Uncensored - Piers Morgan - 20221221_piers-morgan-uncensored-online-trolling-the-ambula Aired: 2022-12-21 Duration: 46:56 === Digital Threats and CPS (14:35) === [00:00:00] Should social media companies be forced to turn over the trolls? [00:00:04] Tens of thousands of ambulance workers strike as Britain's winter of discontent turns deadly. [00:00:09] I'll talk to a paramedic on the picket line. [00:00:12] Plus, a top American university is ridiculed for banning offensive words, which include, wait for this, the word American. [00:00:19] How do we save our language from these snowflakes? [00:00:28] Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored. [00:00:34] Just like to apologise to anybody offended by my use of the word snowflakes. [00:00:38] It just struck me that it's been snowing recently and it might be offensive to actual snowflakes to be compared to these weak little people. [00:00:48] So my apologies to any genuine snowflakes offended by the analogy in the comparison to human snowflakes. [00:00:55] Again, my apologies. [00:00:56] Well, good evening from London. [00:00:57] Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored. [00:00:58] Imagine a thug approaches you in the street and threatens to kill you. [00:01:02] It would be pretty scary. [00:01:03] Police would arrest that person, hopefully, and British law would say they'd face up to 10 years in jail and they deserve it. [00:01:10] No one has the right to threaten to kill someone. [00:01:12] But if that same person makes the same threat to kill you on social media, well, the law apparently can't cope with it. [00:01:18] In February last year, a troll on my son's Instagram, my oldest son's Instagram, made a very direct threat to my life. [00:01:26] You're a marked man, he wrote. [00:01:28] Calling the police, big tech, or beefing up your security isn't going to stop us getting to you. [00:01:33] This isn't a threat, Piers. [00:01:34] It's a promise. [00:01:36] You're getting killed. [00:01:37] Now, my first thought, obviously, was that he'd misspelled your, like most digital morons tend to do. [00:01:43] But that same troll then targeted directly my son. [00:01:46] Watch your back, Spencer Morgan. [00:01:48] If you don't get your dad, presumably if we don't get your dad, you're getting it or your mummies. [00:01:54] So a direct threat to my son and his mother in broad daylight, published publicly. [00:02:01] It wasn't a private message, it was a post to an Instagram photograph that my son had put up there of me and him. [00:02:08] Now, I thought that crossed a line. [00:02:09] I don't think, you know, I'm a big boy, I can take trolls, but somebody actually going on my son's Instagram and threatening to kill his father directly and then threatening him and his mother? [00:02:21] No, I wasn't going to have it. [00:02:22] So I reported it to the police. [00:02:25] And the police, to be fair, well, they took it seriously. [00:02:28] This is what I said at the time on my old show about the early stage of this. [00:02:33] You can't go outside on the street and say, I'm going to kill you, I'm definitely going to kill you, because that is a criminal offence. [00:02:38] You can do it on social media. [00:02:40] So I'm going to do it for all the people who are getting these sort of threats and have no recourse to do it. [00:02:44] I'm going to push this through right to the end. [00:02:46] And I'm going to find out who did that threat. [00:02:49] And they're going to be held to account. [00:02:51] And they'll go to court necessary. [00:02:53] And I will appear in court necessary. [00:02:55] And that's what we'll keep doing every time. [00:02:56] One of these morons thinks that that's okay. [00:02:59] Because it's not okay. [00:03:01] Well, I've been through the process. [00:03:02] And here we are, 22 months later. [00:03:05] And I've got my answer. [00:03:07] Nothing. [00:03:08] Nothing can be done. [00:03:09] London's Met Police, which investigated this crime for all this time and made an arrest over a year ago, told me this week, and this was actually from the CPS ruling, which had come back to them, there is clear evidence to prove that you were the victim of a crime and threats of a serious nature were conveyed to you. [00:03:27] A suspect was arrested. [00:03:29] However, in order to bring criminal charges, we must first prove that the messages were sent to you by the suspect. [00:03:34] This could not be proved because there are a number of similar accounts with the same and similar social media handles, but none which could be directly attributed to the suspect for the specific date and time. [00:03:45] So that was that. [00:03:46] a public threat to my life and to my son's life, a 18 to 20 month investigation by the police, an arrest, and then nothing, because apparently there are a few similar accounts on Instagram. [00:04:00] Now I'm a high profile person. [00:04:01] This was a high profile case. [00:04:03] It made the front page of the biggest selling newspaper in Britain. [00:04:07] So what happens to the millions of people who are not high profile, who get subjected to vile abuse and death threats like this every day on social media? [00:04:17] They probably live in a lot more fear than I do. [00:04:20] I don't think for a moment that person actually intended to kill me. [00:04:24] I was making a wider point about the threat. [00:04:27] But ordinary people don't have the recourse that I do to use the media to promote this kind of thing. [00:04:33] They just have to sit there and hope it doesn't happen. [00:04:36] Well, the owner of Instagram is, of course, Facebook and now called Meta, of course. [00:04:42] They posted revenues of almost $120 billion last year. [00:04:46] These companies, all the tech giants, make planet-sized profits from the data they harvest on us as we document our lives. [00:04:53] They know where we shop, where we eat, where we work, where we travel, often with forensic accuracy. [00:05:00] They're happy to sell that information to advertisers. [00:05:02] So why can't they do more about this kind of thing? [00:05:06] Which is serious. [00:05:07] The police said in the CPS report back to the police that they passed to me that they acknowledged these were serious threats and that a crime had been proven to have been done. [00:05:19] But they couldn't do anything. [00:05:20] So between Facebook, the police and the CPS, nobody could do anything. [00:05:26] I think it's time they did. [00:05:28] I think it's time they worked out a way to handle this. [00:05:30] Not for me. [00:05:31] I can look after myself. [00:05:33] But for everybody else that's going through this, right now, probably on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or whatever it may be. [00:05:40] Well, joining me now is the former Scotland Yard detective, Hamish Brown, and Imran Akman from the Centre for Countering Digital. [00:05:47] Hey, welcome to both of you. [00:05:49] Hamish Brown, look, you've