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Nov. 3, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:08
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Matt Hancock's Kangaroo Scandal 00:15:13
I'm Piers Morgan Uncensored coming up on tonight's program.
He's not a celebrity, so get him out of here.
Matt Hancock pocketing £400,000 to go to Australia and eat kangaroo testicles.
But with a record recession looming in Britain, it's time for him to toot in the jungle and his job.
Star Wars legend will be with me, Mark Hamill, a salute skywalker of course, to talk about his latest battle of good over evil to defeat Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
And he played Hitler, but of course he's not a Nazi, acting legend Stephen Berkoff.
We'll talk to me about the outcry of the non-disabled actors playing disabled roles, straight actors playing gay roles and now non-Jewish actors playing Jewish roles.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well good evening from London, welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Today was another very bad, very serious day for this country.
The Bank of England raised interest rates by 0.75%, the highest rate hike for over 30 years since the infamous Black Wednesday.
And it warned our economy could continue to shrink until 2024 in the worst recession, it says, for a century.
Well, thanks to the disastrous mini-budget that cost hapless Liz Truss her job as Prime Minister after just 44 diabolical days in office, Britain is now facing severe financial pain for maybe two more years.
And it could get a lot worse a lot quicker.
In two weeks, new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will be forced to increase taxes and slash public spending, which is pretty much the worst possible cocktail to pour onto the bonfire of a shrinking economy.
Millions of Britons already reeling from crippling rises in food and energy prices will now see their mortgages rocket too.
And house prices are predicted to crash by up to 30% next year, destroying the value of homes that are costing ever more to pay for.
It's a perfect storm of hell.
And the victims, and there will be many of them, will need all the help they can get from their members of parliament that they elected to serve them.
But where will these MPs be as the crisis escalates?
Well, one of them, Matt Hancock, will be in Australia, 10,000 miles from his constituency in West Suffolk, taking part in the reality TV show, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.
It's already sparked outrage.
He'll continue to receive his £84,000 salary as an MP whilst being on the other side of the world, munching, as I said earlier, on kangaroo testicles and humiliating challenges normally reserved for fading Zedlist celebrities.
He's not a celebrity, but now it's emerged that Hancock's being paid a staggering £400,000 for his shameful little self-promoting jolly to the other side of the world, one of the highest sums ever paid to any contestant in the show's history.
He told the Sun newspaper he wasn't doing it for the money.
But that's as cynical a lie as all the lies he told as health secretary and his decision to desert his duty at this dark hour for the country, which he says he's doing for the right reasons, but he's not.
Of course, Matt Hancock's doing this for the money.
That's why he turned down the invitation twice this summer to do I'm a Celebrity until the check was big enough.
And what exactly has Mr Hancock done to earn this massive payday?
Well, he became Britain's health secretary just before the COVID pandemic began.
And he was a total disaster, failing on everything from testing and PPE to making elderly people from hospitals go back into care homes without testing them for the virus.
And that turned the care homes into death traps.
His abject incompetence is one of the main reasons the UK suffered the worst death toll of any European country.
And to compound his deadly ineptitude, he then got caught breaking his own draconian lockdown rules by conducting an affair with an aide inside government buildings and was forced to resign.
The normal price for such a double whammy of disgrace should have been a long and preferably permanent period away from any form of public office.
But instead, Hancock remains in public office, but without doing any public duties.
He's gone off to rake it in, not just to remind him a celebrity, but he's also signed up for Channel 4's SAS Who Dares Win series.
He's even found time to write a volume of diaries about his calamitous handling of the pandemic, quite literally, penning blood money.
All whilst continuing to be an MP with his salary being paid by the British people, who many of them are facing financial ruin.
Let's be clear.
This is an absolute disgrace.
Hancock is a shameless sleazeball who is betraying his constituents, his party and his country.
And he should be deselected as an MP as a matter of urgency.
Well, joining me now is the former World Butler and I'm a celebrity runner-up Paul Burrell, former Conservative MP Louise Mensch, and in the studio, palliative care Dr. Rachel Clark.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Rachel, we never met, but we had a lot of discussions during the pandemic when I was at Good Morning Britain and things got very heated.
You were a very powerful advocate, I felt, for the health service about what was going on.
What is your reaction to Matt Hancock, who was the health secretary over a disastrous handling of this pandemic for so many months at the start, now becoming this highly paid reality TV star?
I didn't think my opinion of that man could sink any lower, but honestly, Matt Hancock's shamelessness, it knows no bounds.
He's not a celebrity.
He's a failed health secretary.
He was forced out of office in disgrace after having apparently enough free time in the biggest public health crisis facing the world to conduct an extramarital affair, breaking his own lockdown rules in the process.
