All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
Nov. 7, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:14
20221107_piers-morgan-uncensored-leka-ii-crown-prince-of-al
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
Saving The Planet With Piers Morgan 00:01:44
Tonight on Piers Morgan uncensored.
He was once voted the greatest ever Britain.
Our new poll reveals today's generation think Winston Churchill is just a racist.
What's behind this war on Western history?
As critics blame Albania for Britain's migrant crisis, the country's crown prince joins me live to demand we show his country some respect.
Thus America's prepared to vote in crucial elections which could dramatically reshape US politics.
I'll talk to one of Donald Trump's top advisors.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
COP27 is underway.
Billed again as our last chance to save the planet.
Well, spoiler alert, I doubt it will.
Just like the last 26 last chances before it failed to deliver.
Every year they arrive by private jets to pontificate on the end of the world and every year, with no sense of irony, they produce a staggering amount of hot air and deliver very little.
The answer is not to renew our addiction to hydrocarbons and to give in.
The answer is, and that's why I'm here.
The answer is to accelerate the adoption of green solutions.
Really?
Is that really why you're there, Boris?
Or is it because you're addicted to making everything all about you?
Our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is there.
That's all that needs to be there from this country.
Like CO2 in the atmosphere, Boris just doesn't want to go away.
And he had plenty of time to make a difference himself.
We've had 27 years of dire warnings at COP and 27 years of the problem only getting worse.
This is what saving the planet looks like.
Well, frankly, we better start looking for another one.
Churchill: Hero Or Monster 00:14:57
And if you roll your eyes at the very mention of this subject, it's almost certainly because of people like this.
Why did it take young people like me up on a f ⁇ ing country on the M25 for you to listen?
Clearly, a graduate from the Matt Hancock School of Crying Without Tears.
You know, it's been such a tough year for so many people, and there's William Shakespeare putting it so simply for everybody that, you know, we can get on with our lives.
The problem is that nobody's listening to young people like that shrieking Banshee precisely because she's up on a bleeping gantry on the M25 and the thousands of people sitting below for hours of traffic mayhem are not to blame for climate change.
They're just trying to get to work.
Far from persuading anybody, I believe these petulant protesters are hopelessly out of touch.
They whine about their future, but they're also whining about our past.
Take this weekend survey from the Policy Exchange think tank, which showed just one in five young people now have a positive view of Sir Winston Churchill.
Our great wartime leader, the man who faced down Adolf Hitler and helped lead the world to freedom, is now derided as nothing but a racist.
If the climate change is as serious as the protesters want you to believe it is, and by the way, I think it is a very serious issue, they should recognize we'd be a hell of a lot more likely to solve it with people like Winston Churchill in charge.
Well, I'm joined now by Iman Ayton, who's organised her own Black Lives Matter protest, including the likes of actor John Bieger and Madonna, and royal historian and author Sir Anthony Selden.
So welcome to both of you.
This is a really incendiary debate now.
Never used to be.
It used to be just everyone used to agree Winston Churchill was a national hero who saved us from the Nazis and that was it.
But now he's not.
And I'll start Iman by saying this.
I understand why young people look back at some of the things that Churchill was recorded as saying, some of the views that he held.
And I understand why it may colour the judgment about him.
Literally, actually.
But I also believe you should take all great figures in totality.
I agree.
Whether it's Gandhi, Mandela, Churchill, whoever it may be.
And the welter of positives for Winston Churchill, to me, outweigh attitudes and occasional comments which were by far the norm of that era and not, wouldn't be tolerated today.
And what's your reaction to that?
I totally agree with you.
So I don't actually harp on the covert racism or the kind of, you know, the comments like black people are savages and, you know, Indians are a beastly race.
I don't actually hold on to that because you're right.
It was during those times.
Not that it's acceptable.
We can safely say it wasn't.
What I hold on to, for example, is yes, he was a hero.
I think I was given the same kind of narrative that most people were, that this is a British hero.
Admittedly, it was only when I saw Churchill was a racist, that graffiti that was written on his statue during Black Lives Matter, that prompted me as a random person to say, you know, I'm going to go home and research Winston Churchill.
And in doing that, I found the two things that resonated with me personally.
The first was the four million Indians that died due to the Bengal famine, which was a direct result of Winston Churchill's decision making.
The second would have to be...
Hold on, hold on.
Fair enough, fair enough.
But on that, I'll come back to you because that is simply not true.
Okay, you can just say that.
The mythology that's built up around what happened, and I'll let the great historian fill in the blanks here.
But there's a lot of mythology that's been fermenting about Churchill's culpability over the Bengal famine.
But for anything else, he didn't cause the famine.
The famine was caused by a cyclone.
It was then massively exacerbated by a failure to get resource and food into the area because of the war and because of Japan's stranglehold on the area and so on and so on.
Churchill did direct other countries, including America and Australia, to try and send grain to Bengal.
But he also prioritised, when it really came to it, British troops who were going to die of hunger as well.
And as a British prime minister in a war, I'm not sure you can sincerely.
