Piers Morgan and guests dissect Qatar's rainbow ban, contrasting fan bravery with player cowardice while debating if football should host in human rights violators. Brian Cox argues for a United Federation of nations, criticizing UK leadership but supporting Scottish independence under Nicola Sturgeon to escape corrupt foreign policy. The show analyzes Cristiano Ronaldo's clash with Manchester United management and fiercely debates Prince Harry and Meghan's "Ripple of Hope" award, weighing unproven racism claims against institutional accountability. Finally, hosts argue over Shamima Begum's ISIS recruitment, clashing on whether she represents terrorism or a manipulated child, ultimately questioning national security judgments. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Football Fans vs Human Rights00:15:11
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Qatar confiscates rainbow hats and an apparent crackdown on peaceful protests.
Should World Cup fans respect local laws or risk their safety for gay rights?
The UK Supreme Court prepares to rule on a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Succession legend Brian Cox is here to debate secession.
Plus ISIS bride Shamima Begum launches another bid to return to the UK.
Britain's spy chief says she knew exactly what she was doing.
She a terrorist or evicted.
From London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening from London and welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Qatar is not a democracy.
Migrant workers there are treated badly.
Gay rights and women's rights are sorely lacking by Western standards.
Sexual freedom is limited.
These are all facts about Qatar.
But there are also facts about Russia, which hosted the last World Cup, and there are facts about China, which staged the Winter Olympics just nine months ago.
There are controversies almost everywhere that any major sporting event takes place.
Unless the World Cup rotates endlessly between Switzerland, Sweden and Finland, there's always going to be a problem.
Well, today's controversy is the apparent crackdown on the handful of fans wearing rainbow hats and t-shirts in support of gay rights.
Wales Ambassador Laura McAllister said this.
And when we got through security, some of the security guards said that we had to take the hat off.
And when I asked them why, they said because it was a banned symbol and that we weren't allowed to wear it in the stadium.
And I pointed out that FIFA had made lots of comments about supporting LGBT rights in this tournament.
It's a modest protest and frankly, it's a cause that I obviously support.
But what were they expecting?
Qatar warned as far back as April that they'd confiscate rainbow flags, partly over concerns that local people might react angrily.
And while FIFA says rainbow symbols are okay inside stadiums, they don't run the country.
Qatar has opened its house to the world and for the most part, all fans appear to be welcome.
But when you're in someone else's house, it's polite to respect their rules, even if you don't agree with them.
If this so-called crackdown turns nasty, I'll be the first to call it out.
Right now, it looks like another version of the same argument we've been having for months, in fact, years, about this Qatar World Cup.
It shouldn't be left to fans to take the heat for protests when the players themselves are bottling it over the threat of a yellow card.
Home Advantage is already having a weird and wonderful impact, though, on the first ever Middle Eastern World Cup.
Qatar's neighbours, Saudi Arabia, stunned the world today by beating hot favourite Argentina, leaving a certain Lynn or Messi looking less than chuffed.
England could face Argentina in the next round if they make it.
So never mind respecting local customs.
We might be calling them for some tactical advice.
And the sight of thousands of Saudi fans celebrate outside the stadium is a reminder of what this is supposed to be about.
They're not Muslims or Middle Easterns or politicians.
They're just actually football fans in this scenario, celebrating like the rest of us would.
Well, joining me now is political activist Ash Sarkar, who disagrees with everything I've just said.
Good evening to you.
Good evening.
Well, I only disagree with some of it, not all of it.
So look, here's my problem.
It's not that I think that Qatar has an exemplary record on human rights.
They don't.
My problem is once you put the human rights halo on about where you stage a World Cup, I'm not sure where you end up staging it.
You can't have it in Africa.
You can't have it in the Middle East.
You can't have it in India.
You can't have it in China.
I'm not sure you could have it in America, given their draconian rules, for example, about abortion, which are very offensive to many other countries outside America.
In other words, if you start to be too saintly about it, I'm not sure you can end up having a World Cup.
Well, I think if you take that logic too far, it means you end up drawing a line absolutely nowhere.
And I think that both of us would agree that you draw a line somewhere.
And what we're disputing is where you do it.
Can I ask you a really quick question?
Sure.
Back in the 1980s, did you support the boycott of apartheid South Africa?
Yes.
Yes.
And can you tell me why you supported that boycott?
Because I felt that apartheid South Africa was based on pure racism and discrimination.
And you're going to say to me now, okay, what's the difference between that and the way Qatar is...
No, no, no, I'm not saying what's the difference.
The thing I'm saying is that at that time in the 1980s, I mean, I was barely a twinkling my father's eye at that point, but so my mother tells me, is that when you were outside of Barclays encouraging Barclays, you know, to divest from South Africa and for people not to bank with Barclays, or when you were saying, hang on, the cricket team or the rugby team or the football team shouldn't do sporting tours in South Africa, people would go, well, hang on, there's so many other countries with terrible human rights records.
Why aren't you doing this about the Soviet Union?
Why aren't you doing this about China?
You can say, why aren't you doing this about this country for practically any human rights issue you care to name?
So for me, there's a case for people to boycott Qatar if that's what they want to do.
I also think if that's what people wanted to do, they should have started organising.
Well, I agree.
I don't disagree with you.
I think if you feel that strongly about it, don't go to Qatar.
My problem is once they've got the World Cup, which they were awarded 12 years ago, once everybody's there, it's a football tournament.