been a Scotland Yard specialist in the crime directorate. [00:05:55] It seemed to me here that the police came to me, they took it very seriously, they installed a lot of security stuff in my home, they investigated this, they got a suspect, they then spent a long time forensically examining all the technology this person had in their home and so on. [00:06:11] But in the end, they didn't achieve enough evidence for the CPS to think they'd get a successful prosecution. [00:06:17] I find that so disheartening that such a blatant death threat published in public on a social media platform cannot be enough to actually work out who has done this. [00:06:29] Well, the fact of the matter is that there are so many people on your side, I mean the police and CPS, I have seen those letters, I saw the response by the CPS, and I'm so sorry it happened to you, I'm sorry it happened to members of the public who make a very fair point. [00:06:46] I was more annoyed from my family, to be honest with you. [00:06:48] I get threats all the time. [00:06:50] I don't care. [00:06:51] And that's fair, but and it happens to the public as well. [00:06:54] You make the very good point. [00:06:56] It's even more difficult for them because they don't necessarily have the resources for protection and security and all the other things. [00:07:02] And when I tweeted about this today and revealed what had happened, somebody then went on my youngest son, who's 22, they went on his Instagram and sent him a private message making another death threat. [00:07:14] It's utterly disgraceful. [00:07:16] But whatever the situation is, and the CPS are right, you must have the evidence. [00:07:22] Now... [00:07:22] But why can't they get evidence when someone does that with such impunity? [00:07:26] Yes, well, it's obviously people have access to the same internet systems without going into technicalities on it. [00:07:34] And if we take a parallel of someone's car being used in an armed robbery, for example, of course, the owner's going to be seen about that. [00:07:43] But he said, well, lots of people use my car or I lent it out or something like that. [00:07:47] The police may well have their suspicions, but it can't be proved beyond reasonable doubt. [00:07:53] And to be fair to the CPS, there's got to be a realistic chance of a conviction. [00:07:58] And if a number of people have same access to the internet terminals you have alluded to, that will not convince the court. [00:08:07] So the CPS are correct there. [00:08:09] They're also right in as much as they wrote you, they explained the decision. [00:08:14] I don't know if you have appealed it or you've got back to them. [00:08:17] They invited you to do that. [00:08:18] Well, I think I will appeal. [00:08:19] I'm going to get them to review it, I think, because I'm just curious about what happens when you review these things. [00:08:24] Let me bring in Imran Akben. [00:08:26] Imran, I mean, you specialize in encountering digital hate. [00:08:30] What do you make of my situation here and what happened? [00:08:35] Well, I mean, first of all, just to commend you on bringing forward the issue, because as you said, you speak as one person among many who receives these threats and you're using your platform to highlight the issue. [00:08:47] During the pandemic, I worked with vaccinologists who are receiving death threats for tweeting about the vaccines. [00:08:54] I worked with celebrities who've received death threats because they're Jewish. [00:09:00] Just last year, we did a study with Rachel Riley, for example. [00:09:03] We downloaded all of her Instagram DMs, found out how many of them were vicious, vile, abuse, disgusting videos, death threats. [00:09:12] And we then reported them back to the platforms and found that nine out of ten times no action was taken. [00:09:18] And there is the nub of the issue. [00:09:20] That what we really have is we have the police and CPS who I know want to do the right thing by you. [00:09:25] But the problem is that the people that hold the information as to which device was tweeting from, these companies that gather so much data on us for their own economic gain, we know that they use this data ruthlessly to target advertising. [00:09:40] They are unwilling to help when it comes to helping a user who's been sent death threats. [00:09:47] And the reason for that is they don't have to. [00:09:51] Right. [00:09:52] That's the problem. [00:09:53] Right. [00:09:53] Because at the moment, so social media platforms are not held liable for third-party content on their platforms at all. [00:10:03] In particular, in the United States, under something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act 1996, the entire reason that CCDH is based in Washington, D.C. is because there is no way of getting them to feel any sense of doing the right thing, doing what's moral, doing what's helpful for their users. [00:10:24] Because in reality, they don't have to because they're not liable and so they think none of our businesses. [00:10:30] Because it seems to me that Facebook, who owns Instagram, they should have a system. [00:10:36] They probably have a system where this person posts what he did at a specific time. [00:10:41] It's all logged. [00:10:42] They know what device he posted it from. [00:10:45] They know all the information they need to know. [00:10:49] They can presumably have worked out other stuff he was posting or doing from his account or other accounts at the same time. [00:10:55] It shouldn't be that difficult to hold these people to account. [00:10:58] Why is this not happening, do you think? [00:11:00] And what should the law change be that enforces this kind of thing? [00:11:08] So, look, these are companies that will sell you the advertise. [00:11:12] So they will sell to advertisers the ability to target someone who's taking a particular bus from one side of town to the other by looking at geolocation data, by looking at what that person's interested in. [00:11:24] They will sell every single aspect of your life. [00:11:27] And believe me, they're tracking you constantly. [00:11:29] And yet they won't help when it comes to solving a serious crime. [00:11:33] And the only way to make them feel that it is kind of their job to deal with it is to make them in part responsible for harms on their platforms when they don't take reasonable steps to deal with them. [00:11:48] And that's all we're asking for. [00:11:49] That at the moment, negligence doesn't really apply to social media. [00:11:54] They're the only companies in the world that don't have to face negligence laws. [00:11:57] Right, and they don't view themselves as publishers. [00:12:01] I've had this argument with them for a long time. [00:12:03] When I run a newspaper or when I do television programs, we are heavily regulated and we're deemed to be publishers or broadcasters with all the rules that go with that. [00:12:14] Social media