And time and again, he would stand there in front of the cameras, lying to all our faces.
He would say there were no problems with PPE.
When I had nurses in my hospital dying of COVID because they didn't get the right PPE, he would say he had, he used the phrase, I've thrown a protective ring around care homes.
Utter lie.
Utter lie.
Something like 40,000 people died in that first wave in care homes because he oversaw and authorized sending people back without testing.
And so now, after all of that serial incompetence and serial lying about his incompetence, for him now to stand up, pocket £400,000, incidentally, that's £2 for every one of the 200,000 people who have died of COVID through this pandemic.
For him to pocket that money and actually try to pretend that he's doing this in the public interest, I find breathtaking.
He said that he is doing this because it's important for politicians to go where the people are, as though somehow eating a plate of kangaroo anuses in Australia is an act of public service.
It's just disgusting.
You know, what he should be doing is facing the music for what happened in the pandemic.
We found a clip of me challenging him.
This is after the government spent eight months avoiding me and Susannah Reid on Good Morning Britain.
They came back after boycott and the first guest back was Matt Hancock and he got quite heated.
Let's take a look.
It then turned out that care homes, far from having the ring of protection, which you've been boasting about ever since, we actually sent thousands of elderly people out of hospitals back into care homes without testing them for COVID.
So a new epidemic was started.
Failing health secretary.
I say this with respect to you.
Look, I say this respectfully.
I don't underappreciate how difficult a job this is.
But I also know it's what you signed up for.
We have had a constant series of failures and U-turns throughout this year.
I mean, are you prepared to admit to any mistakes of the charge sheet I read out?
Sure, of course we've made mistakes, absolutely.
He should be facing the music on this in a tribunal, an inquiry, and any other official bodies that are coming down the track about what happened in this country, particularly in that first wave of the pandemic, when we were so woefully underprepared.
Remember, Matt Hancock at the start of the pandemic stood up in the House of Commons in January in 2020, and he assured us that we were fully prepared for what was to come.
And it turned out we couldn't have been less prepared.
We had no testing system, no personal protective equipment.
That's why so many people died who worked in our health system.
The borders were left wide open for everyone to bring the virus in, and so on and so on.
On every single metric in that first six months, it was a total disaster.
And the idea that he's now going to profit massively from a book about his failures in the pandemic and now become a reality TV star making hundreds of thousands of pounds as a celebrity from his failure and his infamy as someone who had to quit his job or be fired over an illicit affair breaking his own lockdown rules is beyond belief.
Now, some people, despite all this, are prepared to defend him.
Louise Mensch joins me from New York, often defends Indefensible on this program, normally finds out belatedly that I'm right all along.
Also joined by Paul Burrell.
Welcome to you as well, Paul.
I'll come to you in a moment.
Louise Mensch, how on earth do you defend this?
When we've just been told by the Bank of England that we're facing the worst recession in 100 years, this man is a highly paid member of parliament who has a constituency of people who are going to desperately need his help.
He's 10,000 miles away eating kangaroo bollocks.
What's going on?
Well, I think maybe he thought that was a more hospitable environment for him than the House of Commons.
And by the way, I told you Rishi Sunak would be a disaster, and so it is proving.
I don't defend Matt Hancock what he's doing.
He shouldn't be doing it.
And for him to go out and say it's not about the money is just taking people for fools, quite frankly.
But that said, I think it's the least important thing for the Conservative Party to be faffing around, taking the whip away from him.
They didn't take it away from Nadine Doris.
That's just hypocrisy.
And I think Rishi Sunak is using this entire affair to distract from the fact that he's got a criminal as Home Secretary.
That's what's really important.
Not that Matt Hancock is on his way out the door, to be honest with you, and is lining his pockets on the way out.
Yeah, but you see, I just want to say the guy that lost his money.
I don't agree.
As long as he remains a member of parliament, his salary is paid for by the British taxpayer.
The British taxpayers in their millions are facing the worst cost of living crisis in living memory.
And many of them will need their MPs' help in their constituency.
It's an absolute abrogation of his duty to jet off to the other side of the world and take part in some dumb reality show.
Well, perhaps it's time for the House of Commons to change the rules so that MPs can't do this.
He's not the first and he won't be the last.
There was that Dougdale, I think she is, her name is the SNP MP who did it as well.
But the fact is right now, the rules protect MPs who want to go away and line their pockets with a little bit of, I mean, £400,000 is a hell of a lot of money.
It's pretty clear to me that Matt Hancock isn't going to stand again and this isn't the only project that he's doing.
Should he be doing it?