Which I've heard, and I totally agree with that.
So my point is that it's very easy to say that Churchill caused the famine and the death of four million people.
But actually, when you get into the weeds about what happened there, that's simply not accurate historically.
Well, I said it was due to his decision making.
And secondly, that's not the only thing that resonated with me.
The second thing that resonated with me, Piers, was the fact that he built Kenyan concentration camps.
So please school me and tell me I am wrong.
He built Kenyan concentration camps seven years after World War II, seven years after defeating fascism, seven years after getting rid of concentration camps for Jews.
He decided after seven years of growth and learning and all of this peace and all of this amazingness that Britain has achieved, we're now going to build concentration camps and not for Jews.
This time it's going to be for Kenyans.
And we're now going to start making pillars or sorry, rather, like these kind of different instruments that literally crush and rip the testicles off of Kenyan men.
And we're going to do that seven years after defeating.
So yes, I've got a different perspective.
We've heard the view and it's a view clearly shared by a lot of young people.
I mean, staggering these new statistics now of people who really dislike Churchill and have no respect for him.
Well, I think it's partly the fact he was built up to be such a big figure.
But for me, everything that has been identified that Iman is talking about is important and needs to be weighed into the equation.
Thank you, Anthony.
That's all I want.
That's all I want.
Because we are all mixtures of good and bad.
Every leader.
And I think for young people to have the evidence and weigh it up, I'm just going to mention three good things he did.
And by the way, I agree the treatment of the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya during that period of suppressing Mau Mau was utterly deplorable.
Seven years after World War II in 1520.
It's from 1952 onwards.
But this is what he did.
He did on the welfare state.
He was a core person building the welfare state before the First World War.
And as Prime Minister in the Second World War, he oversaw the Beveridge Report and encouraged it, which has been enormously of the benefit.
Secondly, he was the first politician to spot that at the end of the Cold War in 1953, he made an extraordinary speech after the death of Stalin, saying we can't carry on as we were.
And thirdly, there was what he did in the Second World War, where Hitler, six million Jews, 50 million dead in that war, he did stand up when Britain was alone.
So to give young people the evidence on both sides, I'll let them come to their own judgment and to recognize that every leader, us, me, you, Piers, everyone, is a mixture of good and bad.
But not monstrous, and that's my issue.
Not everyone is a mixture of monstrous and heroes.
Well, you know, good and bad is one of those.
Being monstrous, deciding to actually crush.
All right, take one of my heroes.
Take one of my heroes like Nelson Mandela.
He was on the no-fly list for this country throughout most of the 70s.
He was a man that many viewed to be a terrorist.
And then he came out and he turned out to be one of the all-time great peacemakers.
Now, again, do you take his life in totality, Mandela?
Or do you say that actually anyone involved in any form of activity which can be classed as terrorism is a monster?
And therefore there is no chance for a public figure to indeed.
Did Nelson Mandela sanction making pliers that crushed and ripped the testicles off of black men?
Did Nelson Mandela do that, Piers?
What he did sanction was he sanctioned activity which by today's standards would be construed as terrorism.
But so we can safely say that yes, everyone is bad.
I'm not negating that.
I think the issue with the power of the public.
I think my point is that you can take almost any historical figure and you can paint a picture, as Anthony said, of negative and positive.
To me, what Churchill achieved in World War II overrides everything else.
But why, though?
So why does that supersede the fact that he caused thousands, tens of thousands of black deaths?
And potentially, again, it's arguable, but potentially his decision-making led to the deaths of millions of Indians.
So what you're saying is that the...
But that's not the same.
But what we can say categorically is what I said about the Kenyan concentration camp.
So if you think that the Kenyan concentration camps wasn't monstrous, and what you're doing is you're negating the thoughts and feelings and experiences of the people.
I don't actually negate anything that Churchill did on the negative side.
I think a lot of the things he said were certainly racially tinged in that.
What about the things that he did?
What about the pliers that I've just told you?
No, no, we're not defending that at all.
So that's the point.
We need to balance the argument.
I agree with Anthony.
But my point is where on the right...
I agree, but where on your balanced argument does the pendulum swing to saving the world from the last?
I agree.
No, see, this is the thing.
I'm not the extremist.
I don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Maybe you're used to those types of guests here.
I'm not that type of person.
I believe in balance.
So I actually agree with you.
I think he did incredible things.
But I think it's also important to acknowledge that he also did really monstrous things.
And we should present both arguments and allow people to establish.
I think that's the only thing.
So the sheer fact that we're having this discussion now, that we are here able to talk, is because he led this country to stand up against a fascist dictator who, like many of the leaders in the world today, many want to, China, Russia, North Korea and more, want to squeeze free debate, the kind of discussion we have at the moment.
We can go back, have our separate lives.
We're not going to be put in...
We wouldn't be having it under Nazi Germany.
I agree with you.
I'm not disputing your point.
So give them the facts.
And I think that perhaps it was inevitable.
There was so much adulation of Churchill.
