All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
Dec. 13, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:16
20221213_piers-morgan-uncensored-catherine-ommanney
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
Rail Strikes Cancel Christmas 00:14:56
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Lynch the Grinch strikes again and takes 40,000 of his union members with him.
Rail strikes cause chaos across Britain and there's more to come.
I was talking to a militant union boss about the strikes that are cancelling Christmas.
The truth or their truth.
The California Muzlingers have taken a name of their families, the palace and the press and their Netflix win-a-thon.
Everyone of course talk themselves.
Tonight the reality star who had a fling with Prince Harry reveals to me how she's now been airbrushed from his history.
One of the most beautiful classical pieces of music ever written should we now be boycotting it and Tchaikovsky because it was written by a Russian composer.
I'll speak to the Ukrainian culture minister asking us all to do just that.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Britain isn't feeling very festive this Christmas.
It's more a case of no, no, no than ho ho ho.
Feels like we're living in a country in constant decline.
War in Europe has brought tragedy to our doorsteps and rocketing bills to our doormats.
Families are being paid to turn off their power just to prevent blackouts.
Millions of people can barely afford to keep it switched on in the first place.
Eye-watering inflation is taking more money out of people's pockets with every passing month.
Supermarket prices are soaring, just as we're sucked into what could be an historic recession.
Now austerity is looming, compounded by a mismanaged Brexit that's bringing disasters rather than dividends.
And far from providing answers and leadership, our politics is paralysed by perpetual chaos.
Five education secretaries, four chancellors, three prime ministers in a year.
Conservative Party's been in power for 12 years and even to many of its own supporters.
It now looks punch drunk, out of ideas and on the ropes.
And as a result, trade unions can smell blood like vultures around a rotten carcass.
And with a wave of winter strikes worse than anything we've seen in many decades, they're trying to land a knockout blow.
Mick the Grinch Lynch of the RMT is the flag bearer for Britain Strike Chaos.
40,000 of his rail workers are walking out this week.
He refused to be interviewed by me today, as he has done for many weeks.
Following a series of cantankerous car crash interviews he conducted this morning, we found out why he's got so camera shy.
You are robbing them of their income for the coming year.
Many of them are saying they're going to go bust.
Well we're not targeting Christmas.
It isn't Christmas yet, Richard.
I don't know when your Christmas starts, but mine starts on Christmas Eve.
We understand the anger that's caused by the disruption of the stoppages, of course.
But we are getting a lot of support from the public.
We continue to get messages.
People continue to visit our picket lines.
And what businesses ought to be asking the government is why are they subsidising this strike?
You're just parroting the most right-wing stuff that you can get hold of on behalf of the establishment.
And it's about time you showed some partiality towards your listeners and to working class people in this country.
Because a lot of working class people have been directly impacted by these strikes.
Mick Lynch hasn't got any answers.
It's not right-wing.
It's not an establishment cover-up.
Public support for these strikes is evaporating because people are angry.
And they're angry because it feels like Britain is falling apart.
We're all being held to ransom now by these union bosses.
Nothing seems to work anymore.
Bus drivers, postal workers, nurses, highway controllers are all set to strike this week.
The army is preparing to cover border security at airports.
Taxi drivers could be used to cover ambulance strikes over Christmas.
Britain has become a paralysed laughing stock and we all deserve better.
We've had enough, haven't we, of all this chaos, of this decline?
We've certainly had enough, I think, of the people who have been putting us in this position.
And it's time, as a country, we've started fighting back.
In a moment, I'll speak to the former Assistant General Secretary of the RMT, Steve Hedley, because it's the current one, won't come on.
The first, the boss of the public and commercial service union, Mark Sir Watka, which represents border force workers who are striking.
Mr. Sawatka, just before I came on air tonight, interesting development in the nurses strike, where the UK's chief nurse has actually challenged now the position of the RCN, the Ming Nurses Union, warning that patients' lives are being put at risk by these strikes, which are being planned by nurses.
That is the first, I would say, dramatic example of a workforce now realising the dangers of these strikes.
What do you say to that?
Well, I'm not here to talk about the health service, peers, other than to say I fully support the right of all nurses to take industrial action, as I do all workers, because the blame for all of this should be squarely laid at the government's door.
They've caused the cost of living crisis.
They've doubled our mortgages.
They've sat back and done nothing.
And what we're doing in trade unions now, when members of our unions are voting, in my case, with an 86% majority to strike, is saying we're going on strike because it cannot be right that the government is cutting everybody's pay in real terms and we deserve a decent pay rise.
Okay, you say you don't want to talk about nurses, but what the chief nurse of this country is saying is if this industrial action happens with the nurses, and I accept it's not your direct responsibility, but if it happens, if they go on strike, she is worried that patients' lives will be put at risk.
In other words, people may die.
Are you comfortable with that?
That industrial action could lead to people in this country dying?
Well, I put the blame squarely in the government's court because the nurses' leaders have made it clear they would not proceed with industrial action if the government agreed to talk about their pay.