Absolutely not.
Is the government use it to distract from the Home Secretary being a criminal leaker who's worse than a rusty Collander?
In my opinion, yes, they are.
But if you're asking me if I defend Matt Hancock making this choice, I say I definitely don't.
When I was an MP, they offered me a large amount of money to go and do that show, and I turned them down.
I wasn't a government celebrity.
I didn't think it was appropriate at all.
But I think I might be the only MP that's ever said no to that amount of cash.
Right.
I mean, this is the thing, Paul Borrell, isn't it?
Obviously, we know he's getting divorced or is divorced.
I can't keep up with his shenanigans, but we know he probably needs the money.
We know that he has probably got no way back to frontline politics.
He was humiliated by Rishi Sunak last week in a really cringe-making video when he's blanked him.
So, there's no way back for him at high level.
So, he's banking the cash.
My point, I mean, you've been in, I'm a celebrity.
We're going to see him laid bare probably at his worst, aren't we?
Because they'll know that's what the British public will want to see him ritually humiliated.
What's it like in that jungle?
Is there any escape from the glare of the cameras?
No, there's no hiding once you're in the jungle clearing.
The great British public will decide themselves if they like Matt Hancock or not.
And my prediction is they won't.
I don't think Matt Hancock will do himself any justice by doing Anna Sabre to get you out of here because you can't hide, you can't lie, you're yourself.
You're literally laid bare, and anything and everything he does will be recorded.
And I think the great British public will love to see our health secretary swigging back a cockroach smoothie.
It'll make great television, but it won't do him any good.
I mean, I would love to see him humiliated, no question.
But I just, you know, I keep thinking back to the pandemic, and I keep thinking of all the families who couldn't go and see their dying loved ones.
They couldn't have weddings, funerals, they couldn't have christening, they couldn't do any of these things.
The sacrifices made by the public and were immeasurably worsened by Matt Hancock's incompetence.
And then he brazenly broke his own lockdown rules to have an affair and has to be fired from his job.
And now he seems to be making all this profit from books, from TV shows, off the back of ignominy and disgrace.
It's an incredible fee to pay someone to sit in the jungle and eat a kangaroo's penis, isn't it?
But, you know, somebody's paying this amount of money to humiliate him, really.
And I thought that Parliament was still sitting.
I thought his job was to sit in Parliament on behalf of his constituents.
Ask them what they think.
They can't be too happy.
No, I mean, this is the point, really, isn't it?
Bring Rachel back in.
I mean, if I'm a West Suffolk constituent watching this go down, this guy has already, you know, been the subject of national hatred over a lot of the terrible mistakes he made in the pandemic.
Then national ridicule for the affair which broke his own rules, which is why he had to go.
Now they're going to see him be humiliated doing the most cringe-making things in a jungle in Australia while they're all suffering financial hardship.
There's got to be a tipping point, hasn't it?
Just enough.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, he obviously thinks he's a celebrity.
He obviously thinks he's going to win the British public over.
The public that I saw in the NHS, every day of that pandemic, was the absolute best of Britain.
People being decent, courageous, frightened, but putting on a brave face, sacrificing over and over again to help each other.
That's what most people did.
They rolled up their sleeves, they tried their best.
He wasn't so much rolling up his sleeves, as far as I can tell, as groping the bottom of the woman with whom he was having his affair.
Politicians vs The Public 00:04:25
Pretty sleazy stuff.
And now he's not a celebrity.
He's a grubby little man who's making blood money off the notoriety that was rightly heat.
I totally agree.
And I just think his ego is writing checks that his morals can't cash.
He's an absolute disgrace.
And is it so wrong?
And is it so old-fashioned to want politicians who have a sense of public service?
You rightly say the country's going into crisis.
Politicians should be putting their constituents first.
Absolutely.
He's bankrolling a nest egg thing.
And by the way, he's been paid £86,000 to serve his constituents and he'll be away for a month.
So it's unbelievable.
The team did a little mashup of Matt Hancock's, I don't know what you call this really.
Let's just play it and you can all laugh at him.
You're quite emotional by that.
Is this your rally cry to the nation to have a caramel waffle to get you going?
If you like a caramel waffle, have a caramel waffle.
Just don't have too many and do a bit of exercise.
Get out there and get your vaccine.
Don't stop me now.
Don't stop me.
Absolute buffoon.
An absolute buffoon.
But I think there's a lot of people who won't be laughing about this, who will be as angry as I am, as you are, Rachel, and I think as everybody else will be.
I think it's completely shameful.
Anyway, thank you for joining me.
It's good to finally meet you.
Pleasure.
Louise, thank you for joining me from New York.