There's now a steep...
I mean, that's a really extraordinary figure.
80% of young people have a negative picture.
I think that maybe in five years' time it will rebalance.
I think myself will disagree, Ma'am, on this, that I think that it will be overwhelmingly positive about Churchill while not ignoring the downside.
And I think if people can learn about humanity then, that people's flaws, including what he did or what he sanctioned as prime minister in the 1950s in Kenya, weigh all that, then that's real education.
That's what history is about.
I mean, there are proper arguments to be had about the carpet bombing of Dresden in World War II, which many people think was completely unacceptable.
Churchill would argue, if he was here, he's not, but if he was, he would argue it was a necessary evil to facilitate the hastening of the ending of the war.
Now, a lot of people don't agree with that historically.
But if you're a wartime leader, you've got to make horrendous decisions.
Horrendous decisions, I totally agree with you.
And I bring it back to just having an inclusive mindset.
And I think that's the issue here, that many people seem to not, or let me just put it this way.
I don't think people are disputing the fact that he's a hero.
I think that many people are disputing the fact that he is also a monster.
And that is where the problem lies, Piers.
I'm not saying he's not a hero.
Everything that you've just said, everything that you just said, I agree.
I think it's awesome.
But I also have to take into account that the Indian population that died potentially because of his decision making probably wouldn't have called him a hero.
I have to take into account that the men that were having their testicles ripped from their bodies probably wouldn't call Winston Churchill a hero either.
So again, it comes down to an inclusive mentality.
When you take into account everyone's feelings, it becomes a lot harder to then definitively say someone is a hero or a villain.
What you usually do is say they are both.
You take into account they are racist, you take into account that they are a hero, and you take into account that they are.
Anthony, final point on Churchill, before I turn to that.
That, well, I think he sanctions some monstrous things.
He did in the same way.
Personally, I don't think he was a monster.
I think he had a deeply...
So sanctioning monsters and passionous things doesn't make you a monster.
Is that right, Anthony?
Let's just make sure you're clear.
If you do monstrous things, you're not a monster.
Is that correct?
I think that...
Is that correct?
Let me ask you a difficult question.
Do you think the unleashing of two nuclear weapons in World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was that justified?
Or was that monstrous?
I think those types of things are monstrous.
Anything that kills anyone else is a monster.
Okay, so you're calling the American president that did that a monster.
Anyone that kills anyone else is monstrous.
But that's a monster act, whether you want to see it.
But that brought to an end a war that would have killed many, many, many more people.
But it still doesn't negate the fact that it was monstrous to the people that died.
And that's what I'm trying to say.
You're now putting your feelings and white people's feelings and Jewish feelings, British feelings, above everyone else that had a negative influence.
What about white people?
I think you let yourself down when you say that.
White people, British people, Jewish people, the people that I typically, this is where I'm coming from, the people that I typically find defend Winston Churchill.
There have been many blacks, let's be honest with ourselves here.
But I typically find it's majority white because we have this real kind of admiration for the man.
And so a lot of people are...
Well, quite rightly, because he saved us from Nazi journey.
And you have to take into consideration that he's a very important person.
I don't think anybody thinks that Winston Churchill.
Nobody thinks he was an angel at all.
But he took a lot of very difficult decisions.
But people are negating the fact that he is a monster.
That is the issue.
Be balanced.
All right.
You made your point.
Anthony, I want to talk to you quickly about your book.
The path of peace, walking the Western Front Way.
It couldn't be more timely, obviously.
Remembrance Sunday this weekend.
When you wrote this book, have we learned the lessons that led to the catastrophe of the First World War, do you think?
So, no, categorically not.
I mean, as I was walking that, the Third World War was in Ukraine perhaps about to unfold.
It was the vision of a young soldier, Piers, who uniquely, it would seem, had a vision on building a path to peace, which I think is fundamental, where we can have people, his vision was of all nations or all faiths or backgrounds walking side by side together to try to learn from the dead from both sides.
So I walked back last summer, a thousand kilometers, a million paces through soil where 10 million, 10 million, had bled to death or had their lives totally wrecked in the effort of trying to build a path to peace.
He was an extraordinary visionary young man.
And so, no, but it is by building understanding, building bridges with each other, I think maybe not rushing myself to condemn other people, to understand why they did things, that we have the best hope for humanity.
And that's exactly why I wrote the book on the Western Front Way Now is the world's biggest commemoration project.
Albanian Migrants And UK Relations 00:14:20
Everyone can walk it or cycle it.
It's going to become like the northern Camino.
I think it was the best idea to come out of the First World War, Piers, even though it categorically hasn't ended the Second World War, didn't stop the Second World War.
And went, what other hope is there unless we just walk together, respect our difference, and indeed love each other for our differences?
Which is an inclusive mentality, by the way.
Just saying thank you.
Well, I think we respected each other's differences.
Thank you.
It wouldn't go as far as say we love each other yet, but the 90s work.
United's year.
So Anthony Seldon, great to see you.