That's an entirely reasonable position.
And the people who are worried should be contacting Richie Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, and Steve Barclay.
They have the power to stop all of these strikes by being prepared to negotiate on pay.
They should do that in the health service.
They should do that for the people I represent in the civil service, 40,000 of whom, by the way, peers, are using food banks, 45,000 of whom who work for the government claim in-work benefits because they are the working poor.
If the government says we won't talk about pay, industrial action is the only last resort that we now have left.
And that is why members are voting in huge numbers to go on strike.
They'd rather not go on strike.
But frankly, if the government are not prepared to negotiate...
Do you believe as a starting point of principle for any negotiation that everyone who's currently going on strike or about to go on strike should get a pay rise at least equivalent to inflation, if not more?
Nurses want 19%, for example.
Should they all get at least the equivalent of inflation?
My opinion is every working person, every woman and man has the right when they go to work to ensure their living standards don't drop.
If your pay rise is less than the rate of inflation, you are having a pay cut in real terms.
And for the people I'm representing, we've had that for 10 consecutive years.
Now with this cost of living crisis, the 2% we're being given when inflation at 11% is not only the lowest payoffer anywhere in the economy, it is frankly absurd.
And the government know that and that's why the industrial action is taking place.
You see, I think it's perfectly possible to have a lot of sympathy for everyone who's going on strike because cost of living crisis is very real and is really impacting people.
It's also possible to see there is clearly a joined up concerted effort now by union leaders to get together to bring this government down.
And it's also clear that if actually you all genuinely believe that all these strikers should get, all your members from everyone should all get at least in line with inflation as pay rises, this country will go bankrupt.
Now, I can, and I would add a fourth point.
It's also possible to believe we're in this miserable position because the government's been hopeless.
All those things can be true.
But your responsibility is surely to get a fair and balanced pay rise for your members without actually imperiling the very economic stability of the country.
Why would you want to behave as badly as you claim the government's been behaving?
Well, I certainly agree that the government's hopeless and the sooner they go, the better.
My job is not to bring down the government, but it is to get the government to recognize that when 40,000 of its own workforce, the people who work in job centers, for example, have to claim the benefits they administer, something is wrong.
And when you've had 10 years of pay rises less than inflation and you get to a cost of living crisis, if the government is saying that's tough, then we have to do something about it.
Now, we want a 10% pay rise.
That's our claim.
But what we've said to the government is if they are prepared to say now they have money, they will put money on the table.
We've made it clear we will get into negotiations with them about how much that is and how it's distributed.
Their answer is not a penny will be put on the table.
Therefore, all we can do is either sit back and accept that our members will have the worst Christmas in living memory, many of them not only claiming benefits and using food banks, but struggling to feed themselves.
Okay, let me ask you, look, you keep referencing people who haven't to use food banks.
I've heard this a lot in this debate.
If you don't mind me asking you, actually, I don't care if you mind or not, how much do you earn?
Well, I earn considerably less than you, peers.
How much do I earn?
Well, what I earn is a matter of public record.
My salary is £97,000 set democratically by my union.
And what are the perks on top of that?
There are no perks on top of that.
So your total remuneration is £97,000.
I receive £97,000.
That is a public record.
My pay rise every year is linked to the rise that our members get.
And the question isn't here.
Do you want like a £10,000 pay rise for yourself?
No, I have accepted when our members received 0%, I received 0%.
Yeah, but right now you say you want a pay rise in line with inflation for your members.
That would be at the moment around 10%.
So you would get about 10 grand.
Do you accept that?
No, I don't accept that.
No.
Because if we were to achieve a 10% pay rise in my own union for three consecutive years, the most senior staff in the union took no pay rise whatsoever and donated their money back to the union strike fund.
So would you do that in this eventuality?
Would you refuse to accept the pay rise?
I'm more than happy to say if our members got a 10% pay rise, I would happily forego that and put it in the strike fund.
Because our members who pay benefits, who keep the borders open, who keep the courts running and the prisons running, are poor peers.
Their average wage is £23,000 a year.
The government has given them 2%.
I don't think you believe 2% is realistic.
It's less than anyone else is being offered.
It's less than the 6.2% average earnings in Britain.
It's less than any other part of the public sector has been offered after 10 years of pay cuts.
So what we're doing now by going on strike is saying to the government, they either put money on the table or they should take the blame for the disruption that is coming.
And more than that, and I'm quite happy to say it on your show, yes, of course, we are talking to union leaders in every other union.
And there's about 30 whose members are also doing the same thing.
Because if the government is the cause of everyone's problems, then it's only right that we work together to try to get the government to see sense.
And I believe civil servants deserve a pay rise, but so do rail workers, train drivers, lecturers, postal workers.
Every working man and woman deserves to go to work to be better off each year, not get rid of the government.
Yeah, listen, I can agree with the sentiment, except we are in the middle of an unbelievable financial crisis, where if we give everybody the same rate of inflation as a pay rise, the country goes bust, which is completely irresponsible.