Paul, always good to talk to you.
I appreciate you joining the program.
Thank you all very much.
We'll still have come tonight.
Was it wrong to cast a non-Jewish actor, Miss Kate Anthony Hopkins, as a Jewish immigrant?
Bond star Stephen Berkoff gives me his take.
He once played a Nazi.
And from taking on Darth Vader to help him defeat the biggest villain on planet Earth, Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, will be with me to talk about his battle with Vladimir Putin on behalf of the Ukrainian people.
That'll be coming next.
Welcome back to Piers Borgon on Sesame.
And this guest has been a household name for decades.
After landing his first break as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, he was catapulted into worldwide fame where he's resided ever since.
There's more to Mark Hamill in his on-screen triumphs.
He's been a force for good for the people of Ukraine.
President Zelensky personally appointed him ambassador to the Army of Drones to help fight Putin.
So before I ask him about switching from taking on Darth Vader to helping defeat the biggest villain on planet Earth and his rumoured love triangle with Carrie Fisher and Arison Ford, surely not.
Let's be reminded of his iconic Star Wars role as Luke Skywalker.
Too little short for a stormtrooper.
Huh?
Oh, the uniform.
I'm Luke Skywalker.
I'm here to rescue you.
Luke.
I am your father.
Well, I guess you don't know everything about women yet.
Teach your fathers please at my side.
I'll never turn to the dark side.
Well, Mark Hamill joins me now.
Mark, thank you so much for joining the programme.
Thanks for having me.
I want to start with a dramatic confession because I know that you were complaining in a recent interview that you always have to talk about Star Wars in interviews.
I can probably make that easier for you because I have never watched any of the Star Wars movies.
Well, that's viva la difference.
You know, I'm glad I'm glad people don't all like the same things.
It'd be very boring.
I've got to say that notwithstanding that, Mike, my eldest son discovered that you were on tonight.
Mark Hamill Confesses All 00:09:47
I don't think I've ever known him more excited.
He's nearly 30.
He has one of those things that you wave around, I know in the movies, the lifesavers.
And he is so incredibly excited about this.
So I might at the end just ask you to send him the force or whatever it is.
But you'll be pleased to know I'm going to focus right now on something much dearer to my heart, which is Ukraine.
I went to Ukraine back in July and I went to see President Zelensky and interviewed him and his wife, the first lady.
And I was struck by a lot of things about them.
I think they're a remarkable couple and he's a remarkable leader in this incredibly difficult time.
But I also was struck by something you said about this when you spoke to him on Zoom and you were reflecting on it afterwards, that here was a guy who was an actor like you.
You know, he was a guy just basically running a TV production company, taking part as a comedic actor.
And then he ends up playing somebody who randomly runs for president in a comedy.
And then he ultimately runs for president.
He becomes president.
And within a year, he's plunged into the first major war in Europe since the Second World War.
It's an extraordinary story, isn't it?
As someone who's obviously an actor like him, what do you make of it?
It really is.
And I first became aware of him during the first impeachment trial and did my research.
And like you say, he started out as an actor.
Life imitates art.
He wound up doing a series called Servant of the People, which I also watched.
He's an inspirational leader.
And the way the Ukrainian people have come together in these terrible times, I mean, like you say, we've never seen a sovereign nation invaded by a hostile foreign nation since World War II.
No.
You've got involved in a really brilliant campaign, I think, which is about the use of drones to monitor the 2,500 kilometers front line in Ukraine.
It's called United 24.
And the way it works, unless I'm mistaken, is that people like yourself have been raising money and awareness for this.
And then the drones are sent to Ukraine for them to use.
And in fact, you have been directly responsible for over 500 drones now being sent over to Ukraine.
And they are incredibly useful because they are basically the eyes and ears for the Ukrainian people in detecting missiles and so on.
Exactly.
Exactly.
In a simple statement, Ukraine needs drones.
Drones define war outcomes.
And they're able to monitor the border and protect both civilians and their soldiers.
So what surprised me was not only were they interested in fundraising, but if you have a drone, I was unaware that this is a popular hobby.
And people that are hobbyists that are focused on drones, they have multiple drones.
They say, oh, well, that's two years ago.
That's the old model.
I've got the updated version.
And Ukraine can use even the most simplistic drones.
They don't fly very far, but like you say, they're the eyes in the sky.
And it's really crucial now that Russia is struggling on the battlefront.
They've been attacking behind the battlefield, bombing civilian infrastructure, schools, playgrounds.
It's really terrible.
Not to mention the fact that for the last four weeks, large portions of Ukraine have no water.
There's power outages.
So anything that can be done to help is greatly, greatly appreciated.
