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Feb. 2, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:11
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Royal Honours and Slave Trade 00:08:57
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored from tearing down statues to renaming buildings and handing back royal honours in shame.
Is British history simply too toxic or are we becoming a bunch of history snowflakes?
We'll debate.
Andrew Tate's detained in Romania again facing allegations of human trafficking.
I'll talk exclusively to the lawyer now defending the world's most infamous influencer.
Plus boxer Tommy Fury, stepbrother of the great Tyson Fury, is about to fight one of the biggest YouTube stars on the planet.
Tens of millions will watch.
But is it a stunt that undermines the integrity of the sport or a real fight?
I'll ask you.
Tommy Fury live.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
The British Empire built roads, schools and hospitals across much of the world.
It ultimately also abolished slavery, but the Empire also committed some horrific atrocities in its conquest, just as American history is cloudy by being built on the backs of the wicked slave trade, but illuminated by its defeat of the Nazis and communism.
History is complicated.
The past is riddled with terrible and heinous acts committed in less enlightened times.
That is a fact, but it's also a fact that none of these things are your fault.
They're not my fault either.
We weren't there.
Just as it's preposterous, in my view, to blame King Charles for the toxic masculinity of Henry VIII, which some people are doing.
It's unhinged to imagine that today's generation can or should bear responsibility for their ancestors, isn't it?
The self-flagellation is the vogue.
There's viral currency in apologising for everything in our past to vaunt our virtue today.
Well, that's what the actor Alan Cumming has done by handing back his OBE in a flurry of indignant rage.
It was given to him by the late Queen in 2009.
He blamed the toxicity of empire, adding he'd been grateful at the time, but now his eyes are opened.
Really, Alan?
They were shut, were they, for all those decades that you were alive as a supposedly intelligent man?
You had no idea about the British Empire?
It's not really true, is it, Alan?
Just the Queen's now no longer here, so you feel emboldened to go on a little PR rampage about how disgusted you are by the whole thing.
He doesn't quite realise it, Mr. Cumming, but really, that's the point of this.
It seemed fine at the time, but fashions and sensibilities have changed, and by today's standards, it all seems terrible.
But history itself, of course, stays the same.
Sustained assault on the past isn't just irritating, has direct consequences.
The royal family now is repeatedly hounded by demands for apologies wherever they tore the world.
The ferocious debate about reparations to descendants of slavery in the US is toxic and divisive.
It makes ordinary people who have nothing at all to do with slavery and detest the whole notion of it feel like they're under attack for something that they had nothing to do with.
It reduces us to oppressors and the oppressed instead of simply people who mostly want to make the world a better place.
Tearing down statues, renaming buildings, endlessly apologising for our ancestors might make some sensitive people feel better about themselves and get them a few likes on social media.
But does it make the world a better place?
Well, joining me now, our author and playwright Bonnie Greer, OBE, and academic Professor Nigel Bigger, CBE.
Professor Bigger Daddy's book on colonialism was cancelled by the publisher for concluding that the British Empire was not all bad.
Plus the commentator and best-selling author Douglas Murray, as yet shamefully unhonoured.
And we intend to correct that by the end of this programme.
Douglas gets you something out of this at the very least.
All right, let's start.
Bonnie, you have an honour, which you accepted.
It's the order of the British Empire.
What did you think you were getting?
Are you going to pull an Alan Carlos?
I had no idea.
I think it's the officer of the British Empire.
commander of the British Empire.
I thought it was order.
No, no, officer.
So you're an officer of the British Empire.
I was an officer and I just commander.
Well how does your role as officer of the British Empire square with your criticism of the British Empire?
Well for one thing I took the honor peers on behalf of my late father.
He was here for D-Day.
He was in a segregated army.
The British people were wonderful to him.
He loved his country and he loved the people.
And I took it on his behalf because no one gave him a medal at all.
And I told the now King Charles exactly why I did it and he said thank you.
I love that story.
So when my, when I, at my mother's funeral, I pinned the medal on her dress.
So it's for my dad.
So it meant a lot to you.
It meant a lot for me because of my father's story.
So when you see Alan Cumming, and that's a great story, by the way, and it's wonderful to hear that, because all you hear at the moment is all the negative stuff from the British past.
That's a nice story, it's a positive story.
But when you hear Alan Cumming in this fit of rage, hurling back his honor and saying he's just woken up to the reality of the horrors of the British Empire, what is your response then?
Well, I was giggling a little bit when you did your opening oratorio because actually he would have known this, especially being a Scot, about the British Empire.
British Empire.
I mean, that's a natural thing.
You know, no empire, and I don't know what you've written, Nigel, but no empire by definition is a good thing because what it actually is about is about someone has to be oppressed to be able to...
History, in my opinion, here's where I come up with all these things.
History is nuanced, right?
Yes.
Current history will be nuanced.
Yes.
What we went through 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, everything is nuanced in the sense there's good and bad in all these.
Exactly, exactly.
But then we go back to, and I'm just thinking automatically of the first strike of Indian independence, which is called the Indian Mutiny.
I think they would disagree with the idea of empire.
They would disagree with the empire.
So was Alan Cumming wrong to hand back his honor?