And I find the endless politics now is just getting in the way of what should be.
You've got the Iranian players refusing to sing the national anthem and using the press conference to shine a light on the conditions in Iran.
That to me is moral courage because they're doing it to their own country.
They're making a stand where there is genuine oppression of women in that country right now.
That's fine.
My problem is with England, who basically said with the Football Association's backing, we're going to wear these armbands.
We're not going to boycott it.
We're going to wear these armbands supporting the LGBT community.
And then they get threatened with a yellow card and they all run a mile.
You are not going to get me to disagree with you on that one because I thought it was frankly comical.
That's it.
Right?
You have got this Iranian team who are putting their careers and their freedom, potentially even their lives in danger to stand with the protesters.
I agree.
You've got the England team saying, okay, well, we're not going to back down on our values.
And then Suddenly's like, oh, no, not a sporting, punitive measure.
I mean, it's totally cowardly.
Let me ask you a question.
You're not going to get me to disagree with you there.
Okay, so we've reached some points of consensus, but where would you stage a World Cup?
I mean, the World Cup's the biggest sporting event in the world.
Where would you be happy to see it staged?
So the thing I would say is rather than doing this pick and choose of countries, how are the decisions to be able to do that?
Play one.
Play one, you can be happy for it to be at.
Both me and you, I think, could probably agree that FIFA is such a corrupt organisation that there are cartels out there going steady on, lads.
That's not my question.
And so the problem is, the problem is...
I'll ask you a simple question.
So hear me out.
Throughout FIFA's history, because of that corruption, states which want to launder its image by having this proximity and association with sports have been able to do so.
And it goes back way before Qatar.
It goes way back to the United States.
I think the current group goes back to, you know, I think it's been corrupt since it started.
1978 World Cup.
So I think that you deal with this by going, well, let's clean up FIFA.
Fine.
And then you have some standards imposed.
Let me come back to that.
I'm only going to do it for democracy.
Don't be like a politician.
You're ignoring my question.
No, no, it's the same.
There's only one place in the world you'd be happy to see the World Cup hosted.
Tottenham.
Well, you're a Tottenham file.
I forgot that.
I mean, that's even more heinous than anything you've discussed so far.
But seriously, where would you host it?
But for me, this isn't the point about going.
These are good countries, these are bad countries.
My point is...
I know your points.
You made it very falsely.
My point is, could we actually legitimately host it in England, given this moral criteria?
England took part in the illegal evasion of Iraq in 2003.
That sparked nearly two decades of ISIS terrorism, never mind anything else, caused huge fury in the Middle East.
We saw last year when we hosted the European Championships how disgusting our fans, many of them behaved at the final at Wembley.
I was there.
They were snorting, boozing, brawling, breaking in with no tickets, spreading COVID.
Sounds like a great weekend.
It was actually, it was disgusting to watch and dangerous and unpleasant.
My point is, who are we to actually lecture other countries about laws when we invade countries illegally?
Who are we to lecture people about, for example, they say we can't drink beer inside stadiums when they've watched what happened at Wembley?
What you make here is a good point, which is that there is no country whose hands are clean.
And I think there's a more important point here, which is that we can't expect football to do things that our government won't.
When you look at the amount of Qatari money, which is sloshing around London, the Sovereign Wealth Fund buying up Harrods, buying up billions in property.
Why shouldn't they be allowed to buy Harrods?
I think what we're going to end up with is we did with Russian money, which is when we allow regimes that we're dependent on for fossil fuels to then use our financial system.
We get 20% of our gas from Qatar, apparently.
I heard on newsletter last year.
I think it's 6% according to government documents.
So a large chunk of gas comes from Qatar.
Would you turn that off in principle now, given the energy prices?
I would say, so we don't have to buy fossil fuels from Saudi Arabia or Qatar or whatever.
Would you turn off the gas then?
No, I would say is we need to develop an economy which isn't reliant on imported fossil fuels.
And for decades we haven't done that.
So this is my point, which is we have these huge expectations of football to take stances that our governments won't.
If we don't want dirty money sloshing around the city of London, we need to tighten up our financial laws.
If we don't want to be dependent on these countries, we need to focus on energy sources.
I agree, but let me come back.
You have for five minutes now steadfastly declined to answer my question.
Where would you host a World Cup that you consider morally pure enough to do it?
Tell us about it.
I would say here's some criteria.
Here's some criteria.
You don't have a system of exploited labor, which means that thousands of workers die in constructing the infrastructure which is necessary.
We don't know how many workers have died.
We know the figure of 6,500 is deeply misleading because apparently that's the total number of migrant workers who've died over a 10-year period and many of them would have died from natural causes in that time.
So we don't actually know.
I'm not saying that maybe hundreds, maybe thousands died.
I'm just saying we don't actually know the reality.
The reason why we don't know the reality is because either the Qatari government hasn't bothered to count or won't release the reality.
Let me come back again to my question.
My question is this.
We've got to host the World Cup somewhere.
Do you agree with that?
You're a councillor.
So where do we host it?
So this is, again, give me a country.
Because what you're trying to do is...
I'm trying to ask you.
I love watching your interviews, but it's getting a bit old hacks.
This thing you do is you steer the interview down a blind alley and you go answer this question.
Actually, in interviews where I, the interviewer, ask questions, and you either choose to answer them, or you do what you've done for the last five minutes, which is answer a completely different question.