When you spoke to President Zelensky in this Zoom conversation, I know that Star Wars did come up.
And of course, the parallel I think that you both realize, which is pretty stark actually, is that the themes of the Star Wars movies were always about good taking on evil and good ultimately triumphing.
Here you have a really, I think, a pretty clear-cut example of good people of Ukraine being illegally invaded by bad people, Vladimir Putin and his Russian military.
How do you think this ends?
I mean, are we going to be in a position where, like in a movie, good will ultimately triumph?
Or is it going to be more difficult than that?
Well, it's impossible to say.
I mean, everyone expected Ukraine to just roll over and give up.
Instead, they've mounted this ferocious resistance and they're making great strides.
I pray that Putin finds some face-saving event to say, okay, I've accomplished what I wanted, and we're pulling out because he's been humiliated and that's not good for someone as aggressive as he is.
So I don't know.
It's just terrible.
Over 115 countries now have donated not just to Army of Drones, but Zelensky appointed various ambassadors.
I know Lev Schreiber's in charge of one aspect, Barbara Streisand, another aspect.
Imagine Dragons, the musical group.
And they're all have their separate responsibilities, mine being the Army of Drones.
Well, I think it's...
I think it's brilliant, honestly.
I think when I was there, the resilience of the people, Ukraine, was incredibly palpable.
They don't want to give Putin an inch, and they are desperate for support and help from the rest of us in the West.
And I think they'd be hugely appreciative, as I know Zelensky was, about what you've been doing and using your profile for doing that.
So really well done.
And keep up that great work.
And we'll certainly direct people from this show to work out how they can get involved too.
I want to just pivot slightly to the next one.
Yes.
Can I mention the website really quick?
Of course.
It's u24.gov, which is G-O-V.ua forward slash dronation.
Great.
U24.gov.ua forward slash D-R-O-N-A-T-I-O-N.
Well, I will be able to, I will certainly, and I will tweet that to my 8 million Twitter followers, which I passed this morning, Mark.
Now, I've actually had a little spurt of followers in the last couple of weeks.
You've had the opposite, and you're blaming Elon Musk.
Yeah.
No, I'm not.
I just stated the fact that I lost over 6,000 in the first three days.
It was weird.
Then I gained them back and then some, and now I've fallen back another 10,000.
I'm not blaming anybody.
I just don't understand what's going on.
How many do you have at the moment?
How many followers do you have?
I have 5.2.
And I just got over 5.3, and then I lost and went back to 5.2.
But, you know, everything's relative.
You know, when I start thinking, wow, I've got 5 million followers, and you find out like Taylor Swift has 180 million or something.
I mean, I've got to say, I'm quietly pleased I've got 3 million more than Luke Skywalker.
3 million.
Well, there you go.
Congratulations.
But on a serious thing.
Maybe if you watch the movie.
If you watch the movies, you'll go up even higher.
You know what?
I am going to.
My son has been on and on at me about it.
I can't tell you what a massive fan he is.
What do you think about Elon Musk wanting to charge people like us to keep our blue tick?
Are you going to pay him his $8 a month?
No.
You know, it reminds me, I got contacted by the Who's Who people, and they wanted me to be in Who's Who.
And then when I found out there was a $250 fee, I said, what, are they crazy?
If I'm really somebody, they'll put me in without the fee.
So I didn't pay it.
I don't know whether I'm in it or not, but I think that's ridiculous.
I don't understand.
I mean, when I went on Twitter, they just gave me that check.
And I guess it's just to authenticate that it's really you.
But I've been on Twitter for so long now, I don't think I'll miss it.
I think people know where to find your way.
What is the best or worst thing about being Luke Skywalker?
One of the all-time iconic movie roles?
Best and worst?
Well, one of the best things is that people feel like they know you.
So wherever I go, people talk about how those films affected their lives, whether it got them through a parent's illness or, you know, they met their future spouse at a screening.
I mean, people relate it in such personal ways.
It means a lot.
I don't know what the worst thing is.
I guess it's because, you know, when I do something and it's over, I just let it go.
And I have these kids that come up to me and not just kids, you know, adults as well, that know so much more about it than I do.
Because I don't watch them over and over.
I watched them when they came out and I don't watch them again.
So they know details that I don't know what they're talking about.
Jewish Roles And Star Power 00:12:52
And is there any process of Luke raising his lightsaber again or is it all over?
Oh, it's over.
Well, if it really is over, Mark, if you could just do me one favor and make me father of the year, could you just stare down the barrel of the camera and say, Spencer Morgan, may the force be with you?
Spencer Morgan, the force will be with you always.