He was right because he wanted to do it, but the reason he did it, I don't really, I mean, if he didn't know that, I don't know, I don't know what to do.
And to those who say, well, Bonnie, you know, if you're that concerned about the British Empire, how do you feel comfortable having a title given to you by the royal family on behalf of the monarchy, which of course was a major part of the British Empire?
How do you feel about keeping that honor as an officer of the British Empire if you feel that way about what the Empire did?
As I said, I did it for my dad.
I understand that.
I did it for my dad.
And hang on.
I get that, but what about you, person, your views?
Well, I never say OBE.
People call me that.
They'll put it up behind my name.
I never ever say anything about the OBE, but I won't relinquish it, and it's because of my father.
Okay.
Nigel, you wrote a book, Professor Picker, to give you a proper title, but you wrote a book about colonialism and moral reckoning.
It was cancelled by Bloomsbury.
I mean, we live in this absurd world now where publishers are censoring authors after they commission books and tell them, what are you going to write about?
And they say this and they say great.
And then you write about it and then they cancel you.
Which, apart from anything else, is ridiculous.
So I just think publishers are making themselves look absurd.
But what was the pretext of your book?
And what is the overview that you drew in conclusion about the British Empire?
The British Empire, I mean, you mentioned slavery and that's true.
For 150 years, the British were involved in slaving other people, Africans, like everyone else in the world.
I mean, even in, I was in North Carolina earlier this month and went to the Museum of History of North Carolina, which told me that in 1860 on the eve of the American Civil War.
The Cotilde, the Cotilde.
30,000 emancipated slaves, some of whom kept slaves themselves.
It was so common.
But in the early 1800s, Britain was among the first states in the history of the world.
History of the world to abolish the slave trade and the leader in suppressing the slave trade all over the world from Brazil to Malaysia.
Sajo, may I just ask you a question?
Sorry to interrupt you, and I would ask you this because you know more about this than me.
What I understand is that the abolition of the slave trade was partly a reason, a way for the Royal Navy to have supremacy on the seas.
In fact, the Royal Navy boarded slave ships, and this was more about the Royal Navy than it was about abolition of slavery.
Yeah, you're kind of saying that the Royal Navy wanted to exert itself, and so freeing slaves was one way to do it.
That's kind of back to front.
I mean, the Royal Navy spent in the mid in the 1830s spent about 13% of its total manpower just manning ships on the coast of West Africa to stop slavers.
And 17,000 sailors died of disease.
It's enormous.
Adam Michigan, why was your book cancelled by your publisher?
Why didn't they publish it?
The Problem with Woke History 00:07:18
A reliable source tells me that woke junior employees in Bloomsbury Publishing protested against publishing anything that they didn't agree with.
And for some reason, I don't understand that the grown-ups in senior management caved in.
But that is the problem, isn't it, in this culture, is that you've got these very young woke employees who buy into all these narratives.
And then they think it's completely right to work for a publisher supposedly supporting free speech in a democratic society like Britain.
And they think it's fine to actually try and get that author cancelled because they don't agree with some of the stuff you've written.
Can I say something too?
I mean, woke, I'm so unhappy about that name being taken over because we're going to talk about history.
Woke was a signal to, we're talking about slavery, to people escaping from slavery.
They used the word on the Underground Railroad.
That was one of the signals.
Well, it was mainly actually.
Well, I wrote a whole book about this.
And, you know, woke actually began mainly in the 60s in the black music community in America.
And it was established as a way of expressing a bigger awareness of social and racial injustice.
I completely sign up to that.
By that definition, I'm woke.
What woke has, and what's happened to the word, it's been hijacked by people who are now behaving like slavery.
So the type of thing that Nigel can't, who's a professor.
And because you know that, because you know that, you shouldn't use it the way you use it.
Because you know that.
Okay, and because you know that.
Bonnie, your historical point's well taken, but in this context, woke refers to.
But don't worry about it.
But you as an historian.
Yes, but using stories.
I want to bring in Douglas Murray.
You could go that way, but since it's being used as a badge of honour, I think it's become literally a badge of the new fascism.
It's basically people now embrace the word woke themselves to say, I'm so woke that if you say anything I don't like, I'm going to ruin shame, villa, violence.
You have the power to instruct people about where the words are.
Then you shouldn't use it.
Bonnie, you shouldn't use it that way.
Bonnie, I wrote a book called Wake Up.
Literally, I wrote a book.
The number one message.
You shouldn't use the woke.
It's still available in all good books.
Unlike Nigel's, which got cancelled in the world.
You shouldn't use the word that way.
I want to bring in Douglas Murray.
I want to say that.
The meaning of works changes according to climate change.
Time out.
I want to bring in Douglas Murray.
He's been waiting very patiently.
Douglas, where are we with this, where every single aspect of our history, and I'm sitting here with an eminent professor whose book about colonial Britain was banned by its own publishers because woke employees rattled their little oversensitive, snowflakey cages at it, right?
But what does it say about society that this is happening?
What does it say about history of this country, of America?
That almost everything in history now we have to feel ashamed about.
Unfortunately, it says that there's one prevailing narrative, and you're not meant to say anything against it, whether the prevailing narrative is true or not.
And on this occasion, the prevailing narrative is not true.
