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March 9, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:30
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BBC Contract Breach Debate 00:14:44
Tonight on Piers Morgan on Saturday, Gary Lineke says he has no regrets as he demands as the demands for him to be fired reach fever pitch.
I think he has a right to his opinion and I'll take on a politician, a sports journalist and a BBC veteran who all vehemently disagree.
Lineke says the government's migrant rhetoric sounds like Germany in the 30s.
So is their language racist or was his?
We'll debate.
Plus Harry and Mega may have given the impression they want nothing to do with the privileged and racist institution of the prison camp monarchy.
But clearly there's been a mistake because they've just given royal titles to their children.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Gary Lineker and Jeremy Clarkson play for very different teams.
One is a woke warrior who talks about football.
The other is a curgeonly culture warrior who talks mainly about cars and farms.
One of them invites me to dinner.
The other one punches me in the face.
Here we go again.
New season, new titles, new managers, new signings.
But apart from that, nothing much has really changed.
So yes, Clarkson and Lineke could hardly be more different.
What unites them is they've both been the victims of witch hunts in recent months for upsetting supporters on the other side.
Jeremy Clarkson made a crass hand-fisted joke about his legitimate loathing for Meghan Markle.
A tyrannical mob brandished snitchforks and demanded that Amazon ITV sever their ties with him.
Maybe they'll get their wish.
Gary Lineke made pretty exaggerated comparisons between the government's migrant policy and Nazi Germany.
A tyrannical mob descended to demand he get fired by the BBC and they may yet get their wish.
Now many of the people in the anti-Clarkson mob are the very same people now defending Lineke.
Many of the people in the anti-Lineke mob were among the loudest defenders of Clarkson.
In this game of two halves, both sides are wrong.
Lineke's standing by his right to an opinion and today he faced down another mob, one of the press variety camped outside his home.
Anything about the tweet, Gary?
Sorry, what about setting the tweet at all?
Do you stand by what you said?
Sorry?
Do you stand by what you said?
In your tweet?
Of course.
But thank you.
Well, good for him.
Lineker's not a guy to bow to a howling mob.
When he'd been abused by 100,000 Real Madrid fans at the Burnabau, Twitter probably isn't that intimidating.
But the BBC's bureaucracy may be a tougher opponent.
It has a special knack for tying itself in knots, operating with the logic and efficiency of the Politburo.
The BBC's new chairman, for example, Richard Sharp, donated £400,000 to the Conservative Party and was recently revealed to have helped facilitate an £800,000 loan for Boris Johnson shortly before somebody called Boris Johnson appointed him as BBC chairman.
There have been no consequences.
But it barrowed Emily Maitlis for skewing Dominic Cummings for breaking his own lockdown laws and driving 30 miles to test his eyesight.
The BBC is a taxpayer funded by decree and BBC News must be consummately impartial.
I get that.
But Lineke's not a news journalist.
He's not even a BBC employee.
Nothing in his contract says that he's not allowed to comment about news.
He's a sports presenter.
Comments he makes on his own Twitter account are not funded by the licence fee.
He's not a spokesman for the BBC, certainly not their news division.
And he didn't make those comments on a BBC programme.
You might disagree with him.
That's your right.
I disagree with some of what he said.
You might even decide that you're so furious about his opinions, you don't want to watch Match of Adele anymore.
That's your right too.
But to shame him, vilify him and demand his head on a platter because he shared an honestly held opinion is surely wrong.
Free speech means hearing the opinions you dislike as much as the ones you support.
Well, joining me now is a former BBC Royal Correspondent Michael Cole, talk TV presenter Richard Tice, and BBC Broadcast and Sunday Times columnist Matthew Said, all of whom are shared by one thing.
They all completely disagree with me.
So this is a unique playing field where it's basically me up against a team who's going to try and take me down.
And I'm going to be curious as to which one of them might be to persuade me.
Michael Cole, let me start with you.
You're a BBC man to your bootstraps.
You worked there several decades.
20 years.
Right.
So what do you think of this?
From a BBC perspective?
I think that he has to be severely reprimanded and I think the BBC needs to seriously review his contract.
Why?
Because he is the face of the BBC in a very real way, in exactly the same way that when we were growing up, Richard Dimbleby was.
Also a figure of the...
No, completely...
Sorry.
No.
Dimbleby was the face of BBC News.
Very different thing.
Lineke has nothing to do with the news division.
He's not even a BBC employee.
No, no.
Richard Dimbleby was.
He was, in fact, Panorama was current affairs.
It wasn't news.
Well, news and current affairs.
Yes, but the point.
They go hand in.
The point is this.
BBC Sport is not Speaker's Corner.
We're not waiting for a programme called Rant of the Day on the Sports.
They literally, every Saturday night, a match of the day, rant and express strongly held opinions.
It's literally the Speaker's Corner.
Match of the Day on sport.
Yes.
On sport.
So what's the difference?
The difference is that when you have the responsibility of that position, getting £1.35 million of the licence payers' money every year.
Actually cheat for what he does.
Well, maybe that's the best.
I think so.
Cheap.
Well, only because in the marketplace, if Gary Lineke was available to anybody, he would earn a lot more money.