That's absolutely fantastic.
Mark Hamill, what a pleasure to have you on the program.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me, Piers.
And keep up the great work in Ukraine.
It's hugely appreciated by them all there, I know, and very important work.
Thank you very much.
All the best.
Well, still to come.
He told me on this show that he conquered his fear of dying once he entered politics.
Today that was almost put to the test.
We'll discuss the attempted assassination of Imran Khan today in Pakistan.
Coming up, the mega stars just keep coming, not uncensored.
Stephen Berkoff will join me next.
Should only Jewish people play Jews in movies?
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
There have been outcries and non-disabled actors playing disabled roles, straight actors playing gay roles, and now there's criticism of non-Jewish actors playing Jewish roles.
The director of a new film, Armageddon Time, has been forced to defend his use of actors who are not Jewish, including Anthony Hopkins, portraying members of a Jewish immigrant family.
So should Hollywood be more authentic with his representation, or should actors be allowed to do what it says on their team, which is act?
Well, I'm joined by acting legend, James Bond, Octopus Elegend, of course, Stephen Berkhoff, and I'm joined also by talk TV contributors, Esther Skracker, and Paula Roan-Adrian.
Stephen Burkoff, wonderful to have you on the programme.
Thank you very much.
Oh, it's a pleasure, Piers.
Thank you for having me.
I've been on this issue for quite a while because I personally, my middle son's an actor, and I just think actors should be allowed to act.
And that the moment you start saying, well, only people can play actual, like, you know, only disabled people can play disabled roles.
Only gay people can play gay roles and so on.
I think you just destroy the whole purpose of acting.
Am I wrong?
Oh, you're totally right.
I totally absolutely agree with you.
Acting is about not only impersonation and mimicry, it's also about bringing to life those other people that maybe not get the opportunity to make their case, to tell their stories and to move people.
So I think it's very, very good that actors play anything.
That's their job, as you wittily say, that's on the tin and you act.
On the other hand, there's another side to it.
Now, that side, if I have a moment or two, is a different kind of acting, which is acting which is based on plays, stories, histories, based on real events.
And we have some, for Jews particularly, in this case, as we're talking about Jews, these real events happened in Europe over the last over a thousand years of the most horrible, appalling, terrible, terrifying, painful, murderous experience that any particular race could have.
So these horrors that we've experienced over a thousand years, starting in England in 1290, when they were kicked out of England and go to Spain, where they had to suffer from the Christian church's inquisition and burning all sorts of horrors like that, then to France,
where they had, you know, where it was Colonel Dreyfus being sentenced as being a traitor, which affected the whole Jews of France, and the French also taking the opportunity to pull out the Jews from their cities and then bung them into the German concentration camps.
So they've had then the communists to deal with, like Stalin.
And so the Jews have suffered enormous iniquities.
So when the drama comes, when out of this comes the histories and the dramas and the plays and the music, and the Jews may feel they'd like to be part of this to tell their own story.
So after all these events that have happened, they may feel to a certain extent rather sensitive when they read of, you know, a very charming, wonderful white Christian, someone like Anthony Hopkins, a nice blue-eyed Welshman playing Jew from a mid-European country.
And then to a certain extent, I understand that very well.
You see, it's interesting because you've painted a sort of good argument on both sides there.
So do you have some sympathy with the argument that maybe the two sides, you see?
Yeah, no, and I understand.
I thought you argued both cases, like a good lawyer, you argued both cases rather well, both sides of it.
But I wonder, in the end, which side would you come down on?
In the sense that would it have been right not to have cast Anthony Hopkins?
Should they, given this was about Jewish heritage in this film, should they have actually opted for Jewish actors, of whom there are obviously very many, including yourself?
Well, I think they should have, for my opinion, taken a little bit of time to search out a Jewish actor, no matter how brilliant Anthony Hopkins is.
And he's a wonderful character actor and a brilliant mimic.
But maybe to search out someone, because his actual skill and the genius of Hopkins could even, to a certain extent, work against the story, because he is now much more famous than the character he's playing.
Obviously, so we don't know anything about the character he's playing, but we know so much about Hopkins.
So I think they should have maybe just had a look around and searched out Jewish actors, because, as I say, the history of Europe in the last thousand or more years has become legends, has become like a second Bible.
But let me ask you.
Let me ask you, I'm thinking about what you're saying, and you're making very good points, and I can understand why people feel this way about it.
But where do you draw the line?
Because once you start saying, right, only Jewish actors can play important Jewish roles, do you then extrapolate that out and say only gay men can play famous gay people in history?
For example, you know, disabled people.
We saw, obviously, people like Tom Cruise play a disabled role in Born the Fourth of July.