So there has to be a meeting ground which does not involve everyone getting inflation, because if they do, we can't afford it.
So that's where we are.
And it can be down to incompetent government.
It can be down to everything.
But I just don't think the union leaders holding up for that as their yardstick are doing the country any favours either.
But I've got to leave it there.
Thank you.
Every union leader has made it clear they'll get into talks if more money is on the table and the government can afford it.
They've got a lot of people.
I've heard you loud and clear.
I appreciate you joining me.
Thank you very much indeed.
Joining me now is the former Assistant General Secretary of the RMT, Steve Hedley.
We wanted to have the current one, Mick the Grinch, but he was not available.
The union decided to get into a Twitter Barney with me for most of the day, which seemed a pretty useless way to spend their time in the middle of this crisis.
But anyway, Mr. Hedley is with us.
Thank you for joining me.
Currently, the RMT is paralysing the country.
Why?
Well, quite simply, because the pay offer has been made over two years, it's 5% this year and 4% next year is in real terms a 12% pay cut because inflation is 12% this year.
And at the very best, it's forecast to fall to 8% next year.
It could be higher than 8%.
Now, a deal has been done in Scotland, Piers.
I don't know if you know about this, but a deal's been done in Scotland where people got 5% plus a £750 bonus, and that was a one-year deal.
And there's going to be no job cuts and there's going to be no extra shifts, work extra nights or extra weekends.
So that's why the RMT are basically out there having this battle, which I fully support.
They're out there defending jobs, defending safety on the railway, and demanding that people catch up with the inflation that's been driven by excessive profits, being driven by oil prices, being driven by food prices.
It's not being driven by wages.
And people need a pay raise.
Do you think the negotiations between union leaders and the government should be done in a civil way?
Well, I would hope so, but I mean, that takes to detangle, doesn't it?
I mean, I think that when you've got ministers making it clear that they've not got anything to offer, but they're still, you know, saying that they want talks, well, what is the point in having talks if you've got nothing to offer?
Surely the point of having talks is to reach a compromise.
Now, I think that there's been eight weeks now when the RMT hasn't been on strike.
That time could have been used productively by the government to get around the table.
Wishing Boris Johnson to Die 00:03:28
I mean, I think a deal in Scotland is a terrible thing, by the way.
That's my personal opinion, but our members accept it, and I accept that.
So if it's good enough for people up in Scotland, why is it not good enough for people down here?
And I would kind of reiterate Mark's point about the nurses.
These are people that haven't been on strike in 106 years.
And the government are even refusing to talk to them at all about pay.
Now, all this happens in Scotland is the Scottish Government, and I'm no fan of the SNP, but the Scottish Government said, we'll talk to you about pay.
And they called the strike off.
Let me ask you at the end of the day.
The reason I asked you about civility, you know, you want to get in the room with people.
I accept you're not the leader anymore.
But you were suspended by the RMT because you said, and I remember you doing this, and I remember feeling incensed when you did it, that you would throw a party if Boris Johnson died of coronavirus.
Why if you're in the government would you want to get in the room?
Well, you did say that.
Why would you want to get in the room with people?
I wasn't involved in any phone hack and Pierce and I wasn't a serial adulterer, Pierce.
And so if you're going to play the moral guardian, I think you would be playing.
I'm not playing the Moral Guardian, Mr. Edley.
I'm asking you to...
I'm asking a log out of your own eye talent.
I'm asking out of your own.
I'm simply asking you to be able to do it.
I'm simply asking you a question.
I know this is your technical.
You come on here.
I'm asking you a question.
You come on here making childish jokes about Mick the Grinch.
Yeah.
And you talk about the power of the public.
I'm asking you whether you think it's right and properly.
Absolute disgrace to get people into the world.
You're like a 16-year-old.
Who said you wanted Boris Johnson to die of coronavirus?
Well, I'm not in the room.
I'm gone.
I'm not there.
Mick Glench hasn't said that.
But you were suspended, and that shows an attitude of mind.
It shows an attitude of mind.
Well, back to your serial adultery, Pierce, which has been well documented.
Back to the allegations of phone tapping.
Who are you to play the moral guardian?
I'm not the one leading this country into a crisis this winter.
You are.
You and your team.
Well, neither am I.
And the clue, the clue is the X. I've seen you do this with people before.
The X. You know, you like to play What A Boutery.
I'm simply asking you, what does it say about the state of mind of people running these unions if you were suspended by the RMT for literally wishing Boris Johnson to die of coronavirus?
I'm simply asking you whether you think that is the right way for union bosses to behave.
But there we go.
Well, I don't think it's right that highly paid reporters such as yourself, serial.
All right, you're not going to answer the question.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hedley.
I appreciate you joining me.
Try answering a few questions next time yourself.
Coming next as the palace braces itself, the next installment of Harry and Meghan's Netflix series, I'll talk to the reality star who had a fling with Prince Harry and said she didn't recognise the party prince she once knew.