The prevailing narrative at the moment in Britain is a sort of import from the American culture wars, where we've tried to put the legacy of slavery in America over the legacy of colonialism in Britain, make it our founding original sin, and derive all of our morality and our scolding of the past from that.
I mean, we've seen Sir Francis Drake as the latest victim of this, or an explorer from the 1500s, gets run through our 2020s paradigm and found to be failing.
It's happened with absolutely everyone, from Lord Nelson to Winston Churchill.
And I think this paradigm is wildly unfit for purpose.
And the problem is that when anyone goes against it, as Professor Nigel Bigger has, we see the consequences.
And the problem is this, Piers.
What we're suffering from is this massive ignorance in our society where very ignorant people have been grabbing the microphone and saying there's only one way to look at the past, and that's with us being the very enlightened, clever, brilliant, modern people, and everyone in the past being guilty of sin.
And the fact is, if you say, look, we need more nuance on that, you get the backlash.
I mean, Nigel Bigger knows this because when he tried to, some years ago at Oxford, start a course in the ethics of empire, that was lambasted by academics.
You know, if academics at Oxford, including the then Regis Professor of Ethics, are not allowed to look at the ethics of empire, the things that were good in it, the things that were bad in it, what the moral reckoning should be, who is meant to be a good person.
Well, the worst one, the worst one is that I'm not sure.
There was a guy, you'll know this story.
There was a professor at a university in America, I can't remember which one it was now, but he, for 25 years, had delivered a brilliant lecture about the use of offensive language.
And as part of the lecture, he would use offensive language to illustrate what he was talking about.
And he got cancelled because the students protested about him using offensive language.
In a lecture, he delivered for a quarter of a century about the offensive nationality.
Look, there are about five different arguments.
The thing is, though, Piers, that one is a kind of a language.
I'm going to finish the point on that.
The thing with that one is, Piers, in a way that that one is a slam dunk, because it's just like it's ridiculous in a course about language to sort of end up policing language like that.
But the point about history, it can't be stressed enough.
There is a very malevolent, malign interpretation of our history in Britain that is going on at the moment.
And it needs historians and others to correct it.
It's not about one dogmatic narrative replacing another, quite the opposite.
It's saying there is a dogmatic and untrue narrative being pushed on British history.
It's time to add some context.
And the fact that there are publishers and universities and others in Britain that say we don't want that context.
We want to ban that context says something so unhealthy is going on.
And just quickly, Douglas, your response to Alan Cumming returning his OBE over misgivings surrounding the toxicity of the British Empire, which he apparently suddenly realized.
He woke up after the Queen died and realized there may have been some issues with the British Empire, which he had had an OBE from for many years.
You know, you know, Alan Cummings, I have infinite disdain for.
I mean, he's a nasty little Scottish nationalist who lives in California and talks about how Scotland should be independent.
If he wanted to jump on the anti-imperial bandwagon, he should have done it 20 years ago because Benjamin Zeph and I and others did this a long time ago in refusing this honour.
So, I mean, I can sort of believe that Alan Cummings hadn't heard of the British Empire until this year.
I sort of can believe it because he runs so many contradictory narratives in his head.
Yeah, I completely agree.
Bonnie, you've been raging away here.
Yeah, let's talk about contradictory narratives.
I mean, first of all, we all have an obligation, particularly an historian and a particularly a man who's written a book on the subject, to separate out how the word came into being and how it is used now.
It's very important.
It's very important.
Sunak's Conservative Loyalty Crisis 00:15:23
Well, I did all that.
Okay, no, no.
You need to read my book.
We do.
Mine actually got published because of the public.
I can tell you.
A group of wokeys at my publishing company also rattled vacations.
I did.
And in the end, it went away.
But I had a similar thing.
How come there were grown-ups?
Women died.
Because there were grown-ups running the company.
Can I finish?
Okay.
That's the first thing about woke.
It's very important.
It's very important to me that you get that right, where that came from.
You need to read my book.
I don't need to read your book.
You do.
I've written a whole book about it.
Bro, I lived it.
Okay, I'm from Chicago.
I know what woke is about.
I don't need to read your book.
Well, you just said I need to do more about it.
No, I don't.
No, I don't.
I need to do something, but when I tell you I've already done it, you say that.
No, that's your point of view.
No, I don't know what your book says.
Apart from, I hope this has this book been published anyway.
It's coming out tomorrow.
Brilliant.
Yep.
Who's published?
Well, he's one.
William Collins.
Fantastic.
Brave people.
Well, get out there and buy it.
And don't denigrate the word woke because it comes from a very special sacred place.
Don't do it.
Clean it up.
I don't need to read your book.
Bonnie.
I don't need to read your book.
Bonnie.
I don't need to read your book.
I'm going to send you my book for the book.
I don't need to read your book.
You need to wake up and read my book.
I don't need to read it.
300,000 people have bought it.
You're going to read my book.
I'm going to give you.
I'll even sign a copy for you.
I'm going to read one for you.
Wake up.
Nigel, show me your book.
I want to show this to the camera because this was the one they tried to ban.
It's coming out tomorrow.
It's called Colonialism, a Moral Reckoning.
Well, Professor Nigel Bigger, it's a fantastic book.
Should never have been cancelled.
I wish you all the best with it.
