that is incredibly insulting.
Piers, 42% of the people who've come across the channel since May this year are Albanians, 95% of which are young men between ages 18 and 30.
70% of Albanians in the UK do not come from Albania.
Did you know that?
I do, because I was a UN governor in Kosovo.
I was advisor to the Albanian Prime Minister and I led the UK's efforts in the Republic of Macedonia next door to disrupt transnational.
They're also perfectly entitled, Henry Bolton.
They're perfectly entitled to try and come into this country.
Yes, they are.
Then they should be processed.
Then they should be processed if they qualify for that.
And they are at the moment.
But they are not, for example, in Germany or France, because Germany and France have said no, because Germany and France recognise that Albania is a safe country.
And the reality is that we've got an issue here which comes together.
And I've got Albanian friends.
I've worked in Albanian.
Don't try that.
No, I work in Albania, Piers.
Don't come that with me.
You're really being quite aggressive.
You're trying to...
Because the language...
Our language is Braverman-like.
They're all a bunch of football hooligans invading us.
They're a bunch of flying ants.
My knots.
They're real people.
You did.
You compared them.
No.
Flying ants and hooligans.
Piers, would you please let me get a word in?
Yes.
Thank you.
I said that I feel that's a hypocrisy between the media, who are you perfectly happy using the word invasion in relation to football fans doing it again.
And you are saying that Bravoman's not right.
You'll call it a football invasion, but you're sorry, somebody.
Let me explain.
We're going to explain.
Let me ridiculous details.
Actually, we're not going to be able to do it.
All right, let me bring in 20,000.
That's the problem.
Here's the problem.
The casual use of this kind of language and analogy is exactly part of the problem.
Is that when you compare genuine refugees, which many of them will be, people seeking asylum, many coming from countries which, by the way, have been wart on because we started a war there.
Not in Albania, would you?
Oh, my God.
No, but we have it in places like Iraq, right?
Right, 12,000 people.
You made your view clear about Albania.
That's what they should be holding the government back to the people.
We're going to explore that.
But Jennifer, the use of inflammatory language, this is part of the problem.
If you demonise all these people, that to me doesn't help anybody.
The point is you are deliberately either setting people up as your enemy that invades you or you're dehumanizing them.
Ants or cockroaches or whatever it is.
So Ella Braverman, all she's got is rhetoric.
Can you name a single thing that she's done in all the time that she has been in the cabinet?
She has nothing.
She has no ideas.
She has no plans.
She just has language where she talks about her dream of sending people to Rwanda.
She talks about tofu eating, Wokaroti.
That's all she's got.
Culture wars.
She uses this language to deflect from the fact that she doesn't have a plan.
And the problem is not the invasion of migrants.
The problem is the backlog.
And the backlog is caused by problems at the Home Office with processing people.
Yes, there are records.
Henry, you would agree with me.
I would agree.
And Piers, 14 governments to solve problems of nearly this scale.
No, I'm successful.
I agree.
And my point, I would totally agree.
There is no plan.
The process is wrong.
The law is wrong.
There are these knee-jerk reactions coming out of the Home Office and the government, such as you were quite right, and I totally agree with you regarding the ridiculous idea of sending them to Rwanda.
This is all ridiculous stuff.
The fact is that there is no cohesive strategy, and that without that strategy, there is not going to be a proper plan.
Cross-government is not...
But the very least thing should be...
But Henry Bobby, the very least we should be doing is treating these people with basic dignity and respect.
I agree.
If they're prepared to risk their lives, which many of them do, and many have lost their lives in the process of coming over the channel in dinghies because vile traffickers have screwed them for however much money it may be, the least we can do as a supposedly civilized, humane country is actually treated with some form of dignity and respect.
Can we not forget that there was a terrorist attack on an asylum center on Sunday?
And we know that this kind of language, dehumanising language, treating these people as invaders, people who are coming to take over our country, people who are insects, is the sort of thing that enables terrorists to commit these terrible attracts.
So here's what Henry.
Henry, let me ask you something, Henry Bobby.
You were very exercised about the Just Stop Oil activists, and you tweeted this.
Arrest, charge for criminal damage, prosecute, sentenced to whatever community service hours are required to clean it, and fined for whatever it costs, jail for six months.