platforms want to have their cake and eat it. [00:12:17] They want all the benefits of being publishers and broadcasters without any of the liability. [00:12:23] And of course, they're infinitely more profitable than most broadcasters and publishers these days, in part because of the fact they're able to operate with impunity. [00:12:30] They have a low-cost model in which they take, I mean, they're really parasitic companies because what they do is they take other people's content, your content, news providers, they then aggregate it, slap a bunch of ads on it, and then say, well, that content's none of my business, mate. [00:12:45] Someone else wrote it. [00:12:47] And of course, that is a fundamentally parasitic business model. [00:12:50] Now, it's a very profitable business model. [00:12:52] It's why Mark Zuckerberg is worth $100 billion and he's younger than I am. [00:12:57] But that isn't necessarily a good business model for society. [00:13:01] And look, introducing a tiny bit of transparency to these companies, some accountability so that if you have a problem, you know who to go to, some responsibility so they share in the costs of dealing with the harms created on their platform. [00:13:14] That's exactly how most businesses operate. [00:13:17] Yeah. [00:13:17] I mean, I've got friends. [00:13:19] I've had frenzy work at a high level at Facebook, and they are aware of these problems. [00:13:23] I mean, they tell me the amount of stuff they have to deal with is through the roof. [00:13:28] It's like millions and millions of things a day get posted that they remove. [00:13:32] It's just they're not doing enough. [00:13:33] And then when these sort of situations happen, to me, the system fails people like me are on the receiving end of it because it just doesn't work. [00:13:41] Let me bring back Hamish. [00:13:43] The other problem that struck me about the police investigation, they don't have time for this kind of thing. [00:13:48] I mean, they're busy enough as it is and under-resourced enough as it is without having to chase this kind of thing in the digital sphere. [00:13:58] What is the answer for that? [00:13:59] Because they just don't, I don't think they've got the time to do this. [00:14:03] Well, it isn't just their time. [00:14:05] And didn't the gentleman just now speak well? [00:14:08] I mean, he put everything in a nutshell, didn't he? [00:14:11] But the situation is, and I've done work, some confidential work within the criminal justice system, where the police have been approached to search someone's emails or mobile phone or something like that. [00:14:24] So they can forensically look at this, but they have warned the organisations I was working with, it's going to take nine months, it might take a year, and it's going to cost us a lot of money. === Strikes That Cost Lives (07:37) === [00:14:36] That can't be right. [00:14:37] Now, when I was a small child, I remember my mother saying, oh, Mrs. Smith down the road got a poisoned pen letter. [00:14:44] My goodness, we don't seem to have moved on from that. [00:14:46] It's anonymous and can't trace it. [00:14:48] Yes, to hold these companies to account absolutely excellent. [00:14:55] But can I just emphasize that the police did investigate this case? [00:14:59] They did arrest the person. [00:15:01] It has gone to the CPS. [00:15:03] They were correct. [00:15:04] They haven't got the evidence. [00:15:06] He, or the suspect, actually did this, that, the other. [00:15:10] And that's what they must rely on. [00:15:12] The same with visual identification or whatever the situation is. [00:15:16] So the ball must rest. [00:15:17] I think at the moment it's simply too easy for people who do this kind of thing to evade capture and being held to account. [00:15:23] That's the problem. [00:15:24] The ball must rest with the media companies. [00:15:27] Yeah, I think that's where you start, certainly. [00:15:29] Hamish Brown, Imran Ahmed. [00:15:30] Thank you both very much indeed. [00:15:31] I appreciate it. [00:15:32] Well coming next, the health secretary accuses unions of choosing to inflict harm on patients as ambulance workers go on strike. [00:15:39] Is he right? [00:15:40] I'll debate that with a striking paramedic at a care home boss. [00:15:43] Do you think they should be not doing this? [00:16:00] What's going to come? [00:16:00] The word American is offensive, apparently. [00:16:03] According to a top American university, Stanford's published a blacklist of apparently harmful words, probably includes blacklists now think about it. [00:16:10] And my guest tonight has promised to use every single one of them. [00:16:14] So that should be fun. [00:16:15] But first, unions and the government are blaming each other for preventable deaths caused by today's ambulance strikes. [00:16:21] More than 25,000 paramedics and emergency call handlers walked out today over paying conditions. [00:16:26] Most trust declared critical incidents. [00:16:30] Well, it is the trade unions that are taking this strike action at a point of maximum pressure for the NHS and in doing so are not giving an undertaking to cover all life-threatening and emergency responses. [00:16:44] If people die, whose fault is it tomorrow? [00:16:46] Absolutely the government. [00:16:48] They've been totally irresponsible. [00:16:50] You know, the only time they called me in for a meeting was today, the day before the strike. [00:16:55] And it's completely irresponsible of them to refuse to open any kind of discussions or negotiations with us. [00:17:02] So everyone blaming each other, but of course the real victims of this are people who may need emergency help and don't get it. [00:17:10] I'm joined now by a paramedic at Yorkshire Ambulance Service, Aaron Glenwright Cook, who's on strike today, and by care home owner David Crabtree, who lost many of the people in his care home during the pandemic and has strong views about these strikes. [00:17:23] We'll start with you, Aaron Glenwright Cook. [00:17:26] Look, you became a paramedic, I think, last year, fully qualified one. [00:17:30] Why have you gone on strike? [00:17:34] I think there are a number of reasons. [00:17:36] It's complex. [00:17:37] I do think paying conditions is part of the problem. [00:17:40] Ambulance staff of all grades have had a real terms loss in earnings over the last 10 years and it makes it hard to retain experienced staff that we need to guide and mentor younger staff coming into the service. [00:17:52] But I think we're all just coming to a place now where we feel that the emergency medical system we're working in has collapsed and we're unable to provide the emergency care that we're trained to provide because we're stuck outside of hospitals that are full and can't discharge patients back into the community. [00:18:08] I mean look you know cards on the table. [00:18:10] I think the ambulance service does a fantastic job in this country. [00:18:13] I've had to