He actually earns more money pro rata for other companies than he does for the BBC.
Well, indeed, he works for them then, and I'm quite sure he would have no difficulty at all finding other employment.
We shouldn't begrudge him the money.
He would have the pleasure of being a martyr, and I'm quite sure he began.
He's one of the best sports presenters in the world.
He shouldn't be begrudged for the money he earns.
Tim Davey is the fairly new Director General of the BBC.
And he said very clearly at the outset that he wanted to instill and insist upon impartiality.
Impartiality is the BBC's unique calling card.
That is what's wrong with Trust around the world.
I get it.
So can a sports presenter and a face of sport like Gary Denica express a political opinion?
Yes, if he wants to stand for Parliament or go to the United States.
But he can't do it in a corner.
He can't do it as a BBC presenter.
No, he can't do it.
Okay.
So here's my follow-up.
When Gary Denica launched this year's World Cup, last year's World Cup in Qatar.
Wrong too.
He did a two-minute monologue attacking the human's rights record of the host nation Qatar.
He was told to do that by BBC management.
So BBC management decided then that Gary Denica could be overtly political in his opinions on the BBC.
They were coming.
On the BBC.
At their request.
Hang on.
I'm coming to you.
On the BBC, Michael Cole.
Yes, yes, right.
They were covering their backs because there'd been so much about it in the paper.
But how could they have the brass neck to turn around, having ordered him to do that and express a political opinion on their main show of the year, the World Cup launch show?
How could they do that and then turn around and say, you can't express political opinions?
That's a matter for BBC sport.
When you're watching a sports personality, you do not expect political opinions.
Now, Lord Grade, Michael Grade, who was 80 yesterday, by the way, he was...
Oh, great man.
Happy birthday.
When he was head of Channel 4, he said the BBC is there to keep the rest of us straight.
In other words, to set the standard.
And that standard means impartiality on all the important matters.
And that's it's a unique call of the.
Hinika's not even impartial about football.
Well, he just saw him in his underpants having made a bet on BBC about Leicester winning the Premier League.
He's not what he's paying to do, though.
The bottom line is.
So come on, you're the politician.
Yes, look, the problem is.
And by the way, you profess to be the great standard-bearer of free speech.
And I'm not denying him his right to his free speech.
Do you want him fired?
Where it conflicts.
Do you want him fired?
Where it conflicts, Piers, is he's in breach of the BBC code of conduct.
He's not.
He is.
He's absolutely.
I've got it here.
It's unusual for you not to know this.
I know the code of conduct.
Right.
He is in breach.
He's not allowed, according to this, in any circumstances, whether in journalism or finance, anything you post on social media from a personal or a BBC account.
He's in breach of that.
No.
He's in breach of contract.
No, that applies to news.
No, no.
And this is an impartial statement.
That applies to news and current affairs.
No, it doesn't.
It applies to.
It's not in his contract.
I can tell you, I spoke to Gary this morning.
It is not in his contract.
Which may explain why the BBC has been incapable so far of doing any disciplinary action.
He is a freelance contractor.
That's irrelevant.
There's nothing in his contract about his tweets.
He represents the BBC.
Everybody knows him as one of the great faces of the BBC.
And yes, he can have free speech.
You can't do that at the BBC.
Why not?
That's the difference.
Why can't you?
Because it's a taxpayer state podcast.
To be clear.
To be clear, he's not in breach of his contract.
He's in breach of his contract.
I'm telling you.
I'm telling you for 100% fact, he is not in breach of anything in his contract.
He's in breach of their contract.
Nothing in his contract.
And he represents the BBC.
Nothing in Gary's contract.
Nothing in his contract says he's in breach.
And I think you are right there, because you wouldn't be saying it so definitely as you are.
But it's a question of taste and context and good judgment.
This was an outrageous thing to say.
It was out of the way.
Let me stop you there.
We're going to have a debate later in the programme about the content of what he said, which I took exception with.
I don't think there's any parallel between 1930s German rhetoric led by Adolf Hitram and Arsenal.
That's what happens when somebody doesn't know anything about politics.
I understand.
Expression.
I understand.
Although there have been some leading members of the Jewish community who have said similar things about this rhetoric involving the small boat.
So he's not alone.
And in fact, I think he was repeating something he'd read from a leading light of the Jewish community.
So we'll come to that debate a little later.
I want to bring in Matthew Saeed.
So Matthew Saeed, let me ask you this.
You have presented programmes and podcasts for the BBC, right?
Yes?
Please guilty?
That's correct.
So you are a BBC presenter.
You're a freelance like Lineke, right?
Yes?
Yeah, but hang on, I'm just saying.
I'm doing a quick checklist to establish your credentials.
So you are, you admit to being someone who has regularly produced and presented BBC programmes and podcasts.
Yes?
Like many political journalists.
Hang on, hang on.
Matthew Peterson.
You do get to ask.
I don't want you dissembling, Mr. Saeed.
I want you to answer a simple question with a simple answer.
You have presented and produced BBC programmes and podcasts.
Yes.
I present a BBC podcast.
I'm proud of the podcast.
And you're a freelance.
But if I can... I'm going to ask you the question in a minute.