Very strong, unequivocal.
This is how we deal with them, right?
I'm a former police officer as well, Piers.
Right.
And I have arrested people for lesser criminal damage than that.
The Crown Prosecution Service have made the decision to charge.
They've gone to court and they've been sent to jail and given community service.
What was your reaction when a maniac threw a petrol bomb at a Dover migrant centre?
I'm appalled.
Really?
Yes, sir.
Let me remind you what you actually tweeted.
Hang on.
Tweet on.
Let me remind you of what you actually tweeted.
Go ahead.
And the report that somebody threw petrol bombs at the Dover Migrant Centre, which is on fire, then took their own life.
This shocking news shows the level of frustration.
It does.
It's shocking news because it's not shocking?
You think it's not shocking?
And you think that...
This was an absolute racist lunatic.
Fine.
Waging a terror campaign on innocent migrants in a migrant centre.
There is something that I think all three of us can be.
You seem more appalled and more draconian about a bunch of people spraying paint on buildings than you are about a bloke trying to murder people.
Now you're being ridiculous.
That's not what they're your tweets.
Literally your tweets within the space of two days.
That is the context of what we think all three can agree on, is that the government doesn't have a properly cohesive and thought-through plan for this.
And what you're saying is when you've got that level of frustration growing in the past, here's my problem.
You're going to see these problems.
But I'm not justifying them.
Fine.
It feels like a justifying problem.
It doesn't.
Unfortunately, you put it down to it shows how frustrated people are.
No, it shows there are murderous maniacs who are racist who want to kill migrants.
Of course.
That's what that showed.
Piers, if you look at my career, I've spent most of it fighting people like that.
You can understand people being confused about the people.
And you can understand the people who are not.
You seem more angry about Just Stop Oil protestors.
You may be confused.
I am not.
You didn't say the Just Stop All protesters were frustrated.
That's what led to them doing what they did, did you?
You said lock them up.
I agree.
Unfortunately, you can't lock that man up, can you?
Right.
What I am saying, what I'm trying to illustrate here is that there is a need to put pressure on the government to come up with a cohesive plan.
And you cannot deny.
All right, Jenny.
There is severe frustration.
I think we can all agree.
Look, I think most sensible people can agree it is ridiculous, these numbers rocketing of people coming over illegally on dinghies.
And it has to be dealt with.
And nothing so far has worked.
But I think we can also agree that this country needs a good level of legal immigration of people who will enhance our country.
And right now, if you speak to anybody in many industries, like hospitality, for example, and so on, NHS, they are crying out for people.
Absolutely.
My sister runs a restaurant.
She is trying to recruit from overseas because she cannot recruit.
Absolutely.
It's a complete catastrophe.
And if this is what taking back control is, I don't know what being out of control is.
It is a complete disaster.
This is a problem of our own making.
We could have done a lot better to control our borders if, for example, we hadn't been deliberately alienating the French by saying we didn't know whether or not they were our friends or our enemies.
There is so much more that we could have done.
This is entirely a failure of 12 years of Conservative government.
Think about it.
We've had the ridiculous, the hostile environments policy.
We had the Rwanda policy.
We had the whole wind risk.
We've got a scam after scam.
It's all been a disaster.
And what we need is proper leadership to actually sort the two problems out.
One, how do we stop people risking their lives and possibly dying being trafficked over the channel?
And secondly, how do we have a better system of asylum and refugees which actually deals with these applications quickly and we work out who should be here and who shouldn't?
Because we actually lag quite far, far behind many European countries on how many we take in anyway.
I've never seen a good, competent Home Secretary to do that, though, one that is driven by packages.
And Piers, I think that's what the conversation that really we should be having and all of us putting pressure on the government to respond.
I agree.
We're in a bad question.
Henry, I'm going to end by how I started and saying that the use of language is very important.
Law Enforcement Failures 00:11:56
You do not get anywhere in this debate by demonising people by using subhuman language about them.
And for my point, I would like to say that I agree with you.
I do not and have not equated, however you'd like to put it, however you'd like to present it, I have not equated the refugees and the asylum seekers and migrants.
Okay, so President Putin.
Okay, or Explain exactly what coast exactly.