We saw Tom Hanks, you know, when he'd come to aid, for example, in Philadelphia, shining a massive light on that case.
My argument's always been massive movie stars, if they act well, can shine a massively bigger light sometimes on issues simply by their star power than just taking somebody of less star wattage.
And therefore, if your aim is to get as many people to watch these things as possible and raise awareness of the issues at stake, aren't you better off just going with the best actors, regardless of their background?
Yes, I mean, I totally agree with you, but in this particular case, the situation is rather unusual and rather unique because the suffering has been turned into now mythology and it's been turned into legend.
And somehow, these people, the descendants and their heirs and their fellow, you know, beings in blood, may be that much more sensitive to how these legends are being taken.
Although, as you say, you have Tom Hanks playing the gay people, and they can bring a lot more light and a lot more attention to their cause.
But this is a rather unusual situation.
I mean, I'll be throwing back at you, Stephen.
You, as a Jewish man, you played a Nazi famously, for example.
Yes.
I mean, if you if you yes, I played Adolf Hitler, yes.
So, yeah, so you played the most infamous Nazi of them all, Adolf Hitler.
Is that appropriate?
Is it appropriate for a Jewish actor to play Adolf Hitler?
Absolutely, because this would make him turn in his grave.
And I think this is what Dan Curtis, who was a famous producer, said, I mean, as I was doing Adolf, and I don't enjoy doing the part, it was an amazing part.
But he's also kind of such an ugly, despicable, sordid, evil villain that they wanted a good actor who could project that, who had the power to project Hitler.
And at the time, I was the one who'd looked at loads and loads of actors, and I was the one.
But he's an evil villain.
I don't think it's going to affect any Nazis or make them weep that one of their own kind wasn't chosen.
I think you're right.
It would have annoyed him enormously, which is the exact reason to do it.
Before I let you go, Stephen.
You were one of the great Bond villains.
There's a big debate going on about who should replace Daniel Craig.
Some people on the feminist arm of life would like to see a woman replace Daniel Craig as James Bond.
What are your very brief reaction to that idea?
Well, of course, it's an appalling idea.
You must give credit to the what gender is right for a role.
You can't just say, well, because of the, you know, it's more political correct now, we should look at women to play, or almost anything now they can do, you know, they can do James Bond, they'll end up playing Muhammad Ali.
But let's be respectful to a certain extent to the author.
And that's what he created.
His paintbrush was limited, his canvas was rather limited.
This was the kind of man he idealized as the tough matcho.
Is he getting emasculated, Bond, though, Stephen?
I mean, I just kept getting now.
He starts crying.
He's in touch with his sensitive side and all this kind of nonsense.
He's not allowed to go near women anymore.
He can't smoke.
He can't drink.
Are we basically neutering Bond?
Shouldn't we just go back now to how he used to be?
Oh, probably, yes, unfortunately, probably we are rather.
I think that's the nature of how, you know, the art imitates life and his life we're becoming much more politically correct about not doing anything that can hurt anyone, even a fly.
And so now we're kind of impersonating this in film so people really see them pick up a cigarette or mind you, they can drink.
They can drink like fish.
Final question, and I want a one-word or two-word answer.
Who would you like to see be James Bond next?
Well, to tell you the truth, Benedict Cumberbatch.
Ah, great.
We say because he has the most wonderful voice.
Yes.
And we want to see Bond with an authority and that metallic power.
Because as Oscar Wilde said, a man who controls a dinner table can control the world.
And we're tired of seeing him doing wheelies and cars and things.
Let him just inspire.
Yeah, and he's got a bit of that old-fashioned English charm about him.
Little twinkle in his eye, I think.
Stephen, great call on Cumberbatch.
Great to talk to you.
I've got to leave it there.
Thank you very much indeed.
Piers, it's been a pleasure.
Thank you very much.
All the best.
Great to have you.
The great Stephen Birkham.
Well, next tonight, we're discussing the scandal that's killed Christmas.
I'll give you a clue.
It's about a chocolate bar called Bounty, the greatest of all chocolate bars, currently being eradicated at the altar of political correctness.
We'll be back after we break.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Sensiti.
If you missed the big breaking news earlier, I passed 8 million followers on Twitter today.
So if you're not following me, what's the matter with you?
There we go.
At Piers Morgan, you know what to do?
Just press follow and get those numbers even higher just to annoy everybody.
And on a more serious note today, I want to send my very best wishes to someone I interviewed a few months ago on the program, Imran Khan, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who was the subject of an assassination attempt today.
Chocolate Bars And Racism 00:04:49
He was hit several times at point-blank range.