This is a fact-checking exercise.
And you're a freelance like Lineke.
You're not a BBC employee.
That's correct.
Right.
So how is it you're allowed to be spewing all sorts of political opinions all over Twitter?
Zahawi is sacked, you said, on 29th of January this year, but the corruption goes wider and deeper.
20th of November 2022.
It's been a period of hugely damaging, contradictory economic policy from a single party.
Truss trashed Boris, Sunak trashed, Tras and Brexit keep shapeshifting, the most damning thing.
Tory backbenchers have cheered and waved papers through it.
Now, these are, if you're not a Tory, if you're not, well, if you're a Tory reading this, you would say that you're an anti-conservative pundit using your Twitter feed to express strongly held opinions about government policies you don't agree with.
And so my question, I agree it's been a laborious journey.
What is the difference between you and Gary Lineke?
Why do you feel he should be censored and if he does it again, be fired, which I think is your position, but you, Matthew Saeed, can continue presenting programmes for the BBC and podcasts and spew away about politics with no censorship or being fired.
Or are you offering to fire yourself live on Piers Morgan uncensored?
May I respond?
You may now respond.
Thank you.
So I think the fundamental distinction, there are many political journalists who I think are rightly hired by the BBC to bring a trenchant opinion to the airwaves and we are sold and packaged as people who have strong political opinions.
Michael's distinction I think was the absolutely critical one.
There are certain people who are the voices, the faces of the BBC.
Lineke is much more than a sports journalist.
We can see this to a certain extent by the fact that his comment on a political policy of the day has become a dominant story.
And the thing to bear in mind is that part of his moral authority, his cachet, his cultural kudos, is because of the relationship with the BBC, the platform that he has to speak to millions of people, not just on match of the day.
When England plays an international competition, he is the person who is speaking and editorialising for 20, sometimes more, million people.
And I think people who are paying the license fee are entitled to expect impartiality from people with that status.
I sadly am a minnow.
If you don't mind my saying...
I think, Piers, if I may ask you a question.
You may.
Just to push you on your position.
Yeah.
I agreed with a very great deal of what you said about free speech.
I think there's a great deal of hypocrisy from those who are criticising Lineke now, who would be celebrating him if he had praised government policy on asylum.
But let me ask you this.
Imagine England are playing Germany in the final of the World Cup, three o'clock in the afternoon, and people are looking at Lineke's feed because he is a BBC freelancer.
And half an hour before kickoff, he's not a news journalist, he's not a political journalist, but because of the association with the BBC, he chooses that moment to make a comparison between the government, Labour or Conservative, and the Nazi Party.
Are you seriously telling me that the fact that he is a sports journalist enables him to say what he wishes via the BBC platform?
Royal Family Hypocrisy Exposed 00:14:54
Well, my response would be my original question to you.
I don't see any ethical distinction other than his fame, which I don't think he should be blamed for because that's because of his success and his legacy as one of the all-time great England strikers.
I see no ethical difference between him and you.
And I, by the way, I like your stuff.
As you know, I've told you this before.
I like your column apart from when you're hammering me, right?
And I like your tweets when you're not hammering me.
So to be clear, I have no problem with what you do.
I just see no distinction between a freelancer like Lineke and a freelancer like you, both presenting shows for the BBC, him with perhaps more success, which is why he gets more money and fame, which is not his fault.
And as a result, you think there's a distinction because it saves you from having to be exposed to the same argument and therefore get censored and maybe fired, which seems very convenient.
So let's draw the dis but you have very cleverly not answered the question that I asked you, the fundamental.
Oh, but let me answer.
Okay, fair enough.
Fair enough, fair enough.
Let me answer.
To be fair, I'll answer it.
You're right.
I've actually written a column in The Sun tonight in which I basically answered this question.
My bigger problem with Lineke was nothing to do with the tweets on his personal account, which I don't care about because I don't really go to Gary Lineke for my political opinions.
I did object to his monologue at the start of the Qatar World Cup because I felt that was the fusion of sport.
And we'll play a little clip of it here.
Here's a bit of that monologue.
Ever since FIFA chose Qatar back in 2010, the smallest nation to have hosted football's greatest competition has faced some big questions.
From accusations of corruption in the bidding process to the treatment of migrant workers who built the stadiums where many lost their lives.
Homosexuality is illegal here.
Women's rights and freedom of expression are in the spotlight.
Also, the decision six years ago to switch the World Cup from summer to winter.
Against that backdrop, there's a tournament to be played.
One that will be watched and enjoyed around the world.
Stick to football, say FIFA.
Well, we will, for a couple of minutes at least.
Now, I had a problem with that because I don't think that was appropriate.
And I'll say why.
Because there was no such monologue at the Russia World Cup.
There will be no such monologue at the start of the one in America, Canada, and Mexico.
I can bet my life on it.
Qatar was singled out for the one and only monologue.
Even the China Olympics, when they did that at the BBC, they didn't do any monologue about human rights.
And I felt that was wrong.
And I said so at the time, and I said so tonight in my column.
So in answer to your point, I would say if it's said on air, I have a problem with it.
If it's said on a personal account, and he's a sports presenter, I don't have a problem with it.