What if I think it's a stupid question?
It couldn't be more pertinent.
If your big problem is, what if I think about it?
If you don't think we should be hosting the World Cup in Qatar, where should we be hosting it?
But I said there's no country with clean hands, but what you can do is to have a bigger.
But I'm not saying you have to have clean hands to host the World Cup.
The thing I'm saying is you can have...
We can't host it.
We can have some criteria that we all agree on.
We can have some criteria that we all agree on.
Just give me a country.
We can have criteria that we all agree on.
I'll take any name.
You'll take any name.
I gave you Tottenham.
There's 160 old countries in the world.
Give me one.
It gave you Tottenham.
The thing I'm saying is...
Tottenham's not a country.
We can have some criteria that we all agree on.
And what you can also do is have FIFA using their language.
We've got a problem to improve conditions.
This is the total of it.
It's all very well saying it's all terrible in Qatar, and it was all terrible in Russia, and it's terrible the Olympics are in China, and it's terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.
But my question is, well, where is it not terrible enough to do that?
I think there are countries with better human rights records than Qatar.
Give me a country.
Chile has a better human rights record than Qatar.
You would have the World Cup in Chile that passed your moral smell test.
Really?
Have you read about Chile's human rights?
Yes, I have.
Really?
Yeah, and I think that Gabriel Borica is quite a good president.
Wow, you think Chile is actually a good...
Okay, right.
Why don't you tell me something about Chile right now, which means that that would be a terrible country and is as bad as Qatar in terms of gay rights, in terms of workers' rights, in terms of women's rights.
I mentioned it.
No, I played your silly game.
I played Justinie Game.
You've given me a name.
And now I'm going to say, you're doing what I would, what you would have done had I said Iceland.
You finally dare you to do a country once you're in the country.
I'm not sure.
You didn't say Iceland.
You would have been on safer territory.
Because I don't think that football is a very important thing.
You've named a country in Chile which actually has a lot of human rights problems.
You know that.
I know that.
So come on, talk to me.
What country do you think should be making?
I'm perfectly happy with it being held in Qatar.
I actually think it's outrageous that the Middle East has never had a World Cup, given how massive football is in the Middle East.
So you think it's okay for FIFA to award the World Cup, which you and I both know means billions and billions of dollars of investment of trade links.
Well, Qatar has spent $200 million.
So that's on this case, knowing full well that LGBT fans will be less safe than heterosexual workers.
There's been no apparent persecution of any fans so long.
If there is, I'm with you.
At the moment, they've said that everyone will be tolerated.
And so far, it appears to be the case.
I've never known the conditions for migrant workers there because, you know, for many years during the year.
There are many countries in the world with bad conditions for migrant workers.
We know that.
You had the kafala system legally in place, not legally in place anymore, but the conditions haven't improved.
So you're telling me you're perfectly comfortable with all of that.
And instead of FIFA going, I'm perfectly comfortable with Qatar hosting the World Cup in the United States.
Because I think once you put the moral halo on about who can host a World Cup, as you've just discovered, you end up really struggling to find somewhere which passes the test.
But this is why I think it's a stupid question.
It's a very good question.
No, no, no.
Because actually, you've got to have the World Cup somewhere.
No, of course you think it's a good question because you like asking silly questions.
I'm a football fan.
I just watch.
Today I watch.
Saudi Arabia, one of the minnows of world football, 50 odd in the world in football, take down the favourites to win the competition led by Leonard Messi.
One of the greatest sporting upsets in history.
And just today, I just would love to celebrate that.
Look, I love football too.
It's not just because I get to see Ronaldo running around in Shorts.
How can you love football and support Total?
Listen to the Speaker.
The two things do not go hand in.
This is going to be an even worse debate than the ones that we've seen.
You know what?
I've got to end the debate now.
It's been a good debate.
It's an interesting debate.
And I'm not sure we've reached much clarity.
But thank you for coming.
Ask a better question than we might.
You support the wrong team.
That's the problem.
But I'll welcome my questions.
Coming next tonight, succession star Brian Thompson, why Scotland, he says, has never been more ready for independence.
Welcome back to Pearson Organized Centre.
The UK Supreme Court will rule tomorrow on whether Scotland could hold a new independence referendum without the UK government's consent.
Legendary actor Brian Cox is back in the hot seat here and has been one of the fiercest and most famous advocates for breaking up the union.
Brian, good evening.
How are you?
I'm good.
Before we get into it.
Ironically, I don't want to break up the union, but I've got another idea for the union.
Go on.
United Federation.
Explain.
Independent countries working in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and England, because I think England gets a lot of the tap end of the bath.
The Case for Scottish Independence00:14:50
I'm by nature an Anglophile.
I swear I studied here in London, so I'm very disposed to that.
What I just believe in is the independent states, but we come together as a united federation.
Is that not what the UK is?
No, it's not.
It's supposed to be.
But it's not, because too many decisions are made on behalf of this major decision that's been made in Wales about this Chinese thing, you know, whether it's supposed to be contentious.
There's a dangerous element, they say.
But the Welsh are getting no say in the matter, which I think is really wrong.
So I'm all for, I don't want to break up the union because it's, you know, we are the British Isles.
But I want my country, not just my country, I want Wales, Scotland, and England to be independent.
What's interesting, we had a lot of debate, obviously, about whether to leave the European Union.