Hope is a flying bestseller.
You need to read my flying bestseller.
No, no, no.
You need to listen to me.
That's it.
Good to see you, Bonnie.
Good to see you.
Well, coming next, I wanted just to make a little announcement.
When Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, he kept promising me that he would do a big sit-down interview with me in Downing Street.
And he kept reneging on that promise, culminating in a farcical scene when he ran into a fridge on live television and stayed in there to avoid talking to me.
So, a few months ago, I met Rishi Sunak at an event.
I asked him, can I have an interview with you now that you're Prime Minister?
Can I do it at Downing Street?
Yes, came the answer.
And I got a call yesterday to say, come tomorrow.
So tomorrow morning, I'll be with the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
It'll be the first time I've ever interviewed a Conservative Prime Minister at Downing Street.
Looking forward to it.
Done a few Labour Prime Ministers there, but never a Conservative one.
And it says a lot about Richie Sunak, but he hasn't run into a fridge to hide from the questioning I'll be giving him.
And it's to mark 100 days in office for Rishi Sunak, or as we now call it in the trade, two Liz Trusses.
So it'll be me tomorrow night, the whole show, PM and the PM.
See what I did there?
Coming up next, more rabid shouting.
No.
We're going to have another big debate.
See you in a moment.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan on Sensor.
I've got a flurry of text there from people who've had honours and are very proud of them.
Thank you very much.
And don't think very much of Alan Cumming for accepting it and then sending it back in a little virtue signaling peek.
But first, on his 100th day in office tomorrow, I'll be sitting down with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at number 10 Downing Street for an exclusive interview.
That's tomorrow morning, to where tomorrow night.
But joining me the studio now to debate this in advance, the Mirror's Associate Editor Kevin Maguire, talk to V contributor Esther Kraku, plus from Westminster, talk-to-view political editor Kate McCann.
And from New York, former Conservative MP Louise Menzo, a veritable feast of a panel tonight.
Welcome to all of you.
Let's start with Kate McCann down in Westminster.
What is the general view about how Rishi Sunak has done in his first 100 days, particularly in context of the fact he's already outlasted two Liz Trusses?
I think it depends very much who you ask, Piers, and that's because it's very easy to forget how much chaos there was here in Westminster just a couple of months ago.
Getting rid of prime ministers on a whim, some people suggested, Conservative MPs plotting in corridors.
Bishi Sunak came in with a promise to essentially make politics a little bit boring again.
And I think most of his party thinks that he's done that.
But of course, once you look past that, that's where the problems start because people in his party want policies.
They want things to change.
And the reality is that he's come in dragging a whole load of baggage that the party had accumulated over the last couple of months that he can't really do anything about.
And you're seeing that play out now with those, you know, political scandals.
He's had to get rid of his own chairman.
Didn't want to do that, had to do it in the end.
He's now got an investigation into Dominic Raab and lots of whispers going on tonight in the bars behind me in Parliament about potentially Dominic Raab quitting before that investigation is over.
Now, those close to him say that's not going to happen.
But the Prime Minister doesn't want to focus on this.
He wants to talk about policy.
And when you look across that, well, he's got no money.
He is the former Chancellor.
He knows exactly how much cash is in the public purse.
And the answer is not very much.
There are many here in Parliament who question his approach to particularly the nurses' strike and nurses' pay.
And I think for Tory MPs who are looking back, some of them will remember that chaos and think, well, thank God we're not there anymore.
But others who have quite short memories will think, well, this guy was supposed to be the next big thing.
And we don't necessarily think he's made a huge impact yet.
There is mixed opinion.
I think it's better.
Okay, Kevin Maguire.
I mean, look, on the positive note, he hasn't tanked the pound.
He hasn't tanked the economy.
And he hasn't gone completely stark raving mad.
So he's a distinct improvement on his immediate predecessor.
But, you know, he's 100 days in.
He's only got about 500 days maximum until a general election.
Very hard to actually get anything significantly done, particularly with an ongoing, very grim economy.
No, he's coming at what really feels like the fag end of Conservative rule.
And can he turn it around?
Can he save them?
A lot of his own MPs don't respect him.
That is the problem.
You go drinking with them, have coffees with them, chat with them, and Parliament all the time.
I think it's because they think he just hasn't got a touch for politics.
You look, he didn't think there was a problem.
His wife, an heiress, fabulously wealthy, was a non-dom avoiding tax in the UK.
He didn't think it was wrong for him to keep a US green card so he could scarp her over there if he didn't work out here and work back in America.
Even the stupidity of recording himself, making a statement without a seatbelt on, so he gets fired.
Those things to me were massive.
They add up.
They add up.
Well, they add up, but they're just a rough and tumble of normal people.
He appointed Gavin Williamson as a cabinet minister.
He had a point.
I certainly wouldn't have done that, and I wouldn't have bought Suleiman Raverman back so quickly.
After six months, he did a dodgy deal with it.
I thought the way that he dealt with Nadeem Zahawi, Esther, you know, was the way I think leaders should do it, which is you start an inquiry.
It doesn't go on very long.
You get to the facts and you take action.
To be honest, I think he is kind of just studying the ship as best as he possibly can.
I think your point that, you know, his Conservative MPs will really respect him is quite poignant because he's a technocrat.