Let me explain exactly how you did compare them one more time.
Because you said the use of the word invasion about refugees and asylum seekers was justified because we use it about football hooligans and flying out.
I said it was, I'm afraid, it's an analogy, but it's disgraceful.
It's difficult to deny that it was a passion.
No, it's not difficult.
It's only difficult if actually you look at them as less than human.
We've got to leave.
Jenny, Henry Bolton, thank you very much indeed.
Still to come.
18 days before the World Cup starts in Qatar.
Is it time for the footballers to stop protesting and focus on football?
But next shocking new details about cop cowardice in one of America's worst school gun tragedies.
Welcome back to Pearsborg and I'll Censor.
Five months ago, a lone gunman entered Rob Elementary School in Avalde, Texas, slaughtering two teachers and 19 children.
It was the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook a decade ago.
Now shocking audio of 911 calls with a 10-year-old girl trapped inside has emerged, which shows the police waited more than 40 minutes before taking action.
This is how that dreadful day unfolded.
11:30 a.m., CCTV footage shows the shooter entering the school.
Moments later, you can hear him firing on the teachers and children inside.
10-year-old Chloe Torres was one of the children trapped.
Here are some of the heartbreaking new 911 calls that have just emerged that she made at the time.
Scratching mother.
1012.
112.
Well, 112.
112, yes, please.
Junior, ma'am.
Listen, I can see help.
I can't.
I know I'm telling you, but it's for them.
Nobody will be in the middle of me.
I know I'm not in situations.
We got talking with a little girl.
My teachers are all right, but they're shot all the way.
They're inside of the building, okay?
You need to stay quiet, please.
They're inside the building.
We just need to stay quiet.
Well, Chloe survived, and her parents gave permission for those audio tapes to be released to highlight the unbelievable failure by literally hundreds of armed police who were waiting outside.
And what were these officers doing when she made that last call, waiting in the corridors?
They were standing there.
They didn't do anything.
For another 40 minutes, they didn't do anything after a 10-year-old girl makes that call.
It's really truly unconscionable.
Well, eventually, they finally entered the classroom to tackle the shooter.
Like I say, 40 minutes after that call from Chloe.
But by then, of course, the real damage had been done.
Well, joining me now is former Washington homicide detective Ted Williams and former FBI Assistant Director Chris Stecker, who joins me from Carolina.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Ted Williams, I've got to say, I've always been supportive of the police.
Generally, I believe they're a force for good in America, in the UK, in most countries.
When you look at what happened here, and when you listen to that heart-rending series of tapes from this poor little girl, I have a 10-year-old daughter myself, so it particularly resonated.
I just cannot understand why, given how many armed police were literally standing outside, they didn't just rush inside and deal with this situation.
Can you?
Pierce, I don't think any of us can understand.
When we listen to this child pleading for help, and you have grown men and women, law enforcement officers with guns and armed, would not go into that classroom for 40 minutes.
I can tell you, these law enforcement officers do not represent the best of law enforcement.
The best of law enforcement would have gone in that classroom right away to try to save as many lives as possible.
These cowards were more interested in saving their own lives and their own skin than helping those children.
19, 19 children and two of their teachers died.
And you have a child in that classroom crying out, telling law enforcement what the hell is going on in there, that they're dead kids.
And for 40 minutes, they stood around twiddling their stums.
It is just so embarrassing and unacceptable to good law enforcement officers.
I completely agree.
I mean, Chris Wicker, is there anything you could say to try and defend what happened that day in terms of the law enforcement conduct?
No, I mean, first of all, this was, you mentioned the word failure.
This was a failure of preparation.
It was a failure of leadership.
It was a failure of execution.
It was a failure of training.
These officers act like they'd never been through this before, even in a drill.
There is no, no, I can't offer up any mitigation other than to say that there may be officers in there that felt they were following orders.
But as I study this incident and I've studied Parkland and I've studied Columbine, the golden rule, as Detective Williams points out, is you go to the sound of gunfire.
There's no more of this mustering up on the perimeter, getting shields, getting the perfect situation, and then going in.
You go to the sound of the gunfire until that gunfire stops and you neutralize that threat.
This is when the rubber meets the road for law enforcement.
This is what you signed up to do.