He fortunately survived, we think, with leg injuries.
And he is okay is the word from Pakistan.
I actually spoke to him about the threat of being assassinated when he came on the programme.
Where there's a genuine threat against you of assassination, do you feel fear?
When I entered politics, I actually had conquered my fear of dying.
Otherwise, I would not have entered politics because I came in to stand up against the entire status quo.
I came to fight corruption.
I thought it wouldn't succeed.
You know, for some reason, I thought that it's not possible that the conspiracy was to replace me.
I have no fear of dying.
Well, fortunately, he wasn't killed today, but he could have been.
And of course, you'll remember Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated.
It's a constant concern, I think, for any leaders in Pakistan.
And we wish him all the very best.
And of course, his family as well.
He's got some sons who would have been, I'm sure, very disturbed by what happened today, and they'll be very relieved he's okay, as we all are on the program.
Right, ladies, we were talking in the break about this absolutely shocking development where Mars, for reasons best known to themselves, did a survey about their celebration boxes, which we all get at Christmas, right?
Get one of those at Christmas, share it out with the family, we all dive in.
I do this: Milky Way, no thanks.
Mars bar, no thanks, Marathon, not interested, right?
And I keep digging Snickers, are they called now?
You know, galaxies, no, And there's only one thing I'm ever looking for, and it's the bounty bars.
I love bounty.
I have to say, I like the dark bounty rather than the milk chocolate one.
It's not as sweet.
But it's my favourite chocolate.
And they're now removing it because 37% or something of the British public said they didn't like them in the box.
That's a lack of taste.
This is going to ruin Christmas for me if you can't get them in the box.
Okay, so two things arise out of this.
The first is quite a serious one.
So as a black female, I will no longer have to tolerate a disgusting racist slur.
And when you hear the word bounty bar from a bounty chocolate.
Are you serious?
I'll educate you on that later.
Are you serious?
Absolutely.
You've never heard that disgusting racist slur.
It's about racism.
A bounty.
Bounty bar.
That's the first thing.
I won't miss that anymore.
And the second reason is they're not very nice.
And we all know.
That is complete nonsense.
Coming up to COP22.
27.
High parting day.
Landfill.
Hold on.
Let's be honest.
I haven't called a bounty many times.
And I wasn't offended because I actually like a bounty.
Is it actually used as a racist?
Oh, yeah.
That's like my nickname.
I've never heard that before.
But I have all these bounties.
Yeah, for you, Peter.
So the reference is, am I allowed to say what the reference is?
So the reference is that you are black on the outside and then white on the inside.
Which doesn't even make sense.
I was just going to say, I just never got somebody to explain to me what that actually means.
So is it because of the way I speak or is it because I'm not sure?
I've generally never heard this, maybe to my own chagrin, I've never heard this, but I've never heard this before.
Yeah, let's think about a coconut.
Can't we really keep chocolate bars out of the race debate, seriously?
Well, they're very personal.
They're very personal.
What do you mean?
They're the slurs?
No, chocolate bars.
They're very personal.
I mean, look at how upset you're getting.
This is my idea of a perfect celebration.
You're not going to like this after what you just said.
Now I feel bad about it, right?
But this is my idea of a perfect celebration box, which Mars should be doing.
There should be a few mixers in the exclusively bounty bars.
What we have here is a multicultural world.
What we have here...
No, we have here is hell on earth.
No, we have a bunch of things.
That's what we call chocolate.
So by your argument, if we're going to roll that out, you can't have any of these because they're all chocolate, right?
Which in itself can be used as a racist term.
So once you play the race carbohydrate chocolates, it's all over, isn't it?
Exactly.
Isn't it?
I've never been called chocolate.
So there's not a Milky Way, though.
I don't know.
You know what I mean?
There should only be three chocolates in celebrations.
Bounty, Snickers, and Twix.
I just think, look, sometimes I can bear a Snickers, occasionally a Mars bar.
Definitely not the Milky.
The Milky Light stuff.
Yeah, it's awful.
Not interested, right?
Any of those.
Most of it is inedible tosh, right?
But these little beauties.
What does a bounty do for you?
A Snickers?
It gives you energy.
I'll tell you what it does, sir.
It genuinely.
What is a bounty?
It genuinely gives me.
It's like a tropical feel.
Every Christmas, I like to do this.
It takes you back to Barbados.
You take a bounty.
Coba, coba, cabana.
I mean, you're literally on the beach in Mexico.
Well, now you're making before like a racist, right?
Now I feel terrible.
They're delicious.
Trains are bounty.
Look, that's all we've got time for.
I feel terrible.
Keep it on attention.
Right.
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