Iman Aiton, thank you very much for coming in.
I appreciate it.
We're coming up.
There's 12,000 Albanians arriving on small boats.
An invasion.
The Home Secretary thinks so.
The Crown Prince of Albania thinks definitively not.
In fact, he's called it an imprudent to British society.
Well, that debate next.
Well, welcome back.
Number 10 said tonight that a new deal preventing migrants leaving France to reach Britain is now in its final stages.
Earlier, Rishi Sunak held talks with President Macron on the sidelines of COP27.
But much of the debate about the crisis has been overshadowed by criticism of Home Secretary Suella Braverman's use of language.
The British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast and which party is not.
If Labour War in charge, they would be allowing all the Albanian criminals to come to this country.
They would be allowing all the small boats to come to the UK.
Well, the Crown Prince of Albania responded on Twitter, calling this disproportionate slander and purely xenophobic.
So criminal gangs abusing wide open British borders are a convenient scapegoat for a government that's lost control.
Well, joining me now is Talk TV presenter Richard Tice and the Crown Prince of Albania, Prince Lekya.
Well, thank you both indeed for joining me.
If I could talk to you first, Prince Lekyo, thank you very much for joining the programme tonight.
I read your tweet with great interest.
They were clearly incensed by the use of language by the Home Secretary.
I share your anger at the language she used.
I thought it was completely unnecessary.
However, and it isn't important, however, I think, I think the British people have been surprised to discover now that the majority of people coming into the country illegally on these boats across the Channel are now from Albania, which is not a war-torn country at the moment.
And they're just bemused as to why this is happening.
So let me start with Suella Braverman's views.
Why were you so angered by those?
Thank you very much, Piers, for welcoming me on your show.
I'm in Tirana and it's a wonderful opportunity to actually express the human aspect of this issue.
Today, this afternoon, I had a cordial conversation with the British ambassador and he recaffirmed to myself as well as as he has reconfirmed to the Albanian authorities that the comments are not a reflection of the British government and it's not the political stance of the British government towards Albania.
And I would be very happy to say that Albania and the United Kingdom have fantastic relations.
We are working on a number of multilateral stances.
We are allies in the war in Ukraine.
Albania is a co-signer in the Security Council in protecting the rights and freedoms of the Ukrainians.
Albanians are actively working within the confines of NATO and making sure that we are a proud contributor.
We've welcomed over 4,000 refugees from Afghanistan to Albania.
We are continuously trying to work on different fronts.
We are currently under attack from Iranian cyber warfare, which has had huge impacts on our cybernetic infrastructure.
And we are on the forefront of this global stance of freedom.
But obviously, the stance and the rhetoric which has been used in the general media has had an impact.
And I have taken this unorthodox stance in going away from the royal position of silence.
And I thought that it was needed that we have to mention that the majority of Albanians in the UK are hard-working individuals.
We have, and the 12,000 Albanians, in considering the proportionality of the situation, the United Kingdom has over 6.5 million immigrants.
12,000 Albanians cannot be considered an invasion.
And I'm very sad that this harsh tone of events is having impacts on the hard-working Albanians currently living in England.
I've spoken to family friends who are in the UK and some of them have actually pulled their children out of schools because they feel that this xenophobic attitude is reflecting on their lives.
And this is why I took this unorthodox stance in actually making a few comments very late at night on Twitter because I believe very strongly that we have to find tangible results of overcoming this issue and building upon the very strong relations that we Albanians and the UK have together.
Have you had any conversation with the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about this?
I have not.
And I know that the Albanian Prime Minister is in contact in this community aid and he has also come out with a very, very strong stance that this is not a reflection of the fantastic relations that we have as two different countries.
The bilateral relations can't be impacted.
Let me bring in Richard Tys here.
Richard, there's a lot of agitation in the UK about these new statistics, which seem to be suggesting that there is a large number of young Albanian men coming in illegally and the suspicion is that many of them are coming to join gangs in the UK.
Now, it's hard to assess, I guess, exactly what percentage may be, and it's quite clear that many of them will be legitimate and genuine asylum seekers and refugees.
Where do we draw the line here?
What is your view of this?
Well, it appears I'm the person that broke the story a few months ago that four in ten of the migrants are coming from Albania, a NATO member.
And as the Crown Prince quite rightly says, we have good relations, and the vast, vast majority of Albanians are wonderful people, and we go on holiday there and vice versa.
But let's remember, Piers, these people are coming here in these boats illegally.
They are illegally entering the country, about 12,000 of them now, when actually Albanians can happily, legally, lawfully come on a six-month visa.
They can come and work in the United Kingdom.
It costs them a few hundred pounds to get such a visa.
So if they are legitimate, decent, good, law-abiding citizens of Albania that want to come and contribute to British society, why are they not coming legally and lawfully?
The only reason that they would pay 10 times that amount to come on a perilous journey in a small boat across the Channel, regrettably, is because they may have different objectives.