What the magic piers Morgana says, let's talk tonight.
Should we be boycotting Tchaikovsky just because it's Russian?
I'll talk to the Ukrainian culture minister who says the West should boycott all Russian culture until the end of the war.
But first, the Duke and Duchess of Montecito said they've never had an opportunity to tell their story until their $88 million Netflix series.
Boycott Russian Culture 00:15:13
And if that isn't enough, there's also Prince Harry's autobiography, Spare or Spare Me, as we've renamed it, to look forward to next month.
Well, far from not having the opportunity to tell their story, I don't think anyone else in history has had more opportunities than these have done, each time for vast amounts of cash.
But how accurate is their truth?
Well, a relative star from the Real Housewives of DC, Kat Hominay, who claims she, well, actually did have a fling with Prince Harry, doesn't claim anything.
It was true.
Says she's been whitewashed from history and doesn't recognise the party prince she once knew.
Kat joins me now along with Royal Correspondent of Vanity Fair Katie Nicol and Fox News contributor Araldo Rivera.
Welcome to you to this stellar panel, I must say.
Hey, Pierre.
And thank you, Heraldo, for joining us from across the pond.
I'll come to you in a moment.
Kat, I want to talk to you because this book that's coming out spare is supposed to be Harry's story.
But I suspect we're going to get a very sanitized version of anything which is awkward for him.
And it'll just be more of what we've been seeing now for the last year and a half, which is just constant attacks on his family and the media.
Or a total snooze fest.
Right.
I mean, you know, the title, I love the title and thing.
It's a great title.
But, you know, how much he's influenced by how he wrote it and what's in it, who knows?
You were 34 when you met a young 21-year-old Harry.
Yeah.
So a bit of a Madonna situation going on there.
Really?
Well she likes the toy boys, doesn't she?
Well yeah, yeah.
I was criticised because I didn't really care about age.
You had a little fling with him.
It was well documented and we've got pictures of you there.
What was he like then as a young guy?
Just really, really, really funny, total gentleman, totally down to earth, normal.
Did he carry any of this enormous baggage which he now appears to have all the time?
Because he seems just completely miserable.
He did at the time.
No, no, now he just seems completely miserable all the time.
This freedom he sought doesn't seem to make him remotely happy.
I mean, what I saw of him at the time, he was desperately searching for freedom and privacy.
And yet what he's done is completely turned the whole situation full circle.
Now he's got no privacy and no freedom.
Well they invade their own privacy every 10 minutes.
That's the sort of irony of this position.
I mean Katie, we've talked a lot about this.
And the reason we keep talking about it is because on Thursday there'll be another dump of three more episodes from this Netflix snooze fest, which a lot of it is very boring.
You stay awake for it.
Well yeah it is boring actually.
It's very self-indulgent, very narcissistic.
But in the middle of all this there will be more barbs we know at the royal family and at the media.
And they'll play the oppressed victims.
Well it's really interesting hearing Kat say that actually because I think when you look at those pictures of Harry partying and I started my career as a royal correspondent because I ended up at a party with Prince Harry and drinking a bottle of vodka and having a great time and he seemed like a very fun guy.
But it's interesting hearing you say that he seemed like someone that sort of wanted to hide away from the media, who wanted to have his private life and I think that is the massive contradiction in all of this.
But as I unpick his complaints and this resentment and it's bitterness at the heart of this is bitterness about the institution, bitterness about how he's portrayed in the media.
And I think now that he's actually named William in this latest trailer and I think clearly William and Kate and the Sussex's relationship with William Kate is going to come under scrutiny.
I think there's a lot of sibling rivalry at the heart of all of this.
I think Harry and the fact that his book is called Spare has resented being the spare for a long time and I think we're going to hear much more on that particular Araldo across the pond it seems to me a lot of Americans are as fed up with them as we are.
I think you're still hanging in there as being not necessarily a fulsome supporter but a more tolerant observer of all this.
What do you make of it all?
Well first of all I want to say I thought of you Piers when Harry Kane missed that shot.
I really felt very bad for you and for England.
Thank you.
You know in terms of the Netflix documentary and Harriet and Megan and their participation and their ongoing soap opera, I really do feel for them and I think that the vitriol being heaped on them, the scorn is so snobby and snotty.
It's having absolutely the opposite effect.
I believe that they are generating some sympathy now, not because of what they're doing on the Netflix show, as much as reaction to the British tabloids and this incessant, constant criticism.
There is no doubt in my mind that they are telling the basic truth.
Maybe there's a shot here that should not have been used, a stock footage of photographers and so forth.
But I think the general truth emerges.
They seem sincere.
They seem beleaguered.
They seem to be aware of the people.
Araldo, I cannot believe what I'm hearing.
I've got to be honest with you.
You are one of the people I most respect in American television news.
You're a hard-bitten journalist.
You're a war correspondent.
And you've fallen for this guff with these two.