And if you're not up to that, you need to find another profession.
I don't want to be too hard.
You don't want to judge these officers harshly.
Other than the one mitigation I can say is that there were people on the scene that seemed to be wanting to be the incident commander, if you will, and issuing some orders to stay back.
Now that police chief of the school district now backs up and says, no, I wasn't in charge.
Well, then he should have been in charge.
He should have taken charge and done exactly what Detective Williams has said.
You go in there and you confront the shooter and save lives.
That's law enforcement.
I mean, you say we shouldn't talk about them, judge them harshly.
Actually, I do want to judge them harshly.
I wanted to judge them harshly at the time.
And my anger has only increased since I heard these tapes this morning.
I literally couldn't believe what I was hearing.
A 10-year-old girl calmly detailing exactly what is happening, explaining there are lots of dead people inside.
And you have 400 armed law enforcement standing around.
One of them we saw earlier at the start of all this a few months ago was actually washing his hands with hand sanitizer as children were being murdered.
So I'm afraid I do judge them harshly.
In fact, I wrote a column for the New York Post at the time saying, I think they should all be fired.
I mean, Ted Williams, if they can't go in to save children being blown to pieces by a maniac with guns, what are they doing as police officers?
Why should they keep their jobs?
They shouldn't keep their jobs.
They should all be fired.
They should all find some kind of other employment than law enforcement.
Mr. Becker is right.
You serve and protect your community and you have children.
Children dying.
You know they're dying.
You know that there are children in there that have been murdered by this bottom feeder.
And yet you stand around and try to say that there is nobody in command.
Somebody should have taken charge.
The fact that there isn't, there is no excuse.
You cannot defend the indefensible in this manner.
And as a result of that, they should all be fired.
They shouldn't have anything to do with law enforcement.
They are an embarrassment to the good men and women who serve in law enforcement all over this country who would have immediately, immediately gone in there to try to save lives.
Well, I would liken it, Chris Wecker, to the scenes on 9-11 when all those firefighters ran to what many of them must have thought might be certain death into the Twin Towers and lost their lives.
They didn't hesitate for one moment to do their duty and do their jobs, and they were all heroes.
None of this lot are heroes.
They're the complete opposite of heroes.
They're anti-heroes.
They're people who, when they were finally tested with the biggest test of their careers, they utterly betrayed those children and the teachers and the families of those kids.
No question about it.
You know, again, those in law enforcement know the rule.
They know the procedures these days.
This is 2022.
We've learned from a lot of these other mass shootings.
One, there's a preparation aspect to this that falls on the law enforcement as well.
But the execution aspect of it is clear-cut.
You go.
That's all there is to it.
And I get a little bit upset when I see these press conferences where after a mass shooting, law enforcement is standing up there patting themselves on the back when that's not the focus and that's not the purpose.
And this lot did it.
And this lot did because it turned out they were lying, right?
I mean, they had literally spun a pack of lies praising themselves for their heroism in dealing with this shooter.
It's only later, thanks to some very good reporting, that we discovered the truth.
And these tapes today, they're not just heartbreaking.
They are shameful.
They shame American law enforcement.
What was more shameful was what I define as the cover-up.
They lied.
They lied on a teacher, said that she left a door open.
Or the governor says that he had been given false information.
But guess what?
The governor hasn't taken any action against anybody.
The chief of the Texas Rangers said that if any of his people were involved, that he would be leaving.
Politicians Shaming Teachers 00:13:33
He hasn't left.
Nobody has taken responsibility or accountability for the death of 19 students and two of their teachers.
No, I completely agree.
Ted Williams, thank you very much indeed for joining me and Chris Wecker.
It's honestly, it's enraging.
It's an enraging story.
It was enraging when it first happened.
It's got more enraging over the months, the more we've learned about this sickening cowardice.
But I appreciate you both joining me.
Thank you very much.
Well, still to come, with the Qatar World Cup nearly upon us, is it time for everyone to stop protesting, particularly the players, and either pull out of the tournament or shut up and get on with the football.
We'll debate that next.
And how do you pronounce Adele's name?
Even she doesn't seem to know.
Well, that might be because she's from Tom.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Sensor.
My dazzling pack this evening is Kevin Maguire from Delhi Mirror and the Times' political sketchwriter Quentin.