That's where my line is.
Even if it was half an hour before 20 million people are going to tune in to a map.
What I'm trying to get you to acknowledge, Piers, is the inextricable link between Lineke's moral authority.
I mean, we would not be discussing any other footballer making a claim about politics.
I mean, if other people are not going to be able to do that, I don't go to Gary Linneck.
I'm not sure if I can do this.
I love Gary.
He's a good colour.
I'm afraid of nothing that is conferred by the BBC.
Yeah, but I don't go to Gary Dinikova moral authority, for goodness sake, any more than he'd come to me for it.
He's British.
He's the face of the BBC.
It's a taxpayer-funded, impartial.
If it was Hugh Edwards, Hugh Edwards, who reads the news.
It makes no difference at all.
It makes them all in it together.
They're not.
No, they are.
They're absolutely in it together.
The editorial guidelines make that crystal clear.
They're all in it together.
You're drawing a distinction about his contract.
That's irrelevant.
It's completely irrelevant.
He represents...
Actually, it's the reason he's not being censored.
He represents the BBC.
But Richard.
Because he represents, he's got to apply by their code of conduct.
But a contract.
A contract is a contract.
And I can tell you.
And a code of conduct.
There isn't a code of conduct.
There is nothing in his contract or obligations to the BBC prohibiting him from tweeting.
But this is why the BBC have not punished him.
I bet his contract says he's got to apply by the code of conduct.
This is about the BBC.
I believe passionately in free speech.
Nations shall speak peace unto nations.
All of you want him to say that.
No, it's about trust.
We're talking about the BBC here and Gary Lineke, but the BBC first.
The BBC was built on trust.
It took decades around the world and it can be lost very, very quickly.
And the most important part of that trust is impartiality.
Not neutrality, that's a completely different thing, but being impartial.
And if that is undermined by episodes like this, people will just say, well, that's the BBC again spouting off this way or that way.
But are you comfortable?
So are you comfortable with Matthew Saeed, BBC presenter of a number of programmes and podcasts, making political points on Twitter?
Yes or no?
I agree.
Yes.
You are.
Well, there he goes to totally hypocrisy.
But he's also brought it into disrepute with.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
You all gained up in a conspiracy of hypocrisy.
He's bought the organisation.
Are you comfortable with Matthew Saeed doing?
Because he's an experienced conversation.
He's not the face of the BBC.
And there will be some of the things that we're talking about.
So it's all about how rich and famous Gary Dunne.
Because they'll have balanced it.
There'll be someone on the other side with a podcast with a differing view.
Right, with Gary Dunny.
If somebody steals a pound or 10 million, they're both thieves.
It's got nothing to do with the money.
It's just a question of scale.
He's also brought the organisation into disrepute.
Everybody's talking about it, and that's very bad look.
Only in disrepute to those who don't agree with him.
Here's the truth.
Here's the truth.
If Gary Dineke came out tomorrow and said, you know what, this small boat's policy is fantastic.
Send them all back home.
You would be straight out there going, knighthood for Gary Dineke.
Absolutely.
And I want a statue in Parliament Square.
Absolutely, because I've got integrity and he's completely wrong and you're wrong 3-1.
I think Lineker's got a lot of integrity.
And by the way, he's a lot of balls.
He stood by his position today.
He was wrong, but on Gabby.
They all agree.
Lineke has to go, but Matthew Saeed can carry on presenting BBC programs because he's experienced any political views he likes.
As long as we've all reached a point of consensus, I think I've won my argument.
Gentlemen, thank you all very much indeed.
Well, we come to more people now, what their royal cake and eat it, trashing the royal family every occasion and then using the titles of prince and princess for their children.
We'll be debating more laughable hypocrisy, this time involving Harry and Megan next.
Well, you may recall that Harry and Megan, the favourite friends of this show, have spent years trashing the royals as a bunch of cruel, privileged racists trapped in a terrible prison of an institution.
So imagine our surprise when a spokesperson for the couple confirmed via People magazine that Princess Lilibet Dina had been christened.
Why would they use a title for their children that represents an institution they loathe so much?
Well, joining me now to discuss all this is author and historian Tessa Dunlop, Royal Editor of the Daily Mirror, Russell Myers, and Michael Coles remain with because, of course, he was the BBC's voice of royalty for two decades, as he reminded us.
All right, Russell Myers, I don't get this.
No.
Because I was sure that they kept telling the world how ghastly the monarchy is.
It's a prison camp.
All the royals want to get away from it, but they can't because they're trapped in the world of titles and privilege.
And now they want to give their kids the titles of prince and princess, even though they don't live anywhere near the royal family.
They don't do any duties.
They do nothing to deserve it.
They live in a mansion in Montecito in California and use their own royal titles to make loads of money, which may be the clue to why they want their kids to have it.
Yeah, I think you've pretty much summed it up for a lot of people.
They're seeing this hypocrisy being played out.
It's like a soap opera, isn't it?
That something out of East Dender's script.
And Harry and Megan have made an awful lot of money and an awful lot of noise over the last couple of years by telling everybody how awful the monarchy is and the monarchy that they left behind.