rely on it several times myself once when my daughter was very young and I got unbelievably fast and exemplary service for which I'm incredibly grateful. [00:18:23] So let's just park that to one side. [00:18:25] I bow to no one in my admiration for the work that you all do. [00:18:29] However, and it isn't important however I just feel very uncomfortable with notwithstanding what you've just said about the conditions that you're working in and presumably already you believe those conditions are leading to unnecessary suffering and indeed death on occasion and that's completely outrageous and has to be fixed. [00:18:49] But I don't see how potentially having other people die or not getting the emergency treatment they need helps your cause because paramedics I think work in a particular environment a bit like why the police can't strike where people rely on you for life and death quite regularly. [00:19:08] Do you feel comfortable morally with what you're doing? [00:19:14] I think that's a really good question and one that I very much understand. [00:19:18] I think the thing I've realized today, we've spent a lot of time obviously on the picket line. [00:19:23] We've spent the last two years being stuck outside hospitals listening to our radios go off all day every day. [00:19:30] Open call, open call, any ambulance available to clear for an outstanding cardiac arrest, nearest ambulance 28 minutes away. [00:19:38] Today, what we've done is we've said, right, we're going to prioritise those patients, the ones that need emergency, immediate, life-saving treatment. [00:19:46] So, today, without pay from the picket line, we've still been responding to those patients that need us most and that need the most timely response. [00:19:53] And actually, today, I think this is probably the first time in quite a while when we've been able to provide that response. [00:19:59] A good part of our work is actually not immediately life-threatening care. [00:20:03] It's undifferentiated medical problems that can't be dealt with in the community because of the lack of resources. [00:20:08] So, I think whilst it's tempting to think that ambulances and paramedics fly around to life-threatening emergencies all day, every day, that actually forms about 10 or 15% of our normal workload. [00:20:20] And it's that 10 and 15 percent that we've been doing today. [00:20:23] But you can't be sure that people won't die as a result directly of the strike action, can you? [00:20:32] People are already dying, waiting for ambulances all day, every day. [00:20:36] I'm not in a position to be. [00:20:37] So, that's why I phrased the question very specifically. [00:20:39] You can't be sure that some people won't die as a direct result of the strike action. [00:20:48] I think that's quite a complex thing to say, and that needs a lot of data points, and it will take us some time to tease out. [00:20:54] All right, but the bottom up depends on how quickly you determine a death to be dying. [00:20:59] Right, but look, in the end, self-evident, you can't be certain, can you? [00:21:02] You just can't. [00:21:05] No, no, in a way that I can't be certain about a great deal of things. [00:21:08] Okay, let me go to my other guest, which is David Croucher. [00:21:12] David, we've spoken before during the pandemic some horrendous stuff that you had to endure running a care home with so many of your patients dying. [00:21:20] What do you make of this, that the paramedics going out on strike? [00:21:26] Good evening. [00:21:27] I think to just re-endorse what you were saying, the paramedics, when they turn up at our care homes, when they go to the elderly and in their own homes, do a fabulous, fantastic job. [00:21:38] What I don't understand is you signed up for the job, you knew the terms and conditions, and yet you're striking three days before Christmas. [00:21:47] The elderly frail because of the heating and the fuel and everything are more at risk today than they would be in the middle of June. [00:21:55] Go back to the social media store. [00:21:57] Why? [00:21:58] I was a shop steward. [00:21:59] I was a shop steward for the Confederation of Health Service Employees. [00:22:02] I've stood on the picket line in the 1980s, and yet here we are 40 years later. [00:22:07] The government may be a brick wall, but the best advice I was ever given is if you're trying to go through a brick wall, turn left. === Social Care System Collapse (05:40) === [00:22:14] The confrontation is achieving nothing except the public will just get dismayed with it, people will lose wages. [00:22:21] And the social care 1.4 million social care workers turning up for minimum wage every day. [00:22:29] We're there tonight, they'll be there in the morning, they'll be there at the side of disabled people in their own homes, they'll be assisting people. [00:22:36] We need proper social care, we need a proper NHS. [00:22:39] But this certain striking two days before Christmas, Tell me what it's achieving, unless it's a threat to life. [00:22:46] Well, I think, listen, I think you make a very good point. [00:22:48] And the other point I would make to you, I think, Aaron, is that we had one of the union reps on the other night who hadn't even read, she admitted, a 2021 report, so last year by the Health Foundation, which talked about the reality, in particular, [00:23:04] in a section of the report about ambulance workers, that according to the foundation last year, the average basic pay for ambulance workers, not including overtime, increased over the decade prior to that by £7,588 to £33,487, a rise of 23% in nominal terms and 8% in real terms. [00:23:30] So that is why there is less sympathy, I think, for paramedics at the moment than there is for the nurses. [00:23:37] Because people think that actually, in the general scheme of things when it comes to pay, you haven't had it nearly as bad. [00:23:49] I think what I know for certain is that the colleagues who work alongside me in the ambulance, my emergency care assistant and medical technician staff who work alongside me, some of them are working for around £10 or £11 an hour and they're having to watch people's loved ones die. [00:24:06] They're having to watch us make end-of-life care decisions. [00:24:08] They're having to be exposed to traumatic cardiac arrest in the context of road traffic accidents. [00:24:14] They could be making more money and having a better quality of life elsewhere. [00:24:18] And I don't think that's appropriate recompense for them. [00:24:20] This striking is not just about my personal wages. [00:24:23] In fact, for me, actually, the wage rise is not as big a motivating factor as my concerns about the overall. [00:24:30] But ultimately, the point is that I get all that, but ultimately, Aaron, the point that David made there, I think, was a good one. [00:24:37] You sign up, if you're going to be an ambulance worker, a paramedic, you sign up specifically to save