He's not a politician.
You can see even the way he interacts with the media.
For instance, when he was asked if he has a private GP, he should have said, yes, I have a private GPU because I can afford it.
It's my moral duty to take the burden off the NHS by paying for my own healthcare.
But he didn't.
He ran away from the question, which was mind-boggling because that was a clear opportunity for him to score a very easy win.
So he doesn't have a very good sort of media manner.
He's not a charismatic person.
But he's not a button.
To me, he's not a buffoon like Boris Johnson.
Oh, absolutely.
And he's not a persistent liar like Boris Johnson from what I've seen so far.
He looks the part, he sounds the part.
He looks like he takes the job seriously.
That is a step up on the last one.
I don't feel embarrassed when he goes abroad for Britain, right?
Which I did with Johnson.
Truss wasn't really an opportunity to do it.
But at the same time, has he got the ideas?
Where are his big ideas?
There aren't any ideas.
Kiersthamer doesn't have any either.
What are Kiersthama's big ideas?
Oh, come on.
You can see Labour would transform with the touchscreen.
So they would come through.
Actually, they would have negotiated and you would have these strikes.
Let me bring in another aspect of this, which is the aforementioned Boris Johnson is clearly on manoeuvres.
I mean, quite literally, he's popped up in Ukraine, glad-handing President Zelensky.
He's been to Congress in America, glad-handing Mitch McConnell and other Senate leaders and so on.
What's he up to?
Well, Louise Mensch, you're a Boris fan.
What is he up to?
Because he's pretending like he's the Foreign Secretary, stroke, de facto, I should still be Prime Minister, isn't he?
Absolutely he is.
And you're totally right that he's on manoeuvres.
He wants to be the once and future king.
And I looked up the actual polls before I came on tonight.
In June of last year, before Boris Johnson was pushed out, the deficit the Tories had to Labour was 7%.
After 100 days of Rishi Sunak, it's now 22 points, so 22 points down in the polls to Labour.
That's really not sustainable.
If you want not only to win the next election, it seems like a distant goal, but even to limit your losses.
And I think Boris is waiting for the results of the local elections in May.
He's waiting to see if he can say to the party, this guy is going to lose every single seat we have.
It was all a mistake.
Let's just wipe it out and go back to the next one.
What I would say is you've conveniently neglected to mention the real culprit, I suspect, in all this, which was Liz Truss, whose unbelievably terrible reign of 44 days of financial terror spooked the entire global markets, tanked the pound to record lows, so on and so on and so on.
Fortunately, she went before the lettuce even expired, and that was that.
But the damage had to be repaired.
And the pound is now back from a low of like 102 to 123 now in terms of the pound dollar rate.
If you're trying to be positive about Rishi Sunak, you'd say, well, at least he stabilised stuff like that.
I mean, that's an advantage on where we were back in September.
Yeah, and he took the Tories from something crazy like a 40-point deficit down to a 20-point deficit, but he hasn't done any better than that.
And frankly, Piers, I can do better than a head of lettuce isn't much of a recommendation for a Prime Minister.
It's really not.
What is the point of Rishi Sunak?
What is Sunakism?
There is no such thing as Sunak.
I'm going to ask him, actually.
I've actually got that on my list of questions.
What is Sunakism?
I'm going to ask you.
There you go, see.
Great mind.
No, I actually think it's interesting to ask you.
I'm going to ask you.
Look, you've been in power for 100 days.
It doesn't sound a lot, but it's a lot more than your predecessor.
And actually, the big question now is, what do you stand for?
And what do you want your country to be?
And how are you going to get us there?
Because he hasn't got that long.
You know, he's only got a maximum of 500 days to call the elections.
So this is in politics.
That will whiz by.
The economy obviously is continuing to be massively problematic.
I just wonder about Boris Johnson's loyalty here.
Does it exist?
Does he have a loyal bone in his body?
Or is every waking thought now that he's not?
He's loyal to Boris Johnson.
Has he just had a stiff regime, basically?
He just wants to be Prime Minister.
He was, in my opinion, a better prime minister, even with all the scandals than Rishi Sunak by some distance.
He had a vision.
Well, that's not what the opinion polls say, Piers.
You can't get away from it.
Under Boris, seven points down to Labour at the worst.
Under Rishi, 22 points down.
It's simple.
You're missing Liz Truss again.
You keep missing the one in the middle.
It's like saying there's a triangle with two points to it.
Let me bring in Esther.
Esther, look, I just don't think the country should even think about going back to Boris Johnson.
It's a completely different.
The idea of going from somebody who looks and sounds like they've got a brain and have a sense of duty about them, going back to this buffoon who's careering around the world for purely self-interest, I think is ridiculous.
I think we need to remember the fact that Boris took a spectacular win in 2019, a massive sort of...
And ruined it.
It's incredible.
In what, three years?
That's a record.
Today he told someone an interview in America, Kevin, he said, you know, anyone who thinks that I knew about these illicit parties or in any way would countenance them going on, you know, really has lost their mind.
To which I tweeted, I've lost my mind.
Because clearly...
Of course he did.
Of course he did.
He was having it in his building.
He was in his home.
He was cracking jokes about the lack of social distancing at some of them.