Let's welcome to both of you.
A dazzling duo.
I just want to start by congratulating my eldest son, Spencer, who's just texting me to say he's been playing football tonight.
They won 11-7 and he scored nine goals.
As he puts it, Gareth Southgate, where are you?
Quite right.
Well played, son.
Gentlemen, before we get into what we're going to talk about, that debate there about what happened at Evalde, we thank God don't have to put up with this kind of endless cycle of mass shootings.
And when we had one very similar to this at Dunblaine, we changed our gun laws irrevocably.
But when you see what happened there, all I could think about was when I was in America trying to challenge the gun law situation and getting nowhere, I always remember the NRA would pop up and they'd say, if only you had good guys with guns at schools, none of this would happen.
They'd shoot the shooters.
There were 400 supposedly good guys with guns and they let these kids die.
It's the timidity of protocol, wasn't there?
Yes.
But also moral cowardice.
Well, yes, which is all, that was all part of it.
It's too much part of obeying the set procedures and not being adaptable enough.
It was extraordinary.
Wouldn't any of them?
I mean, Kevin, if any of us were in that situation, anyone, and you had a weapon and you knew there was someone in a classroom killing children, I think we'd all go in, wouldn't we?
You would want to and you'd feel ashamed if you didn't.
And it's almost saying that you can't because of protocol.
I think stuff your protocol.
Well, it was almost.
Because they were actually holding parents back outside the school.
It was almost as if there were too many armed police officers and no one was taking control and the leadership.
The former detective who was speaking.
Very powerful, I thought.
I thought he was fantastic.
Now, whether you sack them all or you retrain them, if you can, and change how you operate, I would possibly disagree with him over there because he was hardline, just sack them.
But he was the type who would say, right, you've got to address it.
You've got somebody.
Just need someone to say, get in there.
Lying there, bleeding.
And as we now know, this young girl had the courage and presence of mind to phone them and tell them exactly what was happening.
If Joe Biden has any sense, he'll get her into the White House.
He should.
Try and affect some change.
But the National Rifle Association.
No, but actually, you know, to visit them, just to apologise.
But your opponents, National Rifle Association, facilitate the deaths of more Americans than terrorists have ever killed.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Quentin, let's talk about quickly Rishi Sunag.
You wrote an interesting column I just read before I came in today.
Most unusual.
Your sketch.
But you're writing an interesting column.
It genuinely interested me because I said there was a real quantitative difference after PMQs today between what it felt like in the room and what actually then you watch back on television and that he was much more impressive as a television operator than perhaps it seemed in the theater.
This was to do with the quality of his voice.
It doesn't cut through the terrible noise in the Commons chamber.
And I sit up in the gallery almost opposite him.
I found it really hard to hear him today.
Right.
Because I was watching it live on TV and I thought he handled himself very well.
In fact, if I was Kia Starmer, I think I'd be getting a bit twitchy about Rishi Sunak for two reasons.
One, they've got two years that they could wait until an election.
It's a long time.
As we know from the last three months, it's a very long time in politics.
And should there be a recession, but then we start to come out of it, and Rishi Sunak can position himself as the guy that got the ship back on track, that's not a bad election winner.
But more importantly, Kevin, he was on the rack.
More importantly, he's not a buffoon.
No.
He's not a half-wit.
He's not someone who doesn't look like he's obviously talking about.
He just seems a pretty competent guy who's trying to go about sorting stuff out.
But he's certainly better than the last one.
The last three, I'd say.
At least.
Certainly the last one in terms of trust Johnson.
Johnson had a big electoral appeal.
He did.
He did, but I don't think he had the substance to go with the retrospective.
What I was trying to say about Sunak today was that his voice works better for a TV, for the microphones than it does in the sort of the raw copy of the Commons.
He slightly disappears because he's a bit too special.
Kevin, as a Labour man, what do you think about Rishi Sunak?
Oh, I think he's more credible than I agree's three predecessors.
He's certainly more credible.
He's an adult, there's no doubt, and a grown-up, so he'd like to be treated differently.
But he was on the back foot on migration.
Starmer went on an area that the Tories are traditionally strong on and scored a lot of points.
Who's been in power for 12 years?