people's lives. [00:24:43] I mean, it is, that's what the job is. [00:24:46] And when you sign up, you know what the pay and conditions is. [00:24:49] You're not being. [00:24:53] Right, but unlike teachers or whatever, you are in a job where you save lives. [00:24:58] And that's where I have a problem with this. [00:25:01] There has to be a better way, surely, to get better paying conditions than putting people's lives at risk. [00:25:10] I say, in the same way that you're saying that I can't be sure that people won't directly be harmed as a result of today, you also can't be sure that they will. [00:25:18] That lack of sure. [00:25:19] No, but it's not a gamble I think we should be taking. [00:25:20] What I do is that's not that. [00:25:21] I just think what you're doing, you're tossing a coin and you're hoping for the best. [00:25:25] And I think I feel very uneasy about that. [00:25:28] And I feel very uneasy, by the way, about what the public reaction will be towards paramedics and ambulance workers if people do start dying and they blame you. [00:25:37] I don't think you want to be on the receiving end of that because that's never how you've been perceived. [00:25:44] No. [00:25:45] I think it's important we try and wake the general public up to the fact that this is a systemic issue that's been going on much longer than today. [00:25:52] We are dealing with unnecessary death as a result of excess load and poor performance from ambulance trusts as a result of the system they're working in for years. [00:26:02] This isn't new. [00:26:03] This hasn't just occurred overnight today. [00:26:06] We've been sitting in queues listening to people who aren't getting ambulances and are immediately about to die on our radios for years. [00:26:12] That's been going on. [00:26:13] And that has to fall at the feet of the people who've allowed the system to crumble to that point rather than to individual clinicians on the picket line today, surely. [00:26:21] Okay, David Crabtree, just finally with you. [00:26:24] I mean, I understand what they're saying. [00:26:29] I understand that the conditions that they're working in are increasingly dangerous, that they have to see people dying because choices have to be made because of the breakdown of the system. [00:26:41] Can you see their point of view when it comes to that argument? [00:26:46] Oh, I think they do a tremendous job, and we're not arguing about that. [00:26:51] What I'm disturbed at is why are we on strike three days before Christmas? [00:26:56] Why not in the middle of June when the nights are lighter, when people have less falls, when the elderly are less at risk? [00:27:02] Why capitalize on winter of discontent when, in fact, if we want to get rid of the government, if we want to change things, then social media, bringing pressure to bear, we've got all the time in the world. [00:27:15] We agree, it's collapsed, it's a collapsed system. [00:27:17] The NHS is not fit for purpose. [00:27:19] It certainly doesn't keep the elderly going. [00:27:21] But the social care worker tonight on £10 an hour minimum wage is doing the same job, caring for the elder, caring for the dying, assisting, feeding, moving, stopping pressure areas. [00:27:35] We're desperate today not for anybody to fall. [00:27:39] We've had to bring staff in to make sure that people don't fall because we won't be able to get an ambulance. [00:27:43] Right. [00:27:44] David Crabtree, thank you very much. [00:27:46] Aaron Glenwright Cook, I appreciate you coming. [00:27:50] I appreciate you spending the time to talk to me. [00:27:51] Not many wanted to, and you did, and I appreciate that. [00:27:53] Thank you very much. === Tommy's Hypocrisy Exposed (14:19) === [00:27:55] Well, coming next, is the word American harmful to Americans? [00:27:59] You might laugh and think that's a ridiculous question, but that's what Stanford University, one of America's greatest educational centers, has now concluded. [00:28:07] It's simply too dangerous to use the word American. [00:28:10] It's too triggering. [00:28:11] Well, is Tommy Lehron, my next guest, is she triggered by the use of the word American? [00:28:17] I don't think she looks too triggered by it. [00:28:19] We'll talk to Tommy after the break. [00:28:32] Well, last night, Andrew Tate, the world's most infamous influencer, blew up the internet yet again, made an explosive return to uncensored last night. [00:28:39] Over a million people have seen the interview on YouTube in just 24 hours. [00:28:43] More on that shortly. [00:28:44] We've got a reaction. [00:28:45] What did you think of it? [00:28:46] But first, administrators at the prestigious Stanford University in America have compiled a list of offensive phrases to eliminate from its website. [00:28:55] Walk-in is now considered offensive to disabled. [00:28:59] Black sheep is banned for its use of the word black. [00:29:02] And killing two birds with one stone is deemed to normalize violence against animals. [00:29:08] Wait until they hear about flogging a dead horse. [00:29:10] That's probably on the list actually. [00:29:12] But most problematically for the American University, the index of harmful words includes the word American. [00:29:18] I'm actually, I'm serious. [00:29:20] That's not a joke. [00:29:21] They think American is a harmful word because it implies the US is the most important country in the Americas region. [00:29:31] Seriously. [00:29:32] Well, the customary way to alert sensitive souls to damaging content is, of course, a trigger warning. [00:29:42] But that's been banned too because the phrase triggering can cause stress about what's about to follow. [00:29:50] So trigger warnings are now triggering. [00:29:53] Well, I'm joined now by a proud American. [00:29:56] I hope she could still call herself an American, Fox News contributor Tommy Larin. [00:30:00] Tommy, are you identifying as an American or do you feel that it's such a harmful word now you daren't do so? [00:30:08] I am a proud American and if I had a singing voice, I would sing proud to be an American for you. [00:30:12] That is how proud to be an American that I truly am. [00:30:16] I will never stop saying it. [00:30:17] And for anybody that's wondering, we do believe in American exceptionalism here in the United States of America. [00:30:22] So when we call ourselves Americans, we are proud of that. [00:30:25] We are never going to ditch that term. [00:30:27] But this is just another example of especially American universities trying to out-woke one another. [00:30:33] It is pure lunacy. [00:30:34] It is ridiculous. [00:30:35] You'd think they'd have better things to do with their time, like maybe educating young people and educating their students, but apparently picking words that are going to offend people is paramount on their list. [00:30:47] You see, Tommy, I would say I would click my fingers and play the world's gone nuts, which is my anthem. [00:30:53] Have