Indeed, Harry and Megan wanted a half-in-half out model.
The Queen said that they couldn't.
And so, yeah, it's very, very surprising that they should want this point.
Well, you say surprising.
I would say, Tessa Dunlop, rank hypocrisy yet again from these two.
Russell's so polite.
First time on the show agreeing with you, you wait.
He'll turn the screws in a minute.
I would like to suggest that Harry and Megan, it's a bit like criticising the police force.
I often criticise the Met Police.
My uncle was a commissioner in the Met Police.
Doesn't mean that I don't believe in having a police force.
You can criticise the monarchy and say, here are the fault lines and do it clumsily.
Why would they want to inflict on their children royal titles that make them part of the royal family worldwide and expose them to the misery and pain and trauma which Harry tells us he suffers on an hourly basis?
Normally for large checks, by the way.
Because isn't it very clear they've left the rigid institution?
Yes, so why do they want the title?
They're not a rich institution.
And they're going and they've got monarchy light, Atlantic style.
That's what they've done.
Why do they want the titles?
I don't understand.
Well, you do understand.
Tell me why.
Well, a couple of reasons.
One is, yeah, there's cachet.
Oh, the pricelessness.
The cash.
Yeah, in the slippery world.
And cash.
Oh, come on, Peter.
Because we all know Harry and Megan, as Harry and Megan, would be making a lot less money if they weren't the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Yes, they are.
Which goes on every statement they ever made.
I just want to share something with Michael and Russell.
And this is an epiphany I had today when thinking about peers.
I do occasionally think about you off-screen.
I bet you've never said that.
I've come to the conclusion that although you sit there night after night professing to be a monarchist, you're not deep down.
I am.
No, because the whole point is, with the system of hereditary monarchy, you can't choose the loons and losers that get born with the right to be princess and the principle.
No, you can't choose the principle.
Okay, Michael Cole.
It's Michael Cole.
It's all very odd.
It's pick and mix, isn't it?
We want the trapping.
Yes, we want the.
We don't want the duty.
We don't want the hard work.
This is all very, very odd because legally, they became, Archie and Lilibert, became prince and princess at the moment Her Majesty the Queen died on the 8th of September and King Charles took over.
Because by the latter's patent drawn by King George V in 1917, grandchildren of a reigning monarch become automatically princes.
And this is what Meghan Markle was struggling to remember in her Oprah Winerthon when she claimed the only reason why Archie hadn't been already made a prince was because of his skin colour.
It turned out she just didn't understand.
Okay.
No, I'm asking Michael because he knows about these things about how the system actually works.
There was no racism.
No, none at all.
And that was actually quite shameful, what was said at that time.
Russell, remember what she said.
This is what she told 50 million people around the world.
I do recall it and regret it.
It's worth reminding me.
I've got the idea of the first member of colour in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be.
It's not their right to take it away.
It was a complete lie.
Hang on, Tessa.
It was a complete lie.
Appalling ignorance.
Appalling ignorance and also used in a very, very nasty way to attack people who couldn't answer back and brand them a bunch of racists when they weren't.
Racism is a terrible accusation to make because it's easy to make it impossible to prove it.
Tessa, you're seething.
Why?
I'm not seeing it.
You've just heard a lie.
But I think the key we need to pick up on there is the word ignorance.
Michael, esteemed former BBC journalist, 80 years he's been walking on this planet, absorbing ideas of hereditary monarchy in the British Constitution.
Megan.
You're not 80, are you?
On Monday, I was Archie.
Are you serious?
I'm sorry.
Michael Cole, you look unbelievable.
You're 80.
Really?
Yes, I was.
Well, happy birthday.
Thank you very much.
Congratulations on being a new Lord Michael.
Benjamin Butler, former BBC correspondent.
Okay, Russell, let's bring this back to the thing.
The ongoing thing is, are they going to come to the coronation?
Through their little lickspittle, Omid Scobie, he said that apparently they invited all the royals to Lilibet's christening, but they all declined to come as if they're all going to get on a plane and fly to California to embrace the people who've been trashing them for the last three years.
But it looks like from the jungle drums, they have been invited to the coronation, right?
Now, they're holding it out to make it all about them, make it a big drama.
So do you think they're actually going to come?
I do now, yeah, I think because it's their currency, isn't it?
They've made an awful lot of money.
And again, they're tact by having that association with the royal family.
Mr. Cache and Cash.
You mentioned the favoured journalists that they were briefing in the first instance that they weren't going to have titles.
And now, there's another screeching U-turn.
We already had one of the U-turns about the racism element within the royal family that Prince William was forced to deny.
Michael, you want to jump on?
I was going to say, this is another example.
I totally agree.
His Majesty the King has played a blinder in all this because he let it be known from the very outset that they were welcome to come, Meghan and Harry, to the coronation, putting the ball firmly in their court.
If they decline, it will make them look small-minded, petty, mean-minded.
And if they accept, they will make them look open the door to hypocrisy.
You know, I'd make them sit in the middle.
I'd make them sit in the 10th row right behind Prince Andrew.
So when the world's cameras get beamed on them, all they see is their little heads peering around and...
It's not going to happen.
The king has spoken about unity and togetherness.