Hook, Line, and Sinker.
Because they're the least sincere people I've ever met in my life.
She in particular.
She's an actress.
She's playing a role.
She's a good actress.
Brother, I told you, Piers, I told you how I followed Prince Harry into Helmut Province in Afghanistan and how the American Marines there and the British personnel that were still there after he had left all considered his service there to be honorable, even heroic.
So I come as a war correspondent, I come with that bias.
Here's a guy who served his country honorably, put his own life on the line.
He married a woman who, for the first time in British royal history, was of mixed race.
So the issue of racism and here, Harry's girl straight out of Compton and all that kind of baloney, they have been assailed.
You know, I feel for them because they have been targeted in a way that I feel is very, very unfair.
Yeah, you see, I would argue, okay, but I would argue they haven't been targeted in the way that I think a lot of Americans have been led to believe they were targeted.
There was no racism towards them in the mainstream media in this country.
There wasn't.
The papers here were euphoric about this.
The Daily Mail just did 20 pages on the Netflix documentary.
20 pages.
But that's because obsessive.
This is obsessive.
Yeah, but Haralda, that's because these two sought freedom and privacy in America, and all they've done since they got there is cash in on their royal titles afforded to them by an institution they despise and they're trying to ruin.
And they're making hundreds of millions of dollars.
They certainly constantly charge my family.
You talk about Iraq, Haralda, and Afghanistan.
My brother served in Iraq and Afghanistan, right?
And in fact, my brother-in-law taught William and Harry at Santos Military Academy.
So I absolutely respect his military service.
But if my brother, notwithstanding his heroic war record in Iraq and Afghanistan, went on national television every 10 minutes dumping all over my family, that would be a very short conversation next time I saw him.
You just don't do that kind of thing to families.
Well, you know, where is the kindness?
Where is the kindness?
When you're in the humanity when here you have a young couple trying to find their way in extraordinary situations with scrutiny that is so absolutely intrusive, they don't have a moment to breathe.
Now he is the spare.
He is the one that was designated to take over.
You know, I understand all that, and I understand the frustration of that.
I mean, theoretically.
But I really do believe that your lack of kindness to them is laid bare, Piers.
You can't have such a visceral viciousness towards the people.
But here's the irony, but Haralda.
They're just trying to pave their way in the world.
Here's the irony.
My response to them is driven by their serial unkindness and viciousness to the royal family and their deliberate attempts now to not only attack their family, who is a beloved family in this country, but to actually destabilize and potentially bring down the British monarchy.
And as a monarchist who loves the royal family, I think that that's completely overstated.
They're not going to bring down the British monarchy.
But it might, actually, they're not going to bring down the British monarchy.
It might.
They will not.
Why?
What matters?
I'll tell you why.
I'll tell you why.
It's a centuries-old institution.
Because their constant framing of the royal family as a bunch of nasty, callous racists is beginning to hit home in America.
It's hitting home in the Commonwealth.
People are believing this.
They're not producing any actual evidence to support the racism claims.
All the other mental health issues.
The headline literally read, Harry's new girl almost straight out of Compton.
Right.
Come on, Piers.
Compton, for your viewers not familiar with this area of Los Angeles is like Harlem in New York.
There's a lot of nice places in Compton, but generally it's regarded urban problems.
I thought that was an unfortunate headline, but the piece that accompanied it was euphorically praiseworthy.
And the truth is she comes from an area about five, six miles from Compton, and Compton produced, as far as the British audience is concerned, produced Serena and Venus Williams.
So they wouldn't see it in a particularly negative way.
They think, oh, that's the problem.
But even though it's not a problem.
All right, even speaking of Serena and Venus, you put it in a racial context.
Here she is, a mixed-race actress, you know, who has no familiarity.
She wasn't debriefed by Sarah Ferguson, as far as I know, or by really anybody who could guide her into the intricacies of the etiquette and so forth.
She was hung out.
Well, I don't think he can do what Harry can do, but he's a guy.
It's not like she didn't have someone say, here's how you curtsy.
She didn't have someone to say, they loved Queen Elizabeth.
No, no, no, hang on.
They loved it and they honored the salmon.
You're believing the bullshit.
She literally got given a massive dossier explaining all these things.
It's now been revealed.
Most of what they say in this Netflix thing is completely untrue.
Yeah, if you can't have this.
Hang on.
Heraldo, let's finish that point.
I think you're falling.
It seems to me that you have an anger inside you that I don't know what the source of it is.
But I think that, for example, to allege without proof that this couple is imperiling the British monarchy is a grotesque overstatement.
I don't think it is.
There's historic significance.
Yeah, I don't.
Because of what?
Because of what?
Because of the fact that race played any role that race played any role in the way that they were treated?
Specifically, the allegations of racism against the royal family, for which they produced zero evidence.
All they've done is smear the entire family.
Is it not a fact?