It's a good point, but I don't see any real answers from Labour.
So my thing about the immigration, we had that debate earlier.
I hate all the incendiary language.
I think it's repellent.
I think Bradman in particular seems to specialise.
I dream of flying them all off to Rwanda.
These are people invading our country.
This is just nonsense.
Isn't it, Quentin?
No, Piers, I would just urge this caution.
If you try to suppress the ordinary language that you hear on the streets and say that we politicians talk a different sort of language, I think you then increase the gulf between politicians and politics.
But I don't agree with that.
I'll tell you why, because I actually think when leaders and senior politicians use inflammatory language, it whips up and encourages a lot more of it in the street.
And actually, the job of politicians ought to be, in my opinion, to use language which is not incendiary.
They shouldn't be inflaming things.
They can talk about the crisis that's here.
Clearly, we have a massive problem in trying to deal with this.
But they can do it without using dehumanizing language.
I disagree.
I think you get a disconnect, and I think that's where you get more tension.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, won't use the language she is of inflammation.
Most politicians won't.
She knows what she's doing.
She diverted attention from security breaches and incompetence by getting this argument around invasion.
And it'll incite some people, but you're inciting hate.
And we've seen a far-right terrorist fire bobbing in the future.
Well, we've had two members of parliament murdered in the last six years in this country.
You've just seen the US speaker's husband brutally attacked by a lunatic who'd been whipped up to think Nancy Pelosi is the devil.
You know, I can see a real connection between inflammatory rhetoric.
You saw it with Trump a lot.
You saw it with Boris occasionally, but Trump, I think, worse.
When you use dehumanising language, I don't think that helps any part of democratic debate at all.
After Boris Johnson attacked women wearing burgers, so they look like bank robbers and postboxes, there was a spike in attacks on British Muslims.
Look, politicians have to have a responsibility in what they say.
I think so.
They shouldn't be like people on the street.
Isn't that the point, Quentin?
You can be honest.
You can have a connection in terms of identifying a problem and saying, hey, I'm going to solve it.
But actually using incendiary language, all that will do is encourage everybody else to.
I think if you create this impression that the politicians are on a higher plane, that the politicians are a clericy who take a higher view of things, I think you have a problem.
Are we entitled to expect them to be on a slightly higher plane given that they are elected officials who want power to serve over us?
Aren't we entitled to expect a better standard?
Just let me answer.
I think there is, it's very important on an issue like this where there has been, there is clearly a big difference between what the London political class thinks and what you get elsewhere in the country.
I think you have to knit back those two a lot more.
And the language has become a bit airy fairy film.
Okay, let me just switch to another topic.
This is, I've been watching, you know, I have a thing about the woke left just going increasingly insane and actually in doing so, helping the right, right?
And I say that as somebody probably slightly centre-left myself, or I used to be before the left got so mad that I now look like I'm right at a television home.
Come home, come home, come on.
Good morning, Norway.
Good morning, Norway.
It's God Morgan Nodgi, GMN.
So I have a particular affinity with Good Morning Norway.
Just had an interview with the Gerand Victoria Alma, 53, who's an able-bodied male who now identifies as a disabled woman.
This is not a joke, Quentin.
This actually has sparked outrage on social media because it appeared as a disabled woman, paralyzed from the waist down because they'd always wished this person to be a woman who was paralyzed from the waist down.
Alma's a senior credit analyst for a big bank in Oslo and has actually received positive coverage in Norwegian media since announcing trans disability publicly on Facebook.
Now, this self-identity thing has been going increasingly nuts.
This is completely insane.
He scores a lot of points on every sort of register.
It's double tops for being, what, disabled and trans and Norwegian.
Alma currently utilizes a wheelchair almost all the time, despite having no physical handicap, Kevin.
Well, if they want to get around in a wheelchair, then that's up to them, but to pretend.
You can't identify as a disabled woman.
No.
It's nuts.
No, no, and you shouldn't.
So it's too woke even for you.
Don't bring my money.
Finally, Craig Maguire.
I'm all for respect and being sensible and pragmatic.
Now, disabled people will probably be cheesed off, shall we say, when you allow limitless self-identity, this is what happens.
It's quite clever to find a new, a new niche.
But don't.