No, look, he's stalking Sunak.
I mean, Sunak should get a restraining order.
Shouldn't that be done?
I might ask him, but should he be doing more to keep Boris Johnson under control?
Because the moment you do.
I don't know.
I don't know what a prime minister can do.
A prime minister used to have quite good power to do that to an MP.
He's an MP.
Yeah, but you're dealing with a giant ego who just puts himself first, second and third.
That's all it is with Boris Johnson.
I've known him for 30-odd years.
If you give him too much attention, then the attention literally shifts onto Boris and it's like, well, the country has bigger issues than this buffoon.
I think you just let him do what he wants to do.
He needs to accept the fact that he's never coming back as prime minister.
But Rishi Sunak has much bigger fish to fry.
Stop frankly.
Starmer and Labour love it, though.
They are people like Louise Mensch and there's a little Johnsonite just ignoring the reality and pushing him forward all the time.
Fantastic.
Let's go to little Louise Mensch for a final word on that.
I mean, Louise, there you are.
You're there manoeuvring with Boris.
Boris Johnson is a...
Yep, but Boris Johnson is a winner.
He's won an election.
Rishi Sunak wasn't only not put in by the people of Britain, he wasn't even put in by the members of the Tory Party.
And if your panel think that the Conservative Party is going to go gentle into that good night and take the 20-point drop with Rishi, they've got another thing coming.
Brilliant.
You know who was put in by the members of the Conservative Party?
Liz Truss.
Yep.
It just about says everything to me about their judgment.
Anyway, Louise Mensch, good to see you.
I'll be seeing you in New York shortly, a couple of weeks.
Thank you very much.
You're staying with me to the pack.
Kate McCann.
Oh, one question for you, Kate, before we go, actually.
They're all groaning in my eggs.
They want to move on to the break.
So that's going to make me even more determined to talk to you a little further, Kate.
This idea of Boris Johnson returning politically, is it even a starter?
Are people beginning to get a little bit jittery about this?
Piers, I think Westminster Watchers will be thinking tonight that actually, if anyone's due for a comeback or thinks that they could be, it's Liz Truss, not Boris Johnson.
I think it's worth watching out in the next couple of days what you see from the former Prime Minister, because yes, she may well have been likened to a lettuce, as Louise Mensch was saying there, but she is very far from feeling that her career here in politics is over.
So I think very much watch this space from her.
From Boris Johnson, I think he's having too much fun.
He gets to do what he likes, say what he likes, and it still makes huge ripples back home.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, you know what his own supporters are calling him?
Right now, Nadine Doris will be in this studio tomorrow night on Friday night.
He's got an interview with Boris Johnson after years of unrestrained sucking up.
And he finally sat here with her.
And this was the clip, which I think says it all.
Listen to this.
But that point just isn't the case because Rishi is like some kind of submarine prime minister.
He isn't out at the front making the case.
You're making the case here now.
Johnson Faces Serious Rape Charges 00:09:02
But, you know, he's not out there making the case.
He's invisible.
I don't.
I look at he's been on, he's been on TV a lot more than me lately.
I can tell you that much for free.
Don't go, I got to come back.
Anyway, there we are.
The submarine prime minister is what Boris Johnson's allies are calling Rishi Suna.
I'll put that to the Prime Minister tomorrow.
Whether he views himself as a submarine prime minister, or maybe it's time to put his periscope up and gun down Boris Johnson on his manoeuvres.
Coming up next, as his appeal against detention fails, Andrew Tate's lawyer talks exclusively.
He's uncensored.
Don't go away.
Well, next, Andrew Tate will spend the next month behind bars in Romania after losing the latest appeal against his detention.
Tate and his brother Tristian are being held as part of an investigation into rape and human trafficking.
Well, speaking outside court, Andrew Tate said he's done nothing wrong.
No, I'm innocent.
Hallelujah.
Well, the pack is still with me.
Plus, joining me now is the lawyer for the Tate brothers, Tina Glandian, who is in Romania.
Well, welcome to you, Ms. Glandian.
Really appreciate you joining me.
Where are we with this case?
It seems that every now and again this pops up back on television with them being remanded for further time.
How long can that process continue before a charging decision is made?
Under Romanian law, they have up to 180 days, which is in 30-day increments.
So every time there's a 30-day detention order, they're allowed to renew their request and have it extended for an additional 30 days, but not to exceed 180 days.
Okay.
You've taken on this case.
Andrew Tate has been repeatedly bellowing his innocence as he's been led in and out of these court hearings and so on.
Do you believe them?
Do you believe that he and his brother are innocent?
At this point, Pierce, they've had this investigation going since April.
We're now February, and there are not even charges filed against them.
So this is a huge injustice the way we see it.
They should not be detained at this point.
We think it's now crossed over to the point where it's violating international human rights law because the deprivation of your liberty pre-trial is the most severe form of punishment a state can impose.
And that's what they've done in this case.
And they've had a very lengthy investigation with the government's resources.
They've been analyzing and looking at all of their devices since April when they seized everything.
And here we are in February, and charges aren't filed.
So I think there's absolutely no evidence that's been presented.
And that's our position.
What is, I mean, how are your clients at the moment?
How is Andrew Tate dealing with incarceration?