And a recent survey this week in YouGov says now only 32% of Britons now think it was the right thing to do to leave.
56% think it was wrong.
That's a massive shift.
Absolutely.
But that was so corrupt.
I mean, so rotten, the whole thing.
And we, Scotland, voted 62% to stay.
Yes, I know.
But does that not give you pause for thought about leaving a collective entity, which brings with it at least strength in numbers, is the argument.
But the north of England, who have been systematically ignored time and time again, are getting, you know, they're well cheesed off about the fact that they don't have enough say in their life, you know.
And you think of the great things that Andy Burnham's doing in Manchester, for example.
And I'm all for England expressing themselves in the same way that Scotland does.
And that we come together in a proper federation where we contribute.
We don't do that now because the rules are all set down here.
And the problem, I think, if I was Scottish right now, given the utter fiasco of the way this government has behaved in the last six months alone, from Boris both agree upon equally rage.
It has been completely shameful that we've had these three prime ministers now, Boris Johnson, total shambles with all the nonsense he got up to.
Liz Truss, unbelievably for that short 44 days, even worse, tanking the economy, tanking the pound, tanking everything.
And now we're picking up the pieces.
And now Rishi Sunak has to try and repair all the damage.
But if I'm Scottish looking at all this, I'm thinking, look at these London politicians behaving like reckless casino owners with our money and we have no real say over what these people are doing.
That's my point.
You've just made my point.
Well, I agree.
But I see that's where I have sympathy.
No, that's the whole point.
But the problem is that systematically, again and again and again, we'll have those guys and those gals making those decisions.
You know, I don't know what's going to happen in the next election.
I suppose that probably Labour will get in.
But we need vision.
We need real vision.
And those creatures were just...
Who do you see out there that you think is actually an impressive politician who might have a vision?
Well, I believe in Nicola Sturgeon.
I do.
Yes, I do.
And they've had a lot of problems up there.
Don't get me wrong, they've had a lot of problems.
But I do trust Nicola.
I think she's the genuine article.
I mean, I've got to say, in her credit, she's always faced the music.
You know, I've done many interviews with her, often quite hostile.
She always comes back.
She doesn't duck interviews like Boris did for so many years.
She's divisive, but she certainly has what I would call leadership skills.
Exactly.
And she's a great leader.
And I think she will lead us.
But as I say, Piers, and I really mean this.
And people say, oh, you go on about independent Scotland.
I'm interested in the countries in this country, in this kingdom, so-called United Kingdom, being separate, being individual.
So completely autonomous, but they also are part of a federation.
Exactly.
That's exactly what I think.
But in the federation, I mean, who would have any power in that?
Would it be equal power?
No, it would be equal power, and there would be...
What would the federation decide that the independent autonomous countries couldn't decide for themselves?
Well, most of the stuff domestically they could decide for themselves.
But when it comes to the interchange with each country, then they would have to come to some kind of agreement.
It won't be easy, but it never is.
What do you do, for example, about currency?
Because it would take you years to go back into the EU, which is still, I think, what more Scots would prefer to do.
But it would take years to facilitate.
The Bank of England have said if you leave the UK, you can't have the pound.
So what do you do?
I mean, it's practical level.
What do you do?
Well, it's a thing that one has to encompass.
You know, you're going to have to deal with it one way or the other.
But then again, we didn't go Euro.
We kept the pound during this whole situation.
So we never made that.
We never made that transition.
I don't know what would happen in terms of...
But then if we had a united federation, we would come to some decision on that very subject.
That's what we're doing.
But what about the border?
We've had this nightmare from Brexit of Northern Ireland and what to do with it.
There's this belief that if Scotland really wants independence, you've got to sort of rebuild Hadrian's Wall.
Are you going to be standing there with your marauding armour, fending off the invading English?
No, that's...
And you're William Wallace.
You've got a bit of Wallace, I don't know.
Yeah, I know.
I actually played William Wallace on television 100 years ago.
Perfect, Carson.
But no, I think that...
But what do you do?
Again, practical level.
What do you do about a border if you are a genuine independent country?
Well, how do you deal with a border between Belgium and France?
How do you deal with a Belgium between France and Spain?
Would you have a physical border?
You would just have the border.
It would be there.
You know, it would be at Hadrian's Wall, which is a natural border.
Do you think, when you go up to Scotland, what's the mood about, would you say, because the Poles at the moment do not see a majority in any of the polls for wanting to have an independent Scotland, or indeed another referendum.
So why do you believe you're nearer to it now than you were?
Well, I just think because, and certainly in Scotland's, you know, I mean, it changes daily, you know, because there's always, and the Scots are notorious, they're contentious.
They can be very contentious as Scott.
I know, because I am one.
I was watching Peter Capaldi the other night, and he said, the great gift of my family was family and sarcasm.
And I think that's very true.
Sorry, what was your question again?
No, my question is, what is it about the mood in Scotland, do you think, which makes you think the polls are wrong?
People do want to have a genuine independent country.
Because we've seen what's happened recently, which has been pretty horrific with Johnson, you know, Truss, very briefly.
Did somebody else come in?
Well, it's now Richie Sunak, you know.
And that party has just gone from worse to worse to worse to worse to worse.
So we don't want any trouble with that.
We're like Blanche de Bois.
We're always depending on the kindness of strangers.
And in a way, we just need to be able to form.
And also it's to do with culturally who we are.
We're culturally different.