And I don't think he would be as churlish as to not invite them.
You won't be involved in the church.
I actually think he shouldn't have invited them.
Why would you invite a couple of rat bags who'd been attacking every member of your family to just avoid it?
I'm just saying what I would have done.
If that was people in my family, I wouldn't want them anywhere near my coronation, which, by the way, can only be a matter of time.
Yeah, but do you make the point there?
All you have to do is one of your offspring, marry into the royal family, and hey, Presto, the Morgans get a little tinge of monarchy.
That is how unbelievably mad the system of hereditary monarchy is.
We all get fat chewing the fat of this story.
But the problem you have, Piers, is you like the system when it works, but you don't like it when it doesn't.
No, no, no.
And Harry is an example of it not working.
No, no, no.
You completely misrepresent what I think about the monarchy.
My mother camped on the mall for both Diana and Fergie's weddings, right?
We grew up, we ran a country pub in East Sussex.
I remember this 1977 silver jubilee, the street parties and everything.
It was fantastic.
So I grew up as a...
That's when it's working.
Small Boat Crisis Solutions 00:08:22
Hang on.
Oh, it wasn't working even then.
There's always been chaos and carnage in the royal family.
When I was a newspaper editor, barely a week went by without some new scandal.
That's not the point.
The distinction with these two is they have openly attacked the institution of the monarchy.
Diana didn't do that.
Fergie didn't do that.
They have unloaded on the institution being a prison camp that no one can escape from.
Why then would they call their kids prince and princess?
I was 10 at the last coronation.
You haven't asked me to guess, Piers, but I'm going to guess what will happen.
Go on.
May the 6th is Archie's birthday.
I rather fancy that she will stay behind.
They're going to have a birthday party in California and he will come.
Particularly as three days later, he's due to be the star witness in a very contentious case that's going to be opened against Mirror Group newspapers and he's going to go into the witness box.
Well, that is going to come after the Lord Mayor's show.
We know what happens.
After the coronation, we've got a court case.
So Harry, as we know, is very concerned about privacy.
On that bombshell, on that bombshell, we'll leave it.
But yes, it's going to be an interesting month.
Lovely to see you, Michael.
Lovely to see you.
Great to see you.
Pleasure.
Thank you all very much indeed.
We're coming up next.
Gary Lineker accuses politicians of echoing the language of Germany in the 30s, Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, about migration.
So have their words gone too far or have his?
We're going to debate that next.
Well, welcome back.
So away from whether Gary Lineke should be sacked from the BBC, and by the way, I don't think he's going to be at all.
There's been a huge backlash over how he compared the government's rhetoric on migrants to the rhetoric in the 30s in Germany from Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
In his tweet, he suggested the Home Secretary's response to the small boats crisis used, quotes, language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.
Well, join me now to discuss this.
Writer and commentator Larissa Kennedy and comedian Konstantin Kissin, who moved to the UK from Russia when he was 11.
I've still got Richard Tice here and also Paula Roan-Adrian is with me as well.
So let me start with you, Larissa, on this.
When you read what Gary Lineker said, did you think that was a fair analogy to contrast this government with a regime that was building in the 30s in Germany, which was to go on to slaughter 12 million people?
To be absolutely clear, what Gary Lineke said is that, and I'm paraphrasing here, but the language used to justify what is happening here with this bill, with this proposal from the government, is akin to language that was used in the 1930s in Germany.
So I think it's really difficult to begin then talking about policies and actions because that is something entirely different.
Because I think what Gary was trying to insinuate is that we need to be cautious of the slippery slope here, which is well documented, which is that language and the dehumanization that language can do is very, very powerful in leading down that slippery slope.
And what we're doing is that it is, but I would argue, I'll bring Constantine in here.
My issue with this is you talk about slippery slope.
The moment you get into 1930s Germany, you evoke memory of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and the Holocaust and 12 million people being murdered, exterminated in concentration camps, 6 million Jews in concentration camps and so on.
I just think that is a slippery slope.
And the moment to me anyone invokes that in relation to a current government like this Conservative government, to me you're losing the argument because you're using an extremity of a debate which just bears no relation to reality.
Well, right, and I'm not particularly easily offended, so I'm not offended by his comments.
But the problem we've got here is not so much that he said something silly or insensitive for me.
The problem is it's completely inaccurate.
Tens of thousands of people were not trying to get into Germany on small boats.
And that is, I'm afraid, the real problem with this whole argument is the people who want to demonize Britain as this racist hellhole can never seem to explain why tens of thousands of people like me want to come to this country and settle here.
And some of them do so illegally, even by breaking the law and putting themselves in danger, which is something actually I think we should all be concerned about and should be seeking to end.
Yeah, I mean, my problem, Larissa, with this, Gary, Gary doesn't have a solution to one of the biggest problems with the small boats at the moment, which is a third of the people coming in on these small boats are young, perfectly healthy, non-vulnerable Albanian men who are being recruited, they suspect, mainly for gangs already in the UK.
They're being brought over by criminal gangs.
They're spending thousands of pounds to do it, so they're not short of a few quid.
But these aren't the most vulnerable, oppressed people from war-torn countries.