I mean, I interviewed him just before Christmas.
We had a long, wide-ranging interview.
And once again, I was struck by the phenomenal following that he has online, particularly with young men.
You know, he has an enormous following there.
You and I know this has been whipped up now by that community into a huge framing of a narrative that this is complete injustice.
There are others who think this has been a long time coming, that he's a bad human being and that he's going to face very serious charges, and that will be the last we see of him.
But how is he faring right now, given that at the moment he's in this limbo land of no charging but being held in incarceration?
The brothers are both very strong.
They're resilient and they're holding up, but obviously the conditions are not good.
They're in a Romanian jail cell and they've been detained for a very lengthy period at this point.
They have limited access to their attorneys.
It's not a good condition for them.
You've obviously represented a lot of the people.
Please finish.
I was going to say, to your second point, they're controversial public figures, but that's not a crime.
And at this point, we have not been provided any proof that they've committed any crimes, nor have they even been charged.
So I would ask that people presume them innocent as they are.
Do they feel that they are being tried in the court of public opinion?
I think the public is divided, as you know.
I think they have a big following, but at the end of the day, yes, I think there is a lot of information in the public.
I think there's a lot of false allegations in the public.
I think some evidence has now been put forth.
Again, I don't want to comment too much on the facts of the case since there is an ongoing criminal investigation.
However, I think there has been evidence put out, videos and other statements, for the public to see what the supposed state of the evidence actually is.
It's been interesting to watch Andrew Tate's Twitter feed in particular that he's continued to tweet.
Is he doing that himself?
Has he got people doing that for him?
And how do you feel from a legal point of view?
Is it a wise tactic to continue to do that on social media when you're being held in custody by the Romanian authorities?
Well, again, he doesn't have access, so he's not doing anything directly.
And what's being put out is on his accounts.
And I'm not going to speak as to the source of the posts and what's being put out.
But I think, again, as of now, he's not charged with anything.
And he's free to comment publicly if he wishes to.
They've obviously, we know that they seized nearly £3.5 million in cash, 11 luxury sports cars, guns and other weapons.
Or any of the things that have been seized from the property, are they in themselves acts of law breaking?
Just the possession of any of these things?
To my knowledge, they're not.
I think if they were, they would have been charged with crimes.
Again, they had the initial search in April and it's February.
It's been 10 months and no charges have been filed whatsoever.
We have an ongoing criminal investigation for which this is a preventative detention, which is why they're in custody.
Again, this is the most severe form of punishment.
I don't think it's justified under these circumstances where the prosecution hasn't set forth enough evidence to charge them and yet they are detained and it's being prolonged.
But you do accept, of course, that if the women who've come forward here as part of the investigation, if they're telling the truth, these are very serious allegations against your clients, which could lead to charging, and if they led to charging, could lead potentially to long prison sentences if found guilty.
Certainly the crimes at issue are very serious crimes.
And I think, Pierce, actually, it was on your show when you interviewed Tate several months ago.
He made very strong statements about his position on rape.
And he condemned rape, and he said it was disgusting, I'm pretty sure the word he used.
And he said he thought that somebody who does that deserves the death penalty.
So there is no question that these are serious charges.
And even in his own words, they're very serious charges.
There just isn't any evidence that they committed these crimes.
But you know, we've also had tapes which have emerged in the last few weeks of him talking about rape to a woman in a pretty unsavory manner.
So what is your response to that?
I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
You said what surfaced?
There have been various tapes have surfaced in part of media investigations in the last few weeks, including Andrew Tate talking about rape to a woman in a pretty unsavory manner.
So what would your reaction be to that?
First of all, I think the authenticity of anything that is presented through the media as opposed to turned over to the defense needs to be questioned because material is edited and it's easily manipulated.
So first, I would say that.
Secondly, I don't think certain text messages, you know, there are, I'm not here to judge or to talk to people's desires or fetishes, but certainly somebody could easily set someone up by saying they like, they have certain fantasies, they want certain things done to them or said to them.
And so there's a lot that goes into.
You can't take a text message out of context.
You first have to know, first of all, the entire context of it and what the background is.
There needs to be explanations.
So I think you have to keep all of that in mind when you're seeing something in the media.
We do.
And we have to keep in mind also the judges' reasoning for all this.
They explained on the 20th of January that they viewed the particular dangerousness of the defendants and their capacity to identify victims with increased vulnerability in search of better life opportunities.
So all of this has to be taken into account.
But it goes on.
Jake Paul Saudi Boxing Debut 00:06:28
And as you rightly say, at the moment, there have been no charges against your clients.
And until or if that point arrives, we're in a world of allegation, not actual charges.
Correct.
And right now, exactly, there's a presumption of innocence that every accused has.
And that attaches from the time you're even charged.
And here, we're not even there.
They haven't even charged them with crimes.
So any sort of comments as to their alleged dangerousness, there's no evidence of that.
There isn't even a presumption of that.
They need to be presumed innocent.
And that hasn't happened in this case.
There's really a lack of evidence and they are being detained unlawfully at this point.
Tina Glenion, I appreciate you joining me.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you, Pierce.
Well, next to like Boxer Tommy Fury, little brother of Tyson Fury, joins me live ahead of his showdown with YouTube sensation Jake Paul in Saudi Arabia.