Is it not a fact that, well, I think that this was a great lesson for not just the British people and the Commonwealth, but here in the United States, a great lesson in the need for sensitivity, the need to have a, when you have a progressive step like this, that for the country to embrace them, I think that Harry would like nothing better than to go and to help.
I heard you were talking with the labor leaders earlier about the unrest and the economic difficulties.
I'm positive Harry and Megan would like to be part of an author.
Oh, Heraldo, do me a favor.
They're living in a Californian mansion.
They've got no interest in helping in the cost of living crisis over here.
You've drunk the Sussex Kool-Aid.
I think that if you gave them a, if the reception had been a bit more understanding, if you had to be able to get a little bit of a fair shake.
We couldn't have been more positive.
How do you feel?
You and I have had our own adventures over our long public lives.
How would you feel if every day you woke up, every single tabloid in the country was tearing you apart or was screwed up?
Yeah, but Geraldo, they weren't.
That was almost surgical.
Honestly, the coverage was incredibly positive.
I remember it well.
Yeah, until it wasn't, Piers.
The narrative did change.
All right, well, look, look, Heraldo, I mean to say Heraldo.
Let me just say goodbye, Heraldo.
Heraddo, you've been brilliant, as always, as a guest.
I love the way you speak your mind.
Oh, Pierre.
I love the way you never compromise when you have a belief about something.
I appreciate you joining the show.
Thank you very much.
All right, let's get a reaction to this.
I just want to make the point.
A lot of Americans, by the way, will agree with Herald.
They do.
They do.
But the narrative did change, but it didn't just change because newspaper editors sat there saying, right, now let's put the knife into it.
No, no.
It changed because their behavior changed for the world.
It became a bunch of people.
They became very hypocritical.
Preaching about the environment, using private jets, preaching about poverty, throwing half a million dollar baby showers.
And by the way, they've made some pretty damaging allegations in this of the trailer's anything to go by.
I mean, the idea that, you know, the palace were briefing against them.
Well, I know from my experience covering this beat for a long time, that their press aides were doing everything they could to keep those negative stories out.
You know, they were.
So there's potentially quite damaging allegations in all of this.
And, you know, Geraldo mentioned proof.
Well, are we going to see any proof?
Are we going to see any evidence from them for the next three years?
We're not.
Kat, what are your thoughts now?
I mean, if you bumped into Harry, what would you say to him?
I just don't know whether I'd actually even recognise him anymore.
It's changed so much.
I mean, personality-wise.
Because when I watched him, like, with the show, I just thought, wow, it's almost like...
And my mother will really hate me for saying this, but it's almost like she's got a spell over him.
And that's why I don't recognize him because he used to be so like down-to-earth and normal.
And there's so little of him I actually recognized.
You know, Joanna Lumley has come out with an interview with The Times in which she says that she's horrified by the way.
She talks about women specifically, but I think it can extend to men as well.
That you can become too much of a victim.
You start to celebrate victimhood.
You lose the strength.
And she believes that this generation is losing the strength of previous generations.
She was talking about women, but I think it applies to men as well.
That there's an almost a celebration of playing a victim.
Right, but I mean, he would never in a million years back in those days have ever been that person to do this show.
No, I mean, looking at the front pages we've got up here, this is the coverage of when they got engaged.
It couldn't have been more euphoric.
Same for the wedding.
They had 18 months of great press coverage.
They got a lot of attention because they're the biggest stars in the country when you marry into the royal family.
Redefining Woman in Dictionaries 00:07:21
Anyway, we'll leave it there.
There are lots of different views.
We'll have all these views on Piers Morgana's sensor.
That's the whole point of the show, is that we will invite people to have different views to mine and to challenge mine.
That's great.
Doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Thank you both very much indeed for coming in.
Still ahead.
The nutcracker is among the most popular ballet music ever written, but Ukraine's calling on us to boycott Russian composers like Cherkyvsky until this war is over.
Is that right?
We'll discuss this with the Ukrainian culture minister next.
Well, in a moment, I'll speak to the Ukrainian culture minister about what he wants us to do, which is to stop playing music by Tchaikovsky and other great Russian musicians, because he feels that that is a way of punishing Vladimir Putin.
I don't agree, and I'll say that to him when I speak to him.
I think it's the wrong way to respond, but it's a good debate.
But in the meantime, over here, Cambridge Dictionary has been accused of cow talent to woke activists today.
I've updated his definition of woman to include anyone who identifies as female.
Well, I'm joined by Talk TV presenter Richard Tyson, who I believe identifies still as male, and talk to you contributor Paula Rone Adrian, who I'm fairly sure still identifies as a woman.
I do.
Paula, what is a woman?
I didn't think it was that complicated a question.
Right.
For me, a woman is me.
So I was born female with female genitalia.
I can give birth, and I know that some women can't.
So I'm not necessarily suggesting that that is part of the biology.
If you're somebody who puts their hand up and says, I identify as female a woman, because that's what the dictionary is now defining a woman to also mean.
Yeah, and this is where I start to struggle with when we talk about feelings as opposed to defining words.