We know that it's a question of fact that Albanian criminals are the largest group of foreign nationals in our jails, and we know that many of these Albanians are disappearing within days and going to join the Albanian criminal gangs that have now completely taken over and brutally, violently dominated our cocaine trade, our cannabis trade in a horrific way in the towns and cities across the country.
They're making vast, vast profits.
They need more foot soldiers to get rid of the huge profits.
They're money laundering through car washes.
They're setting up barbershops in towns and high streets across the country, even candy shops now.
And, you know, the British people have had enough.
And the Home Secretary expressed the frustration of millions and millions of British people that this criminal activity has to stop.
It's no reflection of the wonderful Albanians that the Crown Prince mentioned.
It is a reflection of the deep concern about the significant, brutal, violent Albanian criminal gangsters that are causing chaos, violence, and murder on our streets.
Okay, let me put this back to the Crown Prince.
I mean, there's some interesting statistics here where in 2020, 50 Albanians arrived on these small boats.
In 2021, 800.
And in 2022, 12,000.
So there is clearly a massive seismic shift in numbers here.
And it is true, as Richard Tais says, that there are currently 1,336 Albanians imprisoned in England and Wales.
And that is the highest foreign nationality incarcerated in that year.
So there is clearly a problem with a criminal element here.
And the number that are now making the crossing is exponentially rising at such a rate that it would seem to suggest that this can't be divorced in many of these cases from potential criminality.
What would you say to that?
Well, the first thing, I'm an advocate of free movement.
And it's not true that Albanians are given the opportunity to travel freely in the United Kingdom.
They're not issued visas.
And when you are forced, you're not given that opportunity of free movement.
A lot of youngsters from not only Albania, but the majority of Albanians are coming from other European countries because of the pandemic and because of the foreseen recession which Europe is going to be facing in the next two years.
So a lot of these young Albanians are trying to find means and methods of crossing into Europe.
And unfortunately, once they take that route, which is the legal route, they are the victims of gangs, organized crime.
And this is something which I've spoken to your ambassador about.
I'm trying to promote in the sense that we have to find tangible ways of making sure that Albanians are able to travel securely to the UK.
And the majority, 53% of Albanians who do go to the UK are got legitimate concerns.
They have different issues and they are given permission to stay.
Those elements which are forced to go through the illegal routes often don't have the opportunity and that freedom to go back to Albania.
And we all know that the new modern TikTok Instagram view of immigration in the UK is a blurred image of reality.
And I believe if working with the Albanian government, working with the corporations, on the international level, we're able to provide this free movement.
Majority of Albanians who go with this false impression of a glorious life in the UK will return.
I do take hindrance that the majority of Albanians are going to go into crime.
A lot of Albanians want to be proactive.
They see England as a fantastic country which has provided over the generations servitude.
My own family in 1939, when Albania was invaded by the fascists, we went to the UK.
We were given refuge.
And it's something which I resonate very, very much myself.
I myself was educated in the UK and I was given the opportunity to join the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where I commissioned as an officer.
And I see that we have a very strong friendship.
But I don't like this improportionate, and we're talking about proportionality of the British narrative focusing on Albanians, when at the same time we're talking about the month of June where we had 100 more Albanians than other countries.
And legitimately, other countries from the Middle East as well as Africa have different issues.
Can I ask you the focus of this debate?
When you said you spoke to the British ambassador, did the British ambassador directly apologize to you for the use of language by the Home Secretary, the use of the phrase invasion?
So we don't, nor has Albania requested apology, because we understand that there is a very strong internal debate within the UK.
The situation is very intense, and it's our stance not to be involved in local politics of the United Kingdom.
I think Albania has its own intense politics, and I've heard very strong words from the Albanian opposition.
Understandly that a lot of Albanians traveling to the UK are Albanians who are from the right of the political spectra that don't find opportunities within the country.
But understand the origins of Albania.
Albania was a country which for over 50 years was a victim of the harshest regime of communism.
We've come out of communism, finding ourselves in a prolonged transition period, which has had an enormous effect on the lives of the people.
And many Albanians who are getting a wage of less than £250 a month want to see a change.
And although Albania is a developing country and a country which is having incredible tourism over the last years, encouraging foreign investment, a lot of these benefits are not being seen by the majority of young Albanians in the villages.
So there are issues which I hope that we will be able to tackle, but we have to tackle this together.
Let me just give a...
This is a need.
Understand.
Let me give a final word there to Richard Tyler.
Gavin Williamson Scandal Explained 00:07:45
Richard, has anything the Crown Prince said made you think again about your position on this?
Not at all, Piers.
I would remind the Crown Prince, we don't have a free movement arrangement with Albania.
We do have a visa scheme.
I checked it today.
It's £259.
You'll get a decision within three or four weeks.
No one is forced to come illegally to the United Kingdom in small boats and many of them disappearing, as I say, within days to join gangs.
Just recently, a number of them were caught in cannabis farms.
We know that some Albanian criminals who've just been deported within days have come back across the channel in boats.