There he is.
He'll be two million pounds richer.
But at what cost?
We'll talk about that next.
Well, Tommy Fury will fight Jake Paul in Saudi Arabia later this month.
One is a boxer, the other is a YouTuber.
So what's it all about?
Let's have a look.
I'm really excited that if Tommy loses, he can stay in Saudi Arabia.
He's in Saudi Arabia, leaving for good.
He can become Cristiano Ronaldo's best pal and he'd become a PT for Ronaldo in Saudi.
Well, Tommy Fury joins me now.
You're going to become the Cristiano Ronaldo of boxing in Saudi, apparently, Tommy.
No bad thing to be my mate in Saudi, the highest paid athlete in the world at 37.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, there's a reason he's going out to Saudi, isn't he?
But best thought to Cristiano Ronaldo in his move out there.
I hope he plays even better football out there.
Now, look, there's a very interesting debate about these YouTubers turned boxes, about whether they're making a mockery of the great sport of boxing.
You're a boxer and always have been, but what do you make of it?
I mean, are they at a level now, these Paul brothers, where actually that argument no longer carries water?
I mean, at the end of the day, in my opinion, it's bringing new eyes to boxing, and that's the only positive thing I can say about it, really.
Other than that, it is what it is.
They're not proper professional boxers.
You know, they're just people who's playing at it, you know, doing it to entertain the crowd, earn a few quids, and that's it, really.
But when you put one of those in with a professional boxer, well, you're all about to see what's going to happen.
But I don't know, it's bringing new eyes to the sport.
You know, kids are getting involved that wouldn't normally watch it.
So yeah, it's great.
What if you lose?
I mean Tyson's already made it clear what his reaction will be, which is basically disowning you by the sound of it.
But for you to lose to someone who's not even a real boxer, that would be unthinkable, right?
Of course, and that's why that's not an option.
There is no way that this man could beat me, even if he had a hammer in both hands.
I've got to say no way, and I'm going to exhibit that.
Yeah, I've made it two rules in life: never fight anyone called Tyson or Fury.
Just seems to me to be an act of self-harm.
Well, soon it's going to be never fight anyone called Tyson and never fight anyone called Tommy because I'm going to prove that in shortly under four weeks.
And of interest, have you had a fight, ever had a fight with Tyson?
I've had many fights with Tyson in the gym, yes, but I can't reach his head, so I'll just take his hips.
And that's where I'm online with.
Have you ever knocked each other out?
No, I mean, at the end of the day, if I steal his breakfast, he might eat me with a few good right-hands and wobble me up a bit, but that's not happened so far.
I'm a bit more wiser than that.
Now, more personally, last time I interviewed Tyson, he was on this show, and he said he was retiring.
And I said, I don't believe you.
And in fact, if you do come back in the ring professionally, you've got to give me a million pounds.
Will you take the bet?
And he took it live on air and then said on Talk Sport he would pay me in pound coins.
Can you just tell him I'm still waiting?
And every morning I run down to the post office, there's no bag of coins, Tommy.
Well, I'm sorry, Piers, but I hate to say I haven't got the stones to go up to and ask for your million pounds.
You're going to have to do that yourself.
I'll ring him.
I'm not scared.
I'll ring him.
What's going to happen in this fight?
You think you're going to knock him out?
I know I'm going to knock him out.
This fight will not go any more than four rounds.
The stuff that I'm doing in the gym, the people that I'm handling in the gym, there's no way this goes the distance.
And he apparently went on social media to reveal that you'd become a father without you guys even getting the chance, you and Molly May, your partner, to say it yourself.
Listen, at the end of the day, all Jake Paul can do from wherever he is in this world is speculate.
And that's all that was, speculation.
You know, nothing's ever true unless you hear it from me and Molly.
Do you like the trash talking side of boxing?
It's part of the parcel.
You know, it is what it is.
It's stuff that we have to do.
It's called the entertainment business.
That's the game that we're in.
And me and Jake Paul are great dance partners.
And I've enjoyed the build-up so far.
It's going to get a lot more heated.
And I can't wait, but the real work starts when we get inside them ropes.
And social media can't save Jake Paul.
His mouth can't save him.
It comes down to fighting.
And I'm a lot better at doing that than him.
And just in case things don't go right, do you want me to text Cristiano tonight and just see if he's got any spare rooms?
I mean, if he's, yeah, I mean, why not, Saudi?
I mean, I could come accustomed to living out there, but Piers, you're going to see pigs fly in the air before something goes wrong with me and Jake Paul.
I'll tell you that.
Well, I admire you for coming on Piers Morgan Uncensored, as I did with Tyson.
We'll always have a Fury on here.
You can tell Mr. Paul that we're looking forward to seeing him coming on as well.
See how he gets on.
For sure, listen, make all the best of it, Mr. Jake Paul, because in four weeks, your boxing career is completely over because it never started in the first place.
Well, go get him, Tommy.
Go do it for Britain, Tommy.
Knock him out.
Good to talk to you.
Tomorrow night, the Prime Minister uncensored PM with the PM.
That will be a show.
Tomorrow night, 8 p.m. Keep it uncensored.
Good night.
Thank you.
You got great
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