we got that? [00:30:58] But unfortunately, I think that would cause more problems because one of the banned words is insane. [00:31:05] And they suggest instead using surprising or wild because the word insane is ableist language that trivializes the experience of people living with mental health conditions. [00:31:15] So presumably, I can't say the world's gone nuts either because that is trivializing the world in a mental health perspective. [00:31:24] It goes on. [00:31:24] I mean, some of this stuff is nuts. [00:31:26] You can't use brave because the term perpetuates the stereotype of the noble, courageous savage, equating the indigenous male as being less than a man. [00:31:37] What? [00:31:38] And it goes on. [00:31:38] User. [00:31:40] You can't use user. [00:31:41] You've got to say client because users apparently are only drug addicts are called users. [00:31:45] You can't use it. [00:31:46] Even if you are actually a user of, say, software systems. [00:31:50] You can't even use the word Karen anymore, even presumably if you're called Karen. [00:31:55] Kanye West Ye called me Karen. [00:31:58] Listen to this. [00:31:59] You don't hold accountability to my pain. [00:32:02] You're being a Karen. [00:32:03] I'm talking about Karen and I'm not going to cancel you and I'm not going to uncensor you. [00:32:09] I'm simply going to challenge you on what you're saying. [00:32:13] So I can't be a Karen, apparently, because that's offensive too. [00:32:16] It's almost impossible, Tommy, isn't it? [00:32:18] To say anything, right? [00:32:20] By this yardstick, every single word potentially is offensive to somebody. [00:32:28] Well, that's exactly the problem here, is that we're not going to be able to speak or say anything without offending someone somewhere at some time over something. [00:32:35] That is why this is so utterly ridiculous. [00:32:37] And like I said, this disease of wokeness is taking over the U.S. [00:32:41] I know that it's largely taking over the UK as well because we export that to you. [00:32:46] I'm sorry, I apologize for that as a proud American. [00:32:49] But I will say this, Piers, the cowards are taking over the world. [00:32:52] That is what's happening here because we have allowed the cowards to take over the world. [00:32:56] We've allowed them to redefine terms. [00:32:58] We've allowed them to have this snowflake culture infiltrate absolutely everything that we say and that we do. [00:33:04] And now you have to be so sensitive. [00:33:05] You're going to call someone the wrong name. [00:33:06] You're going to misgender someone. [00:33:08] Every day it's a new list of things you can and cannot say. [00:33:11] But I will tell you this. [00:33:12] There's also a little thing called liberal privilege and it's also leftist privilege, especially here in the United States of America, because liberals can seem to say whatever they want and they are allowed to do so. [00:33:23] They are celebrated for doing so. [00:33:25] But if you are a white American, especially if you're a white American straight male in this country, oh my goodness, the list of things that you cannot do or say is growing. [00:33:35] And you can't even say, Tommy. [00:33:37] It is absolute madness. [00:33:38] If I was with a group of men and I said the phrase, you guys, that is also now banned by Stanford because you guys lumps a group of people using masculine language and or into gender binary groups which don't include everyone. [00:33:55] To which I say, shut up, you ludicrous wastrels. [00:34:00] I want nothing to do with it. [00:34:01] And I wouldn't mind, but I spent the first half of this show explaining how somebody made a specific death threat against me on Instagram. [00:34:08] And after two years of police investigation, no action is being taken. [00:34:12] But if I use the word Karen or say you guys, presumably I now get arrested by the Stanford Police. [00:34:21] Well, even worse, if you talk about COVID at all, you will also be flagged by Facebook and Instagram and a slew of other social media platforms. [00:34:28] This also goes to show where the priorities of not only woke universities, but the word police in general lies. [00:34:34] There are people around the world that are truly suffering, but instead of focusing on these people, we are sending worthless virtue signals about how not to call someone the wrong name. [00:34:42] You can't even say woman anymore. [00:34:44] It's birthing person. [00:34:45] And the worst part of it is it's not just these woke administrators and professionals. [00:34:49] It's also elected representatives in the United States that have bought into this. [00:34:53] They are perpetuating it. [00:34:54] And I don't know where we go from here. [00:34:56] We're going to start having to speak in Morris Code before too long because we're not going to be able to say much of anything. [00:35:00] Well, somebody actually have to do this interview by blinking too. [00:35:04] Well, even that would be offensive to people who have some blinking disorder. [00:35:08] I saw on Twitter yesterday, Elon Musk was asked by somebody, which I thought was quite smart. [00:35:14] I think he went to Stanford, actually. [00:35:15] He'd hate all this. [00:35:16] But Elon Musk was asked by somebody, is the answer that we all get infested with wokery so much that we all develop immunity and then we move on. [00:35:26] Should we all just inject ourselves with this madness? [00:35:30] Apologies to mad people. [00:35:31] Well, listen, I don't know if I don't know if the liberals or the leftists recognize natural immunity at this point, so I'm not sure that that would be a solution to this problem. [00:35:40] But again, what it's going to take is for liberals and those on the left to start being canceled, to start feeling like they can't say and do what they want to say and do. [00:35:49] When it comes back on them, when they start to be censored in any way, shape, or form, that is the only way that this is going to be reversed. [00:35:55] It is a slippery slope. [00:35:56] Luckily, I do think most Americans see through it and find it quite ridiculous. [00:36:00] But the problem is, is young people that are going to these universities that are paying and hemorrhaging thousands and thousands of dollars to go to these universities, they are the ones that are being indoctrinated by this crap. [00:36:11] And those are the future generations of Americans and future generations of human beings. [00:36:16] And that is what terrifies me most. [00:36:18] Honestly, I do believe the war on language is completely out of control. [00:36:23] And the fact that Stanford University is party to this is terrifying. [00:36:28] Tommy, great to see you. [00:36:29] I know you're proud to be an American. [00:36:31] So we're going to end this segment with a song you may recognize. [00:36:38] This is perfect. [00:36:39] Very proud to be an American. [00:36:41] Thank you so much. [00:36:46] There