And this is where I feel that the dictionary has fallen foul of the different words.
I mean, you're not the only one who's getting confused by this.
This is some of the world's most important people.
Look at this.
A woman can have a penis.
I'm not.
I don't think we can conduct this debate with...
You know...
Sorry, I'll get this up.
No, I just...
Can you provide a definition for the word woman?
Can I provide a definition?
No.
Yeah.
I can't.
You can't?
Not in this context.
That woman who can't say what a woman is is now a woman on the Supreme Court of the United States, one of the most powerful people in the world.
Richard Seis, it just feels to me like the world has gone completely mad when women feel too paralyzed to be able to actually enunciate what they believe a woman is for fear of the retribution that may come their way.
Well, there's that, but the whole point of a dictionary is that you can rely on it to give you the accurate truth.
That's literally the function.
If you're not sure, you go to the dictionary, and the dictionary gives you the truth.
So for a dictionary to adopt the latest fashion, the latest trend for fear of upsetting people, I should think is really serious.
I think it's much bigger than this.
I actually think that they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this.
I think the government should actually look at injuncting to stop this nonsense.
One thing you can be sure of, Piers, this wouldn't be happening in Florida under the governorship of Ron DeSantis.
He's not running away with the popularity of the world.
He wouldn't tolerate it.
He wouldn't accept this.
He may not accept this.
And, you know, to an extent you and I agree, when we're looking at a definition of what is something, then we look at that thing.
What we don't do is then attribute a monologue in terms of the ideology behind that thing.
We describe that thing, we define that thing.
And I don't think that that's what the dictionary has done here.
What it's done is it's talking about an ideology.
It's talking about a thought process, about a feeling.
It's not saying what it is.
But unfortunately, facts don't care about feelings.
I'm sorry, they just don't.
This is a bit like Meghan Markle and her truth.
It's like there's no such thing as, there's no such thing as my truth.
There's the truth, there are facts, and then there are people's feelings about facts.
But they're not facts.
Well, you're right to say that there is my truth and there is your truth.
I accept that.
And you're right to say that...
Well, only one of them is the actual truth.
No, that's not always the case.
That is the case.
No, that's not always the case.
Well, there's more than one form of the truth.
Of course there is.
Well, give me an example.
Give me an example.
Well, how do you define what a woman is, Piers?
Differently to a single person.
A woman is a woman born to a female biological body.
Boom.
But that's a different definition.
That's a different definition to what a scientist might have, to what somebody who is.
It's what the dictionary until this week always said a woman was somebody born to a female biological body.
There are two sexes, male and female.
That's it.
The whole point of a dictionary is that it doesn't have feelings.
It doesn't get confused.
Right, now we have a dictionary.
It is the fact that the feelings.
Right, but now they're endorsing feelings, right?
I feel like I did this on Good Morning Britain once.
We had somebody on trying to defend the BBC educating kids of 12 that there were over 100 genders, including astragender, which is an affinity with the stars and planets.
So I said, fine, by that criteria, if we can identify as anything we like, I am a two-spirit penguin because I walk a bit like a penguin.
I have the same carnivorous diet as a penguin.
I think penguins are much beloved figures in this country.
Again, a big tick in the box.
So I had a lot of affinity with penguins.
And I like to have various spirits.
So I'm a two-spirit penguin.
All hell broke loose.
How dare you mock self-identity?
How dare you say you're a two-spirit penguin?
Had I said I am an astrogender because I look at the stars and planets and feel all woozy, that would be the BBC's way of educating kids about what they can identify as.
It is nonsense.
It is nonsense to you.
Yes, it's too much.
To most people.
To most people, Paul.
It's not most people.
I'm not sure that's right, because we haven't counted.
What we're talking about, and what I think you have to accept, Piers, and the people who want to shout at me and want to use the word woke as some kind of dirty word, is you're not listening to those people.
Well, woke used to be an awareness of social and racial injustice.
It still is.
No, no.
No, no.
What woke has become for most of the wokeys is a form of fascism where they think if anyone disagrees with them when they come out with this nonsense about what a woman is, for example, they must be abused, shamed, cancelled, driven out of their jobs and terrorised, as we saw with J.K. Rowling.
Which I don't even like, by the way.
She's always been damn rude to me, but on this, she's right.
But why are you attributing the title of woke activist to those people?
They're purely, they're activists.
Cultural Gestures vs History 00:05:00
Because they identify, normally identify in their Twitter biography as woke and also hashtag be kind.
They are the least kind people in the history of planet Earth.
They're vicious.
They're nasty.
They're fascist.
The very thing they like to pretend they hate most, that is what they are.
They want to basically indoctrinate everyone to agree with everything they say.
That's it.
No deviation.
I'm not going to disagree with you.
On that note, we'll go back to a little commercial break because Paula Runagen has finally agreed and I'm right about everything.
After the break, should we be boycotting Tchaikovsky because he's Russian?
Well, after a Ukraine minister, called for the West to boycott all Russian culture till the end of the war.