We're not the same.
And, you know, when I grew up in Scotland, it was North Britain.
And the great thing about Scotland, and the SNP party was regarded as a joke.
But they have moved towards...
You see, why I joined, why I became part of Scottish...
I don't like the word nationalist.
I've never liked the word nationalist, but I believe in Scottish independence.
Nationalist is too contentious a word for me.
But when Blair made the whole fiasco, which we're still suffering from in the Middle East, and he got into bed with Cheney and Rumsfeld and the puppet, as he was, really, Bush, and Halliburton and oil, I just thought it's so obvious that this is a corrupt thing that's happening, and we should not be part of that.
Now, in Scotland, we would say, no, we're not going to do that, but of course, we have no power.
We had no power to make any opinion.
And I was a labour man for a long time, and I'm still a socialist in principle.
But, you know, at the end of the day, that's why I think we have to come back to ourselves.
It was interesting.
I mean, you brought up Iraq.
I was editor of the Daily Mirror.
We opposed the Iraq war.
We lost the campaign, sadly.
But when you look at this Fiori and Qatar, what do you make of it?
Because my argument is that I'm not sure we are morally pure enough here to really be talking to the Qataris about how their laws are or anything else.
Well, I think to a certain extent you're right.
But I also think that I think what's happening, you know, let's look at Iran and let's look at what's happening in Iran where there's a sort of possible female revolution.
And it's being led by women.
See, I do think the patriarchy is over.
And I think we need to give these women the rights that they deserve.
And we haven't done it.
And I think that goes for most of the Middle Eastern nations.
But that's also to do with religion.
We don't go into that.
But certainly these women need to be freed up in a way that they're not being freed up.
How would Logan Roy react to the patriarchy being?
He would do something else.
But I also think, going back to the question of Qatar, that should have been dealt with a long time ago.
I mean, Seth Blatter has already admitted it was a corrupt thing.
So we know it was corrupt, but they should have dealt with it a long time ago.
Not now.
This is not the point.
But see, when I had that debate before, I spoke to you with Arsaka.
I mean, when you actually do try and work out where is morally pure enough to have a World Cup.
Iceland.
Right.
I mean, you're pretty much in Iceland every year, right?
Yeah.
And even there, if we dug deep enough with all the world's journalists, you'd probably find all sorts of problems there.
Well, my point being that it's tricky, right?
You can't just obviously have it in Iceland every year.
No, you could.
It's not every year, it's every four years.
But why should the Middle East have a World Cup?
No, I think they should have a World Cup, but there's a lot of stuff that's gone on.
I mean, the Saudis beat Argentina.
But then think of what the Saudis did to that journalist in Turkey.
Of course.
Exactly.
So they're, you know, that's...
But is that any more morally repugnant than us illegally invading Iraq?
Well, we haven't done that kind of thing.
We haven't actually...
Well, we illegally invaded a sovereign country.
A million people did.
That's what we did.
We did it.
I mean, I'm not sure there's a moral difference, to be honest.
Yeah, but just because there wasn't a moral difference doesn't mean to say you have to not abandon that issue and just saying perhaps there needs to be a bit of morality in dealing with things.
Let's take a short break.
I want to come back.
You're a Manchester United fan.
I am.
And you saw the Ronaldo interview?
I did.
Great interview.
Let me get your reaction to Ronaldo after the break.
Well, debate, Players Morgan Censor.
Brian Cox is still with me.
Brian, you're a Man United fan.
The biggest star arguably United's ever had.
Cristiano Ronaldo went public in this big interview with me.
Let's just have a reminder of some of the things you said.
Trying to force you out, I guess.
Not only the coach, but the other two or three guys there around the club.
At the senior executive level.
Yes, that I felt betrayed.
I don't know what's going on, but since Sarah Lex Ferguson left, I saw not evolution in the club.
The progress was zero.
The glazes, they don't care about the club.
The empathy with the coach is not good.
I'm honest.
You don't have a good relationship with him.
I'm not mean good relationship.
Do you think he respects you?
I think you don't respect the way I should deserve.
Well, you must have been worried sick.
I was very worried about that.
You've got your baby son and now your baby daughter's in hospital.
Exactly.
Kind of that didn't believe that something going wrong, which make me feel bad.
Really?
Yes, yes.
They didn't believe you.
They believe you, but in the same way, they are...
Dare is ever going to change the health of my family for a football?
Never.
Cristiano Ronaldo, that interview's now being viewed 15 million times on our YouTube channel.
45 million more views of the clips on social media, making it one of the biggest, most watched interviews in history, certainly for sport.
What did you make of it, bro?
I mean, Christian Ronaldo, United Legend, torching really the club.
What did you think?
Well, I think it's...
I can see where he's coming from.
But he also has to understand that it is not Alec Ferguson anymore.
It's not that united.
And I could see that there was probably a great sentimental movement to go back to the club where he really began, where it all began.
And Alex, well, you know, there's nobody like Alex Ferguson.
And Alex persuaded him.
And Alex persuaded him to come back.
Yeah.
Well, thinking, well, Alan's, well, naturally, because Alex loves the club, he's trying to keep the club.
But the club has gone through many, so many changes in the last few years.
Now, playing for Juventus and playing for Real Madrid, and their clubs have been in an incredible, they haven't stopped.
They're just the top of the league.
Manchester United has not been playing well over the last few years, but it's beginning to get its mojo back.