I think the Crown Prince needs to reflect on the fact that unfortunately there is a significant criminal element who are coming to the United Kingdom and who are brutally, violently targeting our towns and cities, making illegal profits, and it's got to stop.
We've heard both sides of the argument very loudly and clearly.
Richard Tice, thank you very much.
And Crown Prince, I do really appreciate you coming on the programme.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, sir.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you.
Well, still to come tonight.
Gavin Williamson is back in the cabinet and already back to embarrassing the government, this time over foul-mouthed text to a female colleague.
And as I speak, tonight is a new report in The Guardian saying that a senior civil servant claims Williamson told them to slit your throat.
Charming.
Is it time to get rid of this hapless goon one more time?
Welcome back to Petersburg Uncensor.
Gavin Williamson back in government, the words you feared you'd never hear again.
He was sacked, of course, as Defence Secretary for leaking sensitive military information to a journalist.
He was sacked again as Education Secretary after the chaos over exams during COVID.
And then, of course, he was rewarded with a knighthood because that's the way our system works here.
Here he is, failing to apologise to me for his government's unlawful conduct over COVID contracts.
Are you sorry you acted unlawfully?
Yes or no?
Well, the government would never aim to act unlawfully.
And obviously you acted unlawfully and were found guilty of it.
So are you sorry?
And of course, why do you guys find it so hard?
If we're not in the situation where the decisions we've taken have been upheld by a judge, that's certainly something we'd never aim to do.
So you're sorry.
Deeply regret it, yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Eventually, it's like blood out of a stone, wasn't it?
Anyway, breaking news tonight.
Well, first of all, T, if you don't know the background to this, he's been branded unacceptable by the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who, to my mind, bafflingly brought him back to the government, despite being warned that he'd been bullying people again.
This was over trying to bully his way into the Queen's funeral.
And then he, of course, was rude and obnoxious to the chief who at the time.
Is it time he gets fired for a third time?
Well, I'm joined by my Stella Pack tonight.
Talk to you, Visi Esta Kraku, political journalist Ava Santina and Daily Mirror Associate Editor Kevin Maguire.
And in a moment, we're going to talk also about the crucial midterm elections in America with Donald Trump's former senior advisor, Jason Miller.
So lots to get through tonight.
Let me start with the pack though about Gavin Williamson.
Story breaking, the moment I heard that he'd been sending vile texts, A, it was the least surprising news of the millennium.
And B, I thought there are going to be a million other texts, right?
This guy, the only reason he could possibly get so many jobs is he's so vile to everybody.
And he knows all their secrets because he was the chief whip.
So they keep promoting him to keep his mouth shut.
The Guardian tonight, a senior civil servant claims Gavin Williamson, told him to slit your throat in what they felt was a sustained campaign of bullying while his defence secretary.
The MOD official told the Guardian Williamson made the extraordinary mugs full of other civil servants in a meeting and on a separate occasion told them to jump out of a window.
I mean, this is unbelievable.
It is, and Sunak's damaged himself by bringing him back.
He stood on the steps of Down Industry and said, I'm going to rule with integrity.
Where is the integrity of bringing back Sagav, who is a known bully?
And what Williamson will really worry about is there will be more texts and messages and emails because you can dispute because it's his currency.
It's all he's got.
Why else would he be there?
Esther, why else would he be there?
But the problem is, if that's the case, no one will be in our politics because that's the culture of Westminster.
These people write to the round.
I don't want to say that.
That's normal.
That's a normal thing to say.
It's not a normal thing to say.
But I just think.
You're going to slip their throat.
You don't answer that.
I have many excess.
I'm joking.
But I think that the problem that...
No, no, no.
You actually, you make a point.
I mean, I know from my time running a newspaper, you know, you speak to Alistair Campbell long enough when he was running communications with Tony Blair, EBFing and blinding and threatening everybody.
I think this has been historically the kind of language they all think they need to use.
But we're in different times now.
But I think that's what's greeting.
That's the problem.
We're trying to transition into a politics that's more respectable, that's more cordial, but it hasn't happened yet.
You know, I always draw up sort of parallels to David Cameron, for instance, because I said Pretty Patel, if she was in David Cameron's government, she would have been fired, actually.
She wouldn't have been let to get on with this kind of bullying of civil servants.
And I said that Boris is because he has no standards in this cabinet, he's going to keep her on.
And I think Rishi has to try his best to move away from that.
But obviously, you can't if you bring this person back into government.
So it's really difficult.
Exactly.
You kind of have to bring people with relevant experience, but that don't have this baggage.
And that's all of them.
All of them have this.
David, I saw Sir Keir Starmer at the football.
I don't know if he knows this, but Arsenal beat Chelsea away.
We're both gooners.
So we were actually celebrating.
And actually, I was also celebrating with Kendrick Lamar, the rap star, because that's the kind of crowd that I hang with at a week.
I'm a big fan of you.
Actually, you used to be a Tottenham fan.
He's now an Arsenal fan.
Whoa, that's weird.
Which was a great flex, yeah.