They're coming from a perfectly safe country and they're abusing our system.
But I don't see anything in Gary's statement about that reality of the people coming over on these small boats in large numbers.
To be really clear, we are often talking about people being trafficked here.
And in fact, they're not people's rights.
They're not being stripping people of their rights.
Larissa, I've just told you that.
So you deny that there are people being trafficked to the UK.
You're not denying that there are being people.
Hang on, look.
Let me repeat the question.
And so you know better than Genocide Watch, you know better than that.
Larissa, let me repeat my question because the human rights organisations have also been documenting this.
Let me repeat my question.
A third of the 45,000 or so people who came over last year to the UK on small boats were Albanian young men, perfectly healthy, not vulnerable, not oppressed people from war-torn countries.
That's a fact, a statistical fact.
And when I saw that, I found that alarming.
That said to me the system was being gained.
Now, there are other people who are coming from war-torn countries.
In fact, Britain has been leading the way in putting up people from Ukraine, from Afghanistan and other genuine war-torn places.
That is a different issue.
But what would you do about all these young Albanian men coming in who are not from war-torn countries and just want to come in without doing it legally?
What would I do?
Well, I don't think my first action would be to strip all of those, all three-thirds of those groups of their rights illegally by contravening international law.
I don't know how the question is being reversed rather than the government's actions actually being interrogated, because at the moment we are contravening international law.
In 1951, we signed up to the Convention on Refugees saying that we would not put extra pressure or impose sanctions on those who came via illegal entry.
We signed up to that as a country.
So it's not for me to now sit here and debate the right thing to say.
This is the problem.
This is not exactly the same thing.
Let me ask Constantine, because there certainly is going to be a massive legal row about this, but what is your response to that?
Well, this is exactly the problem.
And this is nothing personal to Larissa, but the people who pretend to care about these people never seem to have a solution to the problem.
And the reason is they haven't thought about the issue at all.
Now, look at the point you made about people from Albania being smuggled.
Let's say that they are being smuggled.
Why are they being smuggled into this country?
Because we allow them to be coming in here in these small boats, and we don't do anything to prevent it from happening.
And we don't do anything to disincentivise these smuggling gangs from doing it, right?
And all we have to do, by the way, is declare Albania a safe country so that no one who comes here from Albania illegally is entitled to asylum.
It's not very difficult if you actually care about the issue.
And my biggest concern as someone who like you is proud of Britain for helping people who are coming from genuine need is that if we continue to make the British public feel like they're being taken for a ride, and of course they're right to feel that way once we spend £7 million a day accommodating these people, if we continue down that path, then eventually people are going to get fed up and say, we don't want anyone coming in.
Sunak's Safe Country Plan 00:04:23
We don't care about the circumstances.
And then the very people that these woke loved Gary Lineker pretend to care about are going to be the ones that suffer in the end.
I mean, to be fair to Gary Lineke, everyone shouted at him, well, if you care so much, take one of them into your house.
And he did.
He took in a young boy refugee and he did take care of him and he's very proud of him.
And so he did actually practice what he preached.
Thank you both for that.
Good on it, but that's not the solution, Piers.
No, no, I totally agree.
And in my son column tonight, I've said, where is the answer, Gary and Sakir Starmer and others criticising the government?
Where is your solution?
Because I don't see one.
And the problem with allowing so many obvious economic migrants to come in illegally is that you are then taking attention and money and resource away from the people who really need it.
And that is what we should be focused on as a country.
But Larissa, Constantine, thank you both very much indeed.
We're going to have a short break coming.
I'm going to bring in Isabel Oksha, familiar to this parish, I think, certainly to you, Richard.
And we're going to pick up on that and also get some reaction to, well, it's called lockdown files.
She really is miss lockdown files now.
Her new name, Isabel Lockdown Files.
We'll get a reaction to that.
New nickname after the break.
Welcome back to Piers Organizer.
Richard, Tyas, obviously, talking to the entire set is about Oakshot and talk to the contributor Paula Rottages.
So what I introduced you there is Miss Lockdown Files.
I said I've been called a lot worse this week.
Well you have, I was going to ask you about that.
You have been mercilessly trashed by many people in our profession of journalism.
A lot of it grotesquely unfair in my opinion.
How do you feel about it?
Look, I think it's fairly obvious what's going on here.
I'm quite a divisive character.
I was a Brexiteer.
I'm still pro-Brexit.
I'm with this guy.
That alone would be enough, really.
It's controversial.
But it's been pretty bruising, I suspect.
I've broken a number of really big controversial stories.
This isn't my first rodeo.
I've been through it before.
It's not nice, but it should never have been about me.
It isn't about me.
It's not about Matt Hancock.
It's about actually trying to make a difference here.
And I think that it's achieved that.
How have you felt, Richard, as the other half watching all this?
Just appalled, actually, at the way that the industry has behaved because it's about how government completely misled the people.
They haven't focused on that at all.
They focused on the messenger.
And yeah, it's pretty rough seeing your other half go through that level of abuse, completely unjustified, and what one can do about it.
And look, I think a lot of it is jealousy.
A lot of these people have never broken decent scoop in their lives.
Well, let's be quite clear.