Nobody else is thought of this.
Alma's very inventive.
But this shouldn't be used as a broad attack on trans people or anybody else.
I think when this kind of stuff happens, it makes a mockery of the whole thing, as far as I would have said.
Tell us something, probably a little bit more serious.
Director James Gray defending his latest film, Armageddon Time, because he's cast Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins, and Jeremy Strong as a real-life Jewish immigrant family, even though they're not Jewish, including Anthony Hopkins.
What do we think of this?
I mean, I, again, have a problem with this, Quentin.
I think you're right to have a problem with this.
To me, actors act.
That's the whole point.
They don't all need...
You don't have to have Irish people playing Irish people.
You haven't got to have disabled people playing disabled people, gay people playing...
We've never had to do this before.
Nobody's minded.
Why suddenly are we obsessed that everybody who plays a character in a film or TV show has to be that person?
Because people are running scared of Twitter and social media and they've been stampeded by a few nutters.
And I think they should be stood up to.
But I'm afraid.
It seems to be going that way.
And we'll never again will you have someone like Kenneth Moore playing Douglas Bader because you've got to have some an actor who's got no legs.
Tom Hanks in Philadelphia shone a massive light on AIDS and probably did enormous help.
Are you going to do that with somebody who you've never heard of, who might have AIDS in real life, who plays it purely to tick a box?
I have an autistic, we have autism in the family and one of the most important films for me personally was Rainman, Dustin Hoffman, playing an autistic character.
Who wasn't, of course, autistic.
No, Eddie Redman.
But shot an amazing actor.
Because he's a brilliant actor.
Eddie Redmond and Benedict Cumberbatch both played Stephen Hawkin.
Is it Helen Mirren's going to play Golden Mayer, the Israeli?
And why not?
She's an actress.
Yeah, I think it only becomes an issue, right?
And I'm kind of agreeing with you, but it only becomes an issue where underrepresented groups, if they're there, aren't getting roles.
If gay actors feel they're not or fabled actors.
I think my point, I think.
I know.
Everybody should have the same opportunity.
Right?
So it's like all these things.
Same opportunity for all, right?
Everyone, if you're a disabled person, if you're gay, if you're trans, if you're black, if you're white, whatever, you just should be given the same opportunity.
And where that opportunity is thwarted through a system, then change the system to make it more inclusive.
But that doesn't mean you then have to cast every single specific role.
No, no, no.
But you have here the disconnect, again, between the elite and the people.
Yes, I agree.
And even the language that is used to discuss these things is just, it's a minefield.
It is.
On which I repeatedly step.
Yeah, well, I deliberately step on it.
But I think it's a ludicrous mindfield.
Do all actors get equal opportunity?
Because there are fewer roles, say, for women, because of the way so many films and TV shows are.
Yeah, play.
But then the answer to that they're now doing, they want gender-neutral award shows.
And all that will mean in the end is probably women win less awards.
Equal Opportunity For All 00:06:25
I don't know.
Because they were broadly...
Well, it's like the Olympics.
All right.
You have the Olympics.
Do you make it gender-neutral?
Oh, no.
Then you'll find no women win a gold medal again, right?
More Norwegians.
That's the goal.
No, but this guy would win the.
Let's see.
The Brits and Upper must have gone gender neutral.
In acting and in music, it doesn't mean fewer women.
All right.
Sport would, where it's just unequal.
Let me just, before I let you go, how do you pronounce Adele?
No, Adele.
You just said it.
Adele.
Right, let's listen to Adele today.
Adele.
Where is she from?
Enfield or something.
Love that.
She said my name perfectly.
She came and asked me how I say my name and I was like, Adele.
She was like, Adele.
Adele.
Now, you see, it's actually Adele.
She just can't pronounce it because she's from Tottenham and she's a Tottenham fan and she pronounces her own name wrong.
She was christened Adele, but she wants us to think it's Adele.
Adele.
Dele, Adele, Adele.
Because Adele.
Well, have you on East Enders?
Because she's a Spurs fan.
And you can't, I don't think that's right.
She shouldn't be able to recategorise her name.
Well, she's the singer formerly known as Adele.
Chat, good to see you.
Lost and disgusted.
I appreciate you coming in.