And I think it's unfortunate that this has happened.
Is he entitled to speak out?
Well, of course he's entitled to speak up.
But also one has to examine exactly where he's coming from.
And I think he's coming from a place where he's saying, you know, I wanted to go back to a beginning.
I wanted to go back to that glory days when I was a young boy.
And I understand.
He said his heart ruled his head to a degree.
His heart ruled his head to a degree.
And in a sense, that's going to be difficult.
And a manager who's trying to create a new club and there's going to be a clash.
And I think it's quite tragic, actually.
And it's tragic for him, but it's also tragic for the club.
And I think the club has to be given a break on this.
I mean, I do think it's hard.
It's clearly hard because his expectation must have been huge.
And especially if Alex persuaded him to go back, that must have been a huge thing.
But he's been disappointed.
And you can't take away his disappointment because it is not the same club that he was at all those years ago.
Have you ever had a situation in your career when you've been tempted to walk out?
Have you walked out of a show, a play, a TV show, anything like that?
No, no, I just, I'm clever enough to avoid going into those situations.
Dignity in Food Banks00:04:52
Have you seen people do it?
Yeah, I've seen people walk away, you know, and, you know, and I've understood why they do it.
And it's usually complex reasons.
I mean, I did it, actually.
But I did it because actually, when I listened to Ronaldo, I sort of thought, yeah, it actually comes down to respect.
I think it doesn't matter what the job is if you actually feel disrespected in your workplace.
That's right.
And you feel you're being forced down an alleyway you don't want to go down.
I actually think there's a certain merit in just saying, actually, it's not for me.
Thanks.
Yeah, and I think that's maybe, I mean, I'm glad the interview's had the coverage that it's had in terms of, I mean, amazing.
15 million is quite incredible.
But at the same time, I'm going, it's rather sad that that's the view you're going to get because, you know, I think, and certainly with his kids and with his family and, you know, going back to Manchester is a difficult thing.
I think losing the baby in the tragedy with the twins and one died and one lived, that's got to really mean.
I think he wanted a bit more of an arm wrap.
Yeah, and he didn't get it.
And that's...
It may just really be as simple as that.
Talking of arm wraps, extraordinary series you've got on Channel 5, How the Other Half Live, both rich, but particularly pertinently, I thought, the poor.
And you went down for this series.
You went to food banks.
I want to show a little clip first and ask you about this.
I come here every Friday so that I can feed my son over the weekend.
We're working part-time and we still can't afford anything.
My electricity has gone up from £44 a month to £170 a month.
That's astronomical.
It really is hard going.
It really is.
We prioritise our children and go without.
I think that's what all adults and parents are doing to say, really, isn't it?
It's shocking how Dundee's gone pretty much full circle.
Getting back to the poverty I saw as a kid.
It's extremely painful, this stuff.
You know, it's painful for anybody if you've got any sensibility at all.
This stuff is f ⁇ ing painful.
So they weren't, you just corrected me there.
They weren't food banks.
They called community ladders.
Explain the distinction.
Well, the difference is what people feel about food banks is loss of dignity.
And the one thing that human beings have, even when they don't have any money, is some kind of dignity, some kind of feeling of well-being of who they are.
And what the community ladder does is it charges the minimal, but it means you're paying for something.
So there's a transaction.
You're not being given it.
You're not being given it.
It's not begging.
Because a lot of being in food banks feels like begging.
And the fact that they're being constantly legitimized is really irksome to me.
But this community ladder, run by these two amazing women who actually ran a playgroup, and it was out of a playgroup.
They decided to go on to this.
And people like Little Morrisons, they give stuff which is coming up to its sell-by date that then they can tap on.
And the thing that you don't see in the program, which is one of my angers with my editors in that, anyway, that's neither here nor there.
But the thing you don't see is a guy who came in at the community ladder.
He was called Peter Lee.
He came in and he was a frail man with a stick and he had a sign on his arm.
And I said, so you do this for your family?
And he said, no, no, I do it for people who can't get here.
It was 15 people here, wasn't it?
Yes, that's right.
He said, I do it for them.
And I said, really?
He said, yeah.
I said, that's amazing.
He said, I do sort of five a week.
I do different groups, you know, people who can't, older people who can't get down from the high-rises.
I said, that's extraordinary.
And I said, so what's this sign?
He said, I'm blind.
And I just almost fell off my chair.
I just thought.
You got quite tearful, actually.
I did.
I did, because I just thought the heroism of this guy, and this guy's a real hero.
And I just thought, wow, you know, this man has really given something of his life to this horrible situation and trying to make it better for us.
So many people in this country, in the whole of the UK, are now literally on the poverty list.
Yeah, and it's probably going to get worse before we get to the 11% inflation, this energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, all these things conspiring the fallout from the pandemic.
You saw at the sharp end.
I mean, you went back to your hometown and you were horrified by what you found.
What do we do about this?
It's a big question.
It's a big issue.
I think, well, I think independence would help.
Do you?
In Scotland's case.
Certainly in Scotland's case, but I also think elsewhere it would help.
I mean, it would only help if the economy was revised.
That's right.
And many economists think that Scottish independence would be bad for the Scottish independence.
Well, I would argue with that, but I haven't got the time to do that here.
Can Independence Save the Economy00:02:43
But no, I mean, I just, I feel that we're going from bad to worse.
But we've...
Again and again and again, we have neglected our own.