is a proud American, ever I saw one. [00:36:50] Tommy, thank you. [00:36:51] That was great. [00:36:53] Well, coming next, Andrew Tate's uncensored return last night, divided opinion, blew up the internet, as always. [00:36:59] Is he a matro maestro or a misogynistic menace? [00:37:03] We'll debate that next. [00:37:16] Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensored. [00:37:17] Controversial influencer Andrew Tate's uncensored return last night. [00:37:20] It's been viewed over a million times so far on YouTube alone. [00:37:24] His fans call him a misunderstood maestro of masculinity. [00:37:28] His critics say he's a malignant, malicious misogynist. [00:37:31] I think he's probably somewhere between the two, but last night, once again, he divided opinion. [00:37:37] I do mean what I say. [00:37:38] If I were to see a girl on a private plane on Instagram, for example, I would assume that a man put her on that private plane. [00:37:43] I would not assume she bought it herself. [00:37:44] What if it was... [00:37:45] Perhaps that makes me misogynistic. [00:37:47] What about the Afghan women? [00:37:48] It's nothing to do with me on any level. [00:37:49] You don't have a view? [00:37:50] I have a view. [00:37:51] My view is that people naturally gravitate towards law and order. [00:37:54] And if you didn't have the Taliban, you'd have different warlords operating in lawlessness. [00:37:58] And there would be no way to prevent your store or your market stall getting completely robbed by someone with an AK-47. [00:38:03] And people are going to gravitate towards a form of law and order. [00:38:05] America left. [00:38:06] They left the power vacuum. [00:38:07] And the power vacuum is now full. [00:38:08] What about their treatment of women? [00:38:10] I mean, only tonight. [00:38:11] Only tonight, they have banned any women from going to university. [00:38:15] Fantastic. [00:38:16] Let's get the feminists to go and teach them a lesson. [00:38:19] The feminists are so tough, and they stand up and say they can do anything a man can do. [00:38:22] Let's arm them up and send them to Afghanistan. [00:38:24] I'm sure it'll fix it. [00:38:25] Why can't you just say on that? [00:38:27] You know what? [00:38:27] It's completely wrong. [00:38:28] Because it's not my point. [00:38:30] I don't understand. [00:38:32] It makes me think. [00:38:33] It'll make your critics think that you don't think it's wrong. [00:38:35] They could ban all men. [00:38:36] They could ban all short people. [00:38:37] No, they're not. [00:38:38] They're only banning women. [00:38:39] Correct. [00:38:39] They could ban all short people. [00:38:40] They could ban all people with long hair. [00:38:42] None of it's anything to do with me. [00:38:44] So they can do whatever they want. [00:38:46] I'm not going to go to war with the Taliban. [00:38:47] Do you think you're a misogynist? [00:38:48] Absolutely not. [00:38:49] I'm not a misogynist on any level. [00:38:51] This is one of those buzzwords that just throw at people randomly. [00:38:54] Homophobic, racist, misogynist. [00:38:56] They throw it out at people. [00:38:58] Well, join me now. [00:38:59] It's talk to your contributor, Esther Kraku, and a trembling broadcaster and journalist, Jenny Cleveland, visibly recoiling in horror. [00:39:07] Let's start with you, Jenny. [00:39:10] He's not your idea of a role model. [00:39:12] Well, no, he's not. [00:39:13] I see him as a symptom of a problem rather than a solution to it. [00:39:16] I can understand. [00:39:17] What's the problem that he's the symptom? [00:39:19] The problem is that I think a lot of young men feel that nobody is speaking up for them. [00:39:25] In the culture where we are encouraged to have identity politics, the only identity that isn't a good identity is a young man or a young white male. [00:39:33] He talks in a very straight way and he gives straight answers to some questions, which I think he gives very wrong answers to. [00:39:43] But I find him repellent. [00:39:45] I think he talks about, he basically creates straw men that he destroys. [00:39:51] So he will depict feminism as a particular kind of thing, a kind of man-hating thing, which it isn't. [00:39:57] Well, it is for some feminists. [00:39:59] For a small number of feminists. [00:40:00] There are some radical feminists who generally hate. [00:40:02] There definitely are. [00:40:03] There definitely are. [00:40:04] But most people know that feminism is about just thinking that everyone should have equal opportunities regardless of the people. [00:40:10] Yeah, and one thing we know from Afghanistan, and these heartbreaking scenes today in Afghanistan of weeping female students who couldn't go to university and men actually in Afghanistan then going out in protest for them. [00:40:38] I mean really heart-rending scenes Esther here of these young women in Afghanistan weeping because they've been told they cannot now continue their education. [00:40:48] And then you've got male students walking out in protest. [00:40:50] Very brave thing to do. [00:40:52] Bit like we saw in Iran with the men protesting in support of the women being oppressed there. [00:40:57] This is where he slightly lost me last night, Andrew. [00:41:00] There are a lot of things he says, which I understand why young men, you feel a bit lost, why they gravitate to his confidence. [00:41:06] He's very good at building business. [00:41:08] He's proven. [00:41:08] He's made himself extremely rich doing it. [00:41:10] A lot of what he says about masculinity and stuff, I completely would sign up to, actually. [00:41:15] And his confidence can help people. [00:41:17] But when he was not prepared to condemn for that, because that to me is an open and shut case. [00:41:24] If you don't condemn it, then I'm afraid you've got a problem. [00:41:27] And it's not about sending feminists in to go to war. [00:41:30] As I pointed out to you, which I actually do think is a valid point. [00:41:32] Well, but a lot of women do actually fight in the armed forces. [00:41:36] Yeah, so the idea that none of them do is also nonsense. [00:41:39] I think he was using that to kind of attack the more extreme forms of feminism that says, you know, women can do anything a man can do. [00:41:44] And he was using that as an example. [00:41:46] But I do think, you know, you lose people when you refuse to outright condemn sort of 10th century barbarians like this. [00:41:52] But I don't think, when he said it has nothing to do with him, I think he's not willing to get into dicey territory in that way. [00:41:57] But it's like you speak in such absolute terms. [00:41:59] Do you think he's a misogynist? [00:42:00] I don't think he's a misogynist. [00:42:01] No, I don't think he's a misogynist. [00:42:02] I mean, misogynist means somebody who hates women. [00:42:04] I don't think he hates wisogs. [00:42:05] I do think he hates women. [00:42:06] I think he thinks women are