We'll discuss that after the break.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensored Arts this evening, Ukraine's cultures minister.
Unfortunately, we've got technical issues with him.
He's in Paris, I think, and we can't actually get the lineup.
So we're going to take this debate.
If we don't get him tonight, we'll get him back on tomorrow.
Richard Apollo, it's an interesting debate this.
He's come out very strongly.
He wrote a big piece in The Guardian.
Oleksandr Akachenko, he's Ukraine's culture minister, calling for all music by Tchaikovsky to be paused, saying that Putin sees Russian culture as a tool and even a weapon to attack liberal values and has indeed, of course, destroyed many monuments of Ukrainian arts and culture.
I feel uncomfortable about this.
I've got to be honest.
I don't think it's the right response.
You can understand why he's saying it, why he feels it so deeply and passionately, but I don't think it is the right response.
And the truth is, it's not actually going to achieve anything.
What we've really got to focus on is, I think, actually what we've been doing pretty well, which is giving them the arms, the weapons to fight like absolute Trojans.
But I understand his angst with, frankly, anything with the name Russian, the sense of Russian, and so you see why he's wasting himself down.
We've heard this about sport, you know, and they have been punished, the Russians.
They weren't allowed to compete at Wimbledon, for example.
Is there a difference between sport and cultural arts, for example?
Is there a difference ideologically between a boycott of sport compared to Tchaikovsky?
I can understand why you're uncomfortable, but I have to disagree with you because what we're looking at is the absolute desecration of not only a country and its people, but that include its culture and its people.
All right, let me ask you a question.
So when we illegally invaded Iraq in 2003, this country, okay, and we were with the Americans, would the correct response have been... to that illegal invasion, which is what I believe it was, which led to the slaughter of a million people, would it have been correct then to have boycotted all the music of the Beatles and all the music of Elvis Presley as a punishment?
And if not, what's the difference?
I could have understood if that's what the Iraqi people chose to do.
And I could have understood.
If they come out and said, if an Iraqi leader had come out and said, the world must boycott the Beatles and Elvis Presley, what would the reaction have been?
I could have understood that, Piers.
That's my answer.
Of course I could.
Yeah, but I can tell you what the reaction would have been.
Everyone would have said, forget it.
Well, they may well have to do that.
So there's a bit like all the double standards over the Qatar World Cup.
There's immoral hypocrisy, I think, at bay here, right?
But there's a big difference because if you're talking about current sporting teams, current sporting personalities, as opposed to someone from way back in history.
So I think that, for me, is the dividing line between the two.
You've got what's going on currently, and that's sanctions, and that's current boycotts.
But actually, making a sort of a gesture against the historical...
Well, Tchaikovsky died 60 odd years before Putin was even born, I don't know, Red.
I mean, I can't remember.
What does that mean?
The country still makes money from this, and that's what this is about, Richard.
It's about making money.
Seriously, my mother just messaged me completely randomly.
It wasn't expected of us at all.
She went to see a ballet, the Nutcracker, with a Ukrainian woman and her daughter this week.
And she said she did cringe a bit when Darcy Bussell apparently introduced it.
It was a ballet that obviously came from Russia, raving about the fact that he'd come from Russia.
It did great with her.
And maybe that is what a lot of people feel.
Maybe people do feel, you know what?
Actually, if Putin's desecrating art throughout Ukraine, destroying theatres, banning people from doing what they love, then why should we celebrate any form of Russian culture until this is over?
I do understand.
I don't really agree with the argument because I think it sets a very weird precedent, which we didn't adopt ourselves.
But we can take McDonald's out of Russia.
We can take Nike out of Russia.
Then surely we should be taking Tchaikovsky out of the city.
Brooklyn Beckham's Cucumber Dish 00:01:16
All right, you mentioned foob.
You just got time for Brooklyn Beckham's latest cooking lesson on American television.
This is where he does a, I think it's a tuna and cucumber sandwich.
Here's Brooklyn Beckham.
So what he gets, he gets a bit of raw tuna, he puts a bit of stuff on it, he gets a bit of egg, he gets some cucumber, puts it in some sesame seeds, and then he puts it in a pan, and he calls himself a chef.
Now, it's a bit like identifying as a woman if you're not born to a female body.
He might identify as a chef, but this is the kind of thing I knock up when I'm on my own at home and I'm not a chef.
Am I right?
No.
I mean, Piers, come on, you just sound bitter now.
You think he's a good chef?
I think he's a young man who is trying his best to help.
If he wasn't called Brooklyn Beckham, would he be doing his tuna cucumber special on American television?
But that's like saying, if my dad wasn't a famous journalist, should I become a journalist?
Piers, we all want to be able to follow in the footsteps of our parents.
Richard?
He's trying, but come on.
You know what?
He's trying.
Actually, you can leave it there.
He's trying.
Good to see you both.
Thank you both very much.
That's it from me.
Keep it uncensored.
Export Selection