And it's suddenly at a bad time now when everything is against us, the cost of living crisis, what have you, the war, the pandemic, what the pandemic has done.
But even so, their lives haven't changed.
The budget didn't help them, those people, and it never does.
It never does.
It never looks to the poorest.
We don't concern ourselves with that.
They're an embarrassment.
Let's put them over there.
But now, and why I wanted to do this program was to bring it to the fore and say, these people matter, and we have to do something about it.
We have to have some attitude that we haven't got, that we've kind of elbowed so long for too long, actually.
And that's what I feel.
It's powerful stuff, and I commend people to watch it, How the Other Half Live on Channel 5.
Can't let you go without asking you about succession, one of my favourite shows ever in the history of television.
You've got a new series coming coming in the new year.
Can you tell me anything, or do you have to shoot me?
Piers, I don't have a gun.
But if I did, you'd have to be shot.
Is Logan Roy in series six?
Well, there isn't series six, we're only series four.
I know, that's the trick question.
Oh, I don't know.
I mean, you know, let's see what happens.
I mean, Jesse.
In other words, does he survive this series?
Well, it's four you're doing now, so it's maybe.
Yeah, yeah, he'll survive this series.
Yeah, no, there'll be no problem with that.
As though death, we have to.
No, no, no, none of that.
That's all speculation and nonsense.
No, I mean, there's a lot to be dealt with in terms of who's going to take over, and there's a lot to be dealt with in terms of the writers and where they can go with it.
See, the great thing about Jesse Armstrong is he doesn't stay too long at the fair.
Right.
Because each season has topped the last season.
So we have to keep talking about.
It reminds me of Aaron Saulkin on the West Wing, where the first four seasons were fantastic.
Then he left, and the writing collapsed and the whole thing.
And that's what we don't want to happen.
Yeah.
Would you rather end on a high?
I would rather end on a high.
Leave them wanting more, not less.
Yes, and well, you know, there's an I mean, no names, no Pacto, but there's a show called Billions, you know, and Damien Lewis left, and they're still going on with it.
Yeah, I know.
But it's over egging the souffle, that's what I would call it.
A wee bit.
How many times a day do you get told to tell people to F off?
All the time.
Like a dozen times a day.
I was at the Scottish Bathers last night, and I couldn't get away from you.
And of course, as I said before, it's the best thing to tell people.
Royal Family Truths00:09:37
Yes.
Because when you're fed up with them, you go, oh, you know.
You can say it, we'll bleep you.
Oh, don't bother me anymore.
Just that f off.
And finally, as a Scot, who do you most want to win the World Cup, England or Wales?
Or somebody else?
I have to reserve judgment on that.
Oh, come on, Tom.
Let's get off the fence.
No, no, I'm not.
I can't do that.
Do you want England to beat, say, I think I'd like to see England do well because I think he's done a great job.
Yeah, I think he's really done a great job.
And there's some great players.
We've got a few good arsenal players in there.
Saka, what a player.
Tremendous.
I was worried about him because he got a couple of games ago.
They took his legs from him.
And I thought, he's made a tough, tough arsehole.
Brian, brilliant to see you.
Well, coming next, we'll debate this theory that Harry and Megan are not a pair of shameless little grifters who ditched Britain and Royal Duty, but are in fact heroes.
Worthy of an award from the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation.
Debate that with a pack.
Welcome back to Piers Borganised Census.
It's official.
Harry and Megan are heroes.
We've got it all wrong.
They've been given a Human Rights Award for their heroic stand against structural racism in the British monarchy.
The award is called The Ripple of Hope, awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Organisation.
That's the same Bobby Kennedy, who was a genuine hero.
Well, I'm joined now by talk TV contributor, Paula Rone-Adrian, talk TV presenter Richard Tice, political commentator, Jenny Kleeman.
All right, Jenny.
Heroes, apparently.
For trashing their families on national television repeatedly, and they're about to do it again in the documentary series.
about to do it again in Harry's book, for trashing their families with unsubstantiated smears about being cruel and racist and so on.
They're heroes.
And they're literally being put on the same pedestal at this Robert F. Kennedy Foundation awards night in December with Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, saving his people almost single-handedly in terms of his morale boosting from the hordes from Russia.
Sorry, have I gone nuts?
Is this happening?
I think this is a pretty strange award.
I looked it up on my way here.
It's even broken you.
The MC is Alec Baldwin.
Who's facing potential criminal charges after he shot somebody?
Exactly.
So I'd say this is a pretty strange event.
It's a pretty strange award.
It's got a fancy name on it.
I think what this shows is two things.
One, how awards don't really mean very much because they can be quite strange and you never know who's on the panel judging you.
The other thing is I think, you know, they're seen differently in America to how they're seen here.
I know I've been in America.
There's a lot more sympathy for Megan than there is.
Actually, it's a lot less than there used to be even there.
Not less than there used to be.
I think the liberal elite like to buy them with these awards because they get huge attention.
I mean, Richard, isn't this really the worst aspect of celebrity?
Which is they've made themselves famous with all the trashing they've been doing.
And as a result, the liberal elite in America want to be associated with them because they'll get huge publicity for their events.
But it's worse than that, because actually we now know, and you identified it early doors, that the accusations that she levelled against the royal family were false.
Yes.
And so they'd be given an award for something that is basically false.
And therefore, in my view, the award itself is fraudulent.
I completely agree.