Well, next to that, sporting legend Gareth Thomas, the first openly gay rugby union star, joins me live to discuss protests against the Qatar World Cup.
Welcome back to People's Organiser.
The build up to a World Cup is normally dominated by frenzied excitement and optimism.
This year is just a lot of negativity.
It's getting ever more deafening.
The growing chorus of critics rail against Host Nation Qatar's non-existent LGBT rights and the way they've been treating migrant workers.
But is it time for the protest to stop and for players who don't agree with any of that to pull out of the tournament or to stay and focus on the football?
Well, joining me now is former Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas and comedian Rona Cameron.
Welcome to both of you.
Gareth, you are a World Cup legend.
You've been in four World Cups, I just got told, which is pretty extraordinary.
What do you think of this?
It's complicated because I think I would probably imagine we all agree about a few things.
One, Qatar should never have been awarded this in the first place, given the apparent corruption that was going on.
They then reconfigured all the schedules to play it in the best heat that they can provide.
But that ruins a lot of the domestic schedules like our own here and so on.
And obviously there are lots of human rights incidents as well that we should be taking into consideration.
However, the Middle East has never had the World Cup.
It's a huge football loving region of the world.
Is it not the time now as we get towards the tournament after 12 years of knowing he's going to be here to say, you know what, let's just get on with the football.
Sorry, Gareth, first and I'll come to you.
Yeah, sure.
Sorry.
I think on the point of 12 years of knowing, like I myself and so many other people have been trying to raise awareness.
And when you talk about, you know, and I follow you, and I like you.
And as I say, a virtue signaling, if anything, the media are now guilty of that because all of a sudden the World Cup has become something that has got attention.
So all of a sudden, let's focus attention on the World Cup.
Oh, but we can't just focus attention on the World Cup.
We now have to focus on this.
But I and so many other organizations have been trying to kind of raise the fact that the human rights and the laws, anti-gay people living there or being born there or being able to survive there have been, you know, have been around for such a long time.
Here's the problem, Gareth.
I hope that's the problem.
I know this argument is coming now.
I completely support gay rights to equality.
Period, end.
And obviously I hate the fact that in Qatar it's different.
But eight of the 32 teams left in this World Cup are countries where it's illegal to be gay.
It's not just Qatar.
And then when you look at the other countries involved in the World Cup, almost all of them have huge human rights issues, including, by the way, if you look at our own country.
You know, we illegally invaded Iraq, creating two decades of terrorism.
In other words, if you put the morality argument up, where does it end and where do you end up being able to play sport?
Can I ask you?
Because I think you can't blame the individuals who are playing the sport.
You can't blame the individuals who are playing the sport for what their country is kind of representing.
You kind of go there as a team with your own representation and your own wants and your own fans.
And I think that's where the players become important and the message all of a sudden becomes important is why the players are there.
Let me bring in the middle of the world.
You understand the signaling of people wearing armbands.
Yeah.
I mean, my thing about the armbands is it's like, well, so what?
It's not going to make any difference.
Rona, what's your view about this?
Well, firstly, I'm glad there was a break between the Norwegian disabled identifying as a woman item because I nearly lost control of my bladder.
So I was worrying that we're going to come to us straight after that.
So yeah, there is a lot of insanity in the world and human beings are feeling the pressure everywhere.
In terms of this tournament, I mean, of course, it should never have been there in the first place.
And FIFA are going to make something like five billion pounds out of this tournament, whilst these, you know, as you've said, these poor workers from the Philippines and Nepal and all the rest of it have been working 10-hour days in 40-degree heat.
I mean, if you just think about those things, that basic sort of information, it's absolutely shocking.
And then we're dealing with the fact that along with several other countries, largely with Sharia law, there's still the death penalty for homosexuals.
And you're quite right.
There is some double standards with other countries in the world.
I mean, let's remind everyone that in the UK, it was the late 80s before they stopped seeing homosexuality as a men's.
Listen, look, we're running out of time.
I think I would simply say, I think the problem with getting a moral halo on about sport is you end up not being able to play anywhere because everyone's got their problems.
But it's a good debate.
Thank you for joining me.
We're going to have a longer debate about this.
I've got to leave it there to Gareth and Rona.
Thank you.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
Night.
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