But it was interesting talking to Keir Starman because he was very like, and I was thinking, you must be reveling in all this.
He went, my whole mantra to the shadow cabinet is no complacency.
That the enemy now is complacency.
Do your jobs, do them well, don't get complacent, which I thought was very, actually good advice.
But it must be difficult not to be a little bit like, is there any end to this with the Tories?
I mean, one thing after another, they bring back Suella Braverman, she's straight back into Moore's scandal.
They bring back Gavin Williamson.
He's going to probably have to go now for telling people to slit their throats.
I mean, the Tories are basically handing the next government to me to labour on a plate.
Well, they are in a sense, but I mean, I don't think Labour can get too excited yet because they haven't actually trialled any policy.
So the only reason that they are ahead in the polls is because the Tory government is in such shambles.
Going back to what you said, actually, about Pretty Patel and David Cameron, I think that has a lot to do with fragility.
And I think that the reason that Rishi Sunak has to keep people like Gavin Williamson and Siwella Braveman in his cabinet is because if they're on the back benches, they're much more of a danger to him than if they're in his cabinet.
You know, causing sort of there.
Because the thing is, if you had someone with kind of the sort of more right-wing acumen of Siwella Braverman, but not with the same baggage, not with the lack of tact, I think she's a completely tactless politician, she would be threatened because she knows that none of her behavior would be acceptable and that Rishi Sunak could sort of pass on.
Not all Tory MPs behave like Gavin Williamson or no, I'm no.
My prediction is he'll be gone.
He'll be gone by the end of the week.
Well, because there's going to be a thousand more text messages letters.
You don't just come out with these things once or twice.
It's clearly his modus operandi.
Sunak's line, which we've heard from Grant Shaps, the Transport Secretary, is it happened before he was brought back?
Doesn't matter.
No, but it doesn't matter.
Because it's just too embarrassing.
Trump's Path To Another Win 00:08:25
You mentioned bringing things back.
Tonight, the New York Post just in.
Former President Donald Trump has told allies he could announce a 2024 presidential run tonight at a rally for a higher Republican Senate candidate, JD Vance.
The Post has learned.
Well, let's bring in Jason Miller, a former senior advisor to President Trump.
Jason, welcome to the program.
Great to have you on.
Huge anticipation that Donald Trump may even announce as early as tonight he's going to run again.
My guess is he will run again pretty much whatever happens in the midterm, short of every candidate he's promoted losing, which I think is unlikely.
Let me ask you a question, though.
You work closely with the man.
Is it a good thing for America if Donald Trump runs again with a, you know, a 50-50 chance perhaps of winning the White House again?
Well, I'm obviously a Trump partisan.
I worked for him in both 2016 and 2020, and so I very much want to see Trump come back in 2024.
I think what we've seen in the U.S. with the economy going downhill, with the inflation, all the things that everybody realizes and why we're going to have this tidal wave of an election tomorrow, that's all part of the reason why I want to see President Trump come back.
But I think more importantly, Piers, on the global stage, when you have a weak American democracy, a weak leadership in the White House, it reverberates all the way across the world.
And you see the rise of Russia, the rise of China, and all the bad guys don't have anyone to push back on them.
There's a very interesting moment this week, I thought, when the rising Republican star is the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, expected to get easily re-elected in the midterms.
And Trump suddenly, who's been, you know, sort of not saying anything publicly, but knifing him privately, suddenly did it publicly.
Let's take a look.
Let's see.
There it is.
Trump at 71.
Ron de Sanctimonius at 10%.
Now, I've got to hand it to Trump.
He is a master of giving people very damaging, mocking nicknames.
But it also opened up this very real possibility now that he does get challenged by DeSantis, who is pretty near half his age, done a very good job in Florida.
He's very popular there, and is seen as the sort of Trump without all the baggage and madness.
What do you make of DeSantis?
And was it helpful for Trump to do this right before an important election for the Republicans?
Yeah, great question.
So in a conventional lens, if you look through this, it would make no sense to go after Ron DeSantis now.
Right before an election, DeSantis is going to win in a landslide in Florida, help carry a number of the Republicans across the finish line.
But very clearly, President Trump does not look at things through a traditional political lens.
If he had, he probably wouldn't have won in 2016 or come as close as he would have had in 2020.
I think President Trump clearly is thinking about DeSantis, knows that DeSantis is likely to challenge him, even in a Republican primary, if Trump says that he's running.
And so he decided that heading into Tuesday, he's going to throw a little love tap, as they'd say here in New York, at Governor DeSantis.
So it caught a lot of people off guard.
They're upset by it.
But clearly, President Trump's looking ahead to 2024.
President Biden, I mean, I would imagine if you're the Republicans, the words you're praying for are, I'm running again, because Biden looks half gaga and he's approaching 80 years old.
Yeah, and there's a counterintuitive point here in that Trump announcing early could also force Joe Biden to announce early.
Keep in mind, Biden's only real value proposition is that he defeated President Trump in 2020.
A lot of Democrats do not want Joe Biden running in 2024.