nothing. [00:42:07] I think he would not know what to do with you and I, Esther, because he does not know how to deal. [00:42:11] He gives interviews to people like you or to Hugo Rifkin. === Qatar, Joe, and Illegal Gay (04:41) === [00:42:14] He'll give interviews to them. [00:42:15] Yeah, but a lot of women I've spoken to about... [00:42:17] But he's done interviews with women. [00:42:18] I've seen them before. [00:42:19] He's done a lot of miscarriage. [00:42:20] Yeah, a lot of women do like him. [00:42:22] Exactly. [00:42:23] There are a lot of women who don't know him who seem to hate him, ironically. [00:42:27] But I'm not sure it's as clear-cut as he's a misogynist. [00:42:30] I don't think he's a misogynist, and I have a brother who's probably within his target demographic, 23, and I can understand why his message would resonate with him, because it's normal. [00:42:38] I can understand that it's normal, exactly, for young men to feel like they don't have a place in Western society. [00:42:43] And he actually makes that point. [00:42:44] I just think when you don't want to outright condemn 10th century barbarians like the Taliban, you tend to lose your case with more moderate people. [00:42:50] But again, we're not his target audience. [00:42:52] The fact that his understanding about what's happening in Afghanistan is that it's a feminist issue rather than a human. [00:42:58] I don't think he said that. [00:42:58] Well, no, he did. [00:42:59] He said, send this feminist in. [00:43:01] It's a human issue where we made all these promises to people in Afghanistan and then we left. [00:43:05] Well, let's be clear. [00:43:05] Let's be clear. [00:43:06] We betrayed those women. [00:43:07] We absolutely betrayed them. [00:43:08] Justified in the way we pulled out of Afghanistan overnight and we betrayed not only people who work with us, the interpreters and so on, but people who have millions of Afghan women have just been tossed back to these barbaric... servicemen who died for it. [00:43:22] But the fact that he sees it, he says, oh, it's got nothing to do with me. [00:43:25] As a human being, it should have something to do with it. [00:43:27] As someone who says he's not a family, I thought he was a cop out there. [00:43:30] But albeit, again, a lot of what he says, I could imagine if I was a young man, it would resonate with me, probably for the right reasons. [00:43:37] He's trying to give people confidence and a belief that being masculine is not actually a stick to beat you with, right? [00:43:43] You can be a good masculine person. [00:43:45] He used to be applauded. [00:43:46] Let's talk of somebody who I don't think is a shining example of this. [00:43:50] Joe Lysett, who has spent the last month posturing away with his shiny moral halo about David Beckham being in Qatar and representing the Qataris in the World Cup and being paid for it. [00:44:04] And then the sun revealed yesterday a rather uncomfortable truth, which is that he had actually performed himself in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 2015, a series of stand-up gigs for money, Esther. [00:44:19] Now there's a word for this and I call it hypocrisy. [00:44:22] Well this is the thing, it's hypocrisy and it's cowardice because he would say these things but he wouldn't actually go to Qatar and sit on Qatari State television and say all these things. [00:44:30] He can sit back comfortably and rage at the Akhari. [00:44:33] But his whole point was David Beckham shouldn't be there and shouldn't be fronting anything for the Qataris when this guy himself has taken it. [00:44:39] And his excuse was so mealy-mouthed, Jenny. [00:44:42] Oops, I've been caught by the sun. [00:44:43] Well, yes, I did two gigs in Doha. [00:44:46] Actually, it was three gigs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar. [00:44:49] I kept it secret by writing about it in my own book. [00:44:51] Well, no one remembers that from seven years ago. [00:44:54] I was paid a few hundred quid, not keen to say exactly how much, not by Qatar, but by UK comedy promoters who were being paid by Qatar. [00:45:04] But it was 2015 when Qatar's laws were exactly the same about homosexuality as they are today. [00:45:11] And that went a lot further back then. [00:45:12] And so he goes on. [00:45:13] And then he says, oh, no, but who should I take moral lectures from? [00:45:16] Not from the sun. [00:45:17] Okay, what about Erie? [00:45:18] It's not about the sun here. [00:45:20] It's about Joe Lysett's hypocrisy. [00:45:22] I think it doesn't look good for Joe Lysett, but I would say that they're different things. [00:45:25] The World Cup is about giving soft power on the global stage. [00:45:30] So is stand-up comedians? [00:45:32] He was like a nothing in the world. [00:45:33] So are gay comedians going to a country which they profess to hate because it bans them as a... [00:45:39] By going there, they are basically saying, I don't care. [00:45:42] I'm pocketing the money. [00:45:43] It's the same argument he used against Beckham. [00:45:46] I think with Beckham, it's to do with being an ambassador on the global stage for a country that is trying to elevate their profile. [00:45:52] Joe Lysett in 2015. [00:45:53] If I said to you, it's the old thing of Churchill. [00:45:56] Was it Churchill and Bessie Braddock when he said he was drunk one night? [00:45:59] He said, Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds? [00:46:01] And she said, would you sent me for a million pounds? [00:46:04] And she went, well, I don't know, Winnister. [00:46:05] And he said, well, would you send me for a pound? [00:46:08] No, don't be outrageous. [00:46:09] Well, look, we already established. [00:46:11] He said, what kind of woman do you think I am? [00:46:12] We know what kind of woman you are. [00:46:13] We're haggling over the price, right? [00:46:15] That was a joke. [00:46:16] But my point about Joe Lysett is he seems to be saying, I only took a few hundred. [00:46:19] Beckham took a few million. [00:46:22] What's the difference? [00:46:22] I think you have to be careful about doing this kind of archaeology about what people have done really quite far in the past. [00:46:28] No, no, no, seven years ago when it was illegal to be gay in Qatar. [00:46:31] It's been illegal. [00:46:31] It's been gay then. [00:46:32] You knew that. [00:46:33] Illegal to be gay in Dubai. [00:46:34] And it was illegal to be gay in the US. [00:46:36] Once you sanction this kind of stuff, it's fair game for anybody. [00:46:39] Like all of those sports people who wear it, it's established when they were 18s. [00:46:43] Ten years ago, they stand up. [00:46:45] Stop buying it. [00:46:45] Brank hypocrite. [00:46:46] Don't want to see any more Joe Lyces moral halo. [00:46:49] Thanks. [00:46:49] Thank you, Pat. [00:46:50] Good to see you. [00:46:50] That's it from me tonight. [00:46:51] Whatever you're up to tonight, keep it uncensored. [00:46:55] Good night.