If any of them had had it themselves, they'd have run every word and lauded you as a journalistic genius.
And this comes back to my initial point about the Lineker story: a lot of hypocrisy flies around about all these things.
Paula, I'll ask you, not about that.
What I'm asking you just for your reaction to this whole Lineker thing, the boats crisis, the language use.
Put it all in context.
What's your overview about it?
So to answer the question, which was, is the language dangerous?
The answer is yes, it is.
We know it's dangerous because we've seen the reaction from members of the society.
We've seen a hotel, an immigration hotel that was firebombed.
We've seen marches on the streets, etc.
We've seen what's happening to stir up.
What would you do to stop this surge?
And it's a surge.
It's gone from a few thousand a year to 45.
There may be 65 to 80,000 this year.
What would you do to stop it?
Well, I'll tell you what I'd do.
I do the two things that Rishi Sunak is doing.
Tomorrow he's going to meet with Macron.
He's going to try and get an agreement that would mimic essentially the agreement that we had before Brexit, Richard, the Dublin agreement.
It makes no difference at all to me.
There would be almost no deep statement.
The second thing I would do is again what Rishi Sunak has kind of slipped in in the back door whilst we're focusing on the boat people and Gary Lineker's tweet is that I would extend the list of jobs that we need to bring people in.
We know we've got 1.2 million jobs that are going at the moment and Rishi Sunak said today that he was going to open up that list to include construction workers.
Invading Countries and Valour 00:02:40
Yeah, but here's my point.
Here's my point to you.
I have a view that we should remain a humanitarian country at our heart, right?
What we did with Ukrainian people, with Afghanistan people and others from Hong Kong, for example, what we've done with all these people who've been in real trouble in different situations, we've been very humane and very welcoming.
But I agree with those who say that there is something inherently wrong with a system that allows 15,000 young Albanian men from a safe country to pop up on a dinghy and get access to the country illegally when there are lots of really desperate people trying to get in here from war-torn countries and they're going through a legal brute.
I just don't think it's right and fair.
And I don't think most people do.
And you're right.
I mean, nobody can deny that.
But what the problem has become is that we are mixing two very different people.
We're mixing people who are migrating for work and we are mixing people who are seeking asylum.
The ones migrating for work should be doing so in a legal, proper manner.
And they're currently not because it's too easy to get on the boat.
I want to change the topic.
I want to change to Michael Kane hitting out at claims that the great movie Zulu has provided inspiration for possible terrorists.
The film was started as a key text for white nationalist supremacists, Richard.
He's called it the biggest load of bull bleep he's ever heard, which I completely concur, not least because my brother was a colonel in the Royal Regiment of Wales, as it was originally known, now the Royal Welsh.
And of course, they got seven Victoria Crosses of the 11 awarded for this extraordinary act of valour by the Allied forces, as they were then, against the Zulus.
An extraordinary act of valour about invading another person's country.
I just want to be clear that that's the starting point.
That's true, but the point is.
The reality of the question is it's ball derash.
It's got nothing to do with nationalism.
It was an extraordinary scene of bravery, of courage, of making the right military decisions at the right time.
I've been there, I've been in the building, I've seen it.
I've seen what happened the day before at Isandwana, when about 1,200 British soldiers were killed because their leaders and commanders made the wrong decisions just at the wrong time with catastrophic consequences.
So look, there are lots of lessons to be learned from this, also about invading other people's countries.
Because we don't hear about that in the film, do we?
Do we, Richard?
We don't hear about the people.
It's a film talking.
Hang on.
It's a film about what happened on the day.
It's not about the rights and wrongs of British colonialism over the last 150 years.
But the point is, it's an incredible story of valour, of courage, and the film represents that.
It's one of the great movies of all time.
I love it today.
Unbelievable Stories of Courage 00:01:24
I completely concur.
Talking of unbelievable stories.
So that's obviously what we're talking about.
We're talking of unbelievable stories of valour and courage.
Have you got any more scoops for us from the lockdown files?
I'm working on it.
So you put your glamorous head over the parapet to be shot at by your rivals.
Is there more to come?
I think there's at least another day or so of it.
But look, this is such a huge issue for so many people.
The number of letters that I've had, emails, people stopping me, was really...
Let's be clear, it's been utterly riveting to read, right?
It just has.
I've read it all.
Fascinating insight.
And if they want to commit all their thoughts to WhatsApp and one of them wants to then pass it to journalists, well, this is what happens.
You'd be less of a journalist if you hadn't done what you'd done.
Of course.
I'll be like, what's the matter with you?
It's what I'm there for.
I've heard of that.
Have you had any more conversations with Mr. Hancock?
No.
You have?
No, I haven't.
No contact at all.
I haven't.
And I'm awaiting his legal letter.
There are two chances of him suing you.
No chance and Bob chance.
If there was a Bob chance, that joke would have worked.
There isn't Bob.
Anyway, keep going.
And ignore all the haters.
They're just jealous.
I've been there.
Keep your head proudly above the parapet and take it off.
Stop there.
Good to see you both.
That's it for tonight.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
You hear me, BBC?
Keep going, Gary.
That's it from us.
Good night.
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