They want him to step aside, let in someone else like a Gavin Newsome or Gretchen Whitmer or one of the other governors around the country.
So if Trump announces early, then you get Biden early.
It might lock him in.
That could actually be a big boon for President Trump.
Whereas if President Trump were to delay, maybe the Democrat leadership can get to him and convince Biden, you know what, it's quick answer, are we looking for a slam-dunk red wave where they take the House and the Senate?
Yeah, big, huge red wave.
You've seen about a 30, 35 point shift with independents just over the last month.
The bottom has completely fallen out for Democrats.
Even CNN is saying that races such as the Senate contest in New Hampshire are up for grabs.
I think Republicans come out of this with 53, maybe 54 Senate seats, big majority in the House.
This is going to be not just a large number of people.
That one, of course, will end any attempt, any chance of Biden doing anything more substantial while he's president, and we'll open up the public.
Although that's a good thing.
Yeah.
While some would say that.
That's a good thing.
Yes, she has achieved some stuff, but it's just more his demeanor, which is so embarrassing, I think, for America.
Jason, before I let you go, you're involved with this website, Getter.
Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, obviously.
He's technically your rival.
What do you make of Elon Musk very quickly, if you don't mind?
Yeah, obviously Elon Musk is a rival now that he's the head of Twitter.
But you have to support what he's trying to do.
Try to bring some normalcy to Twitter.
An organization that's gone very far to the left end, a lot of political discrimination.
Of course, the election 2020 and the Hunter Biden laptop.
I have to support him there.
Piers, I don't think the culture in Twitter can be changed.
That's the only reason why politics is.
Well, that's going to be others.
Jason, I've got to leave you there.
Thank you very much.
I agree with you.
It's going to be very difficult.
If anyone can do it, it'll be a genius like Musk.
Jason, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Well, next tonight, let's go to the break.
We'll come back and talk to the pack about this because Trump's return may be the dominant story for the next few months.
And a bit of unmissile with old Han Koff.
Ever been punched in your mother face?
What you say?
Oh, you have it?
All right, wait.
Ever been punched in your finger?
You know, I said this show is called Uncensored.
We're actually going to censor that because that's Madonna's new album from her bedroom.
So embarrassing.
Why doesn't she just give it up, honestly?
Appalling.
A quick reaction from the pack to Donald Trump.
Kevin.
Yeah, we'll know how effective he is or not when you see the midterms of candidates here he's back.
But if I was a Democrat, and I agree they don't want Biden, but I'd want Trump.
I wouldn't want DeSantis.
David, do you agree with that?
Why on earth would you want that?
We're looking at an all-out war on reproductive rights that could transcend across the world.
I also think Trump could...
Trump could win because even though he's not the ideal, he still does have a lot of sort of cachet with the Republican vote.
Well, the problem is the Democrats' worst nightmare would be DeSantis because he is Trump without all the baggage.
He is, but he also hasn't quite got the charisma of Trump.
And charisma goes a long way in American votes, as we know.
He's an alienate in the same way.
And look, we heard, Trump was a jork on the world stage.
People would have loved him in place for the money.
But you see, the thing is, the Republicans as well, they have all the talent.
They have a lot of, they have Nikki Haley, they have the lady from Arizona, they have, you know, DeSantis.
Exactly.
They don't have any shortage of talent.
Who do the Democrats have?
Pete Budiger?
Can you imagine if out of 320 million people, we end up with Trump Biden 2, the rematch, yeah?
It would be unbelievable.
Both of them are.
180 and one heading data.
But Piers, the other point with Trump is now democracy itself is on the ballot paper when he will not accept.
Well, because so many of the candidates are election deniers like me and agree the election stolen.
Let's talk about talking about people with no charisma.
Hancock, with emphasis on the con.
You're going, we think on Wednesday into the jungle.
It's just fantastic television, isn't it?
I'm so excited.
Why?
I hate this about myself.
I'm like racing home.
No, I actually agree with you.
I was last night I was waiting, hoping he would appear just so I can vote for him to do despicable things.
I can effectively hurl stuff through the screen at him.
That's paradoxic Justin.
So you're not going to do it.
But there is a serious point, Kevin, which is his constituents.
I mean, where is this guy?
Oh, they've got to kick him out in Suffolk.
They have to.
And again, Sunak's authority is challenged.
He's taken away, suspended the whip, but he's got to say this bloke will never be a Tory MP.
He'll never be in politics again.
Who do you think is going to win?
I'm a celebrity.
Do you know what the thing is?
I think he thinks he's a bad person.
I've got 10 seconds.
Give me a name.
You are.
You're going to win it, Pierce.
I did say he's the only reason I would go in would be to take him off.
Jill Scott, the 4 England.
She's an aggressive.
I don't watch it.
I think Mike Tyndall or Boy George, myself.
Yeah, I think the Hancock will be made to eat kangaroo nuts by Thursday night.
Thank you.
It's my pack.
That's it from me.
Keep it uncensored.
Good night.
Export Selection