And the worst thing, Paula, about this, Robert Kennedy was a genuine hero.
I mean, he fought so hard for civil rights against poverty, against the Vietnam War.
He worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King until they both got assassinated.
This is real heroism that he was up to.
For this foundation, this is one of his daughters who runs it, Kerry Kennedy, I think is completely shameless and shameful.
Can I start by saying that, yes, you're right, you have lost your mind.
This is about an institution, a very renowned institution, that has decided to give an award to two people who they think are deserving.
They have their own policies and procedures and practices in place, which they have considered and tested and decided that Harry and Megan deserve this award.
Now, they deserve this award.
Manure.
The whole thing.
Who says they don't deserve the award?
You say they don't deserve the award.
Potential structural racism in the royal family.
Exists.
Really?
That exists.
And where we say that it's not been proven yet, of course, we know how difficult it is to deal with the issue of racism.
We know how much harder it is to deal with the fact that we're talking about an institution.
She said that their son had not been made a prince because of his skin colour.
Completely untrue.
Absolute lie.
She also said that several times a member of the royal family expressed concern about the skin colour of their child.
And then Harry said it happened once two years previously.
They couldn't even get the story right.
And they've never named who that person is.
I've even been told by one person it wasn't even a member of the royal family.
The whole family gets smeared as a bunch of callous racists.
I don't think that's actually right.
I think what's happened is that they have raised the issue of racism and they have made the British public, they've made the institution that is the royal family confront the issue of racism.
No, they haven't.
They fraudulently accused the royal family of being a bunch of callous racists.
And there's no issue of fraud coming into this.
Where is the evidence of racism?
Where are they going to be able to do the fraud coming to this?
They are saying that they're being racist.
And they are saying to you, we have suffered this.
What's their truth?
There's either the truth.
There's no such thing as their truth.
That's another ridiculous phrase.
My truth.
What's my truth?
Your truth is your lived experience.
No, it's not.
No, it's not lived experience.
That you are getting so angry about this is how we feel.
We, as I'm talking about, members of the community who've suffered racism.
It's so hard to express that lived experience.
It's so hard to express that truth.
We haven't had any lived experience.
What we're told is, is that we're being fraudulent in when we're expressing that.
So why aren't you as angry as I am about these two people who've issued untrue statements about racism that have not been proven and have now got some people in America thinking the Royal Family is a bunch of racists?
You can't have an untruth statement that's not been proven.
It's their truth.
And I appreciate it.
And I appreciate there's been no tribunal affected by the people.
Is that me saying, all right, it's like me saying me saying, I think you are a deeply unpleasant piece of work, right?
I think you're a well-known cocaine abuser.
You're not, as far as I'm aware, right?
But it's my truth.
I believe that.
Yes.
So because I believe it, that's it.
You must now, unfortunately, be saddled with the reputation of being a drug abuser.
No.
What do you say to me?
I would challenge that.
It's my truth.
I would challenge it.
I don't care if it challenges me.
It's my truth.
I would challenge it.
It's my truth.
My lived experience is, I think you are.
I would challenge that.
My lived experience is that.
What Harry and Megan have done at every opportunity that they've got, they challenged it and they challenged it through the courts and they were successful.
Challenge what?
So in terms of newspapers and stories, they've not challenged anything about the racism.
So when they've had an opportunity, as I've said, to challenge accusations that have been levered at them in the press, they've taken that.
They've challenged it.
So where is your challenge, Piers?
My challenge is I think they're telling a pack of lies.
It's to shout abuse and to call them frauds.
No, no, no, it's not.
I think they are frauds.
Let's say we agree to disagree.
It's not proven.
Let's say that actually it might have happened, it might not.
The last thing you do for some award ceremony for such an esteemed foundation as this is to make your decision when it hasn't been proven.
They should have waited and waited.
And in the horrific instance that it was proven, that's a whole different ball.
Let's see the evidence.
Let's move on to Shimima Begum.
So I've got quite a strong view about this.
I think she knew exactly what she was doing.
She went out, she had three kids with an ISIS terrorist who was chopping people's heads off.
No sympathy.
You made your bed with a terrorist.
You're lying it.
That's it.
I just completely disagree with you.
I think this is open and shut case of trafficking.
She's 15 years old.
We accept that the girls in Rotherham and Rochdale, when they were 15 years old, didn't know what was going on, didn't know what was happening to them.
You cannot make decisions when you're 15 years old where you understand the enormous lifelong consequences.
When I was 15 years old, I was very smart.
I was doing very well at school.
I'm sure that if somebody said to me, you know, I could run away with a rock band, I probably would have done that as a treatment.
I think there's two issues here.
It seems to me this is a very clever lawyer who's looking at what's the single way of getting a beggar back into the country.
But here's the thing.
Actually, we have to set an example and we have to say to people, this is a national security threat.
And if you go overseas to join terrorist groups, you are not going to be welcome or able to.
I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw.
Why should I trust her?
You have to set an example.
She was a 15-year-old child.
She wasn't by the end.
She was nearly 20.
Back to what Jenny has said.
They weren't actually believed at first.
It took years.
But we've got to that point.
Why should we suddenly suspend the growth that we've done?
She knew what she was doing.
Here's the difference.
She knew exactly what her husband was doing.
He was a terrorist killing people.
She had been groomed, Piers.
She had been groomed.
And so her reality is very different from the reality of the world.