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May 1, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:50
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Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Oath of Allegiance to the King 00:14:08
I'm Piers Morgan.
I'm censored tonight.
The palace invites the public to swear allegiance to the king and his heirs and successors at this week's coronation.
Is it a patriotic boost for a people's celebration or a tone-deaf misstep?
It's a gift for the doommongers.
We'll debate.
Silence from normally censorious Guardian journalists on a shocking anti-Semitic cartoon just a week after his sister paper published a shocking anti-Semitic letter.
Does the British left have an anti-Semitism problem and a problem with rank hypocrisy?
Well, she's the lungs of the nation.
And for me, the new Dame Vera Ling, world-class songstress Catherine Jenkins is here to kick off a week of coronation celebrations with a world exclusive interview and a series of nightly performances just for us.
From the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan uncensored.
Well good evening from London and welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored on a bank holiday.
I know what you're thinking.
He's underpaid, he's overworked, and they even drag him in on a bank holiday.
But that's how you get to the top.
Commitment and dedication on days when everybody else is having barbecues and lying by the beach.
Not me.
Oh no.
Oh no.
It's coronation week and like it or not the eyes of the world are on the British monarchy.
This will be an historic state occasion.
To put it in context, think about this.
The procession on Saturday will be twice as big as the procession for the Queen's funeral, three times as big as the procession for the Platinum Jubilee.
This will be the biggest celebration of our monarchy and British modern history since of course the Queen's coronation back in 1953.
But ultimately it belongs to the British people.
The monarchy belongs to the British people.
But in trying to make precisely that point, the palace has begun this momentous week with what looks to me like a bit of a misstep and I'll tell you why.
In a striking change to an ancient ritual, the watching public will be invited to pay homage to King Charles by reciting an oath of allegiance, something normally reserved for Aristocarocrats in Westminster Abbey.
It's supposed to make the service inclusive.
A people's coronation, they say.
But instead, it's played into the hands of the naysayers and Republicans bent on souring this coronation.
Scenes like this up at Celtic feel like a kind of inevitable response to being asked to pay homage and bear allegiance to the king.
Well, utterly charming, of course, as ever from Celtic fans, but that's what they've always been like towards our monarchy.
And I have a similar view of Celtic fans, so all's fair and love and war.
Now, they've got mixed feelings, obviously, about this.
They're not even mixed, really.
I've got mixed feelings too, because our king has earned allegiance from us with the longest apprenticeship in history and a lifetime of duty and service.
I will defend King Charles and the institution of the monarchy to the hilt as a unifying force for good in this country.
But as always, the devil lurks in the detail.
The Order of Service will say, all those who so desire in the Abbey and elsewhere say together, I swear that I will pay true allegiance to your majesty.
So look, so far so good.
I've got no problem with those words.
I can imagine a lot of people at home actually saying, yeah, yeah, I can say that.
I can go along with that.
Nothing dictatorial about that bit.
All those who desire can get involved.
All those who don't desire can keep their big gob shut or change the channel or go and watch Celtic.
But then the oath concludes with this.
and to your heirs and successors according to law.
So help me God.
And this is where I've got a problem.
The king's heirs and successors, well, they include a rather unsavoury bunch of characters that many British people might rather lock in the Tower of London than pay allegiance and homage to.
Let's not forget that Prince Harry, the great royal traitor, is fifth in line to the throne, despite having done more than anybody in living memory, with the possible exception of his wife, to trash and undermine the institution we're supposed to be celebrating.
A little further down the list is Prince Andrew, eighth in line to the throne, who recently paid a woman he said he'd ever met $11 million to avoid getting into court to contest a sex abuse scandal.
His calamitous PR decisions have heaped global embarrassment on the royals.
Now, I believe passionately in the British monarchy, but I'd rather be garotted, frankly, than swear my allegiance to either Harry or Andrew.
And I suspect most British people feel the same.
In a severe cost of living crisis, and with polls showing more than half of the British people don't care about the coronation, especially young people, the idea of pledging allegiance to an unelected head of state feels like the wrong answer to a serious question.
If King Charles wanted this to be an inclusive gesture, maybe a better place to start would have been shelving the oath altogether or doubling down on the message that he, like all our monarchs, lives in service to all of us.
Well, joining me now, as author and historian Dr. Tessa Dunlop and talk to V presenter, Rosanna Lockwood, and former royal correspondent, Michael Cole.
Well, welcome to all of you.
So Tessa, I don't know why, as soon as I heard about this oath, and I heard it came from conversation in the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace and Buckingham Palace and Charles and so on, it just felt like they taught themselves into what they all thought was a good idea.
But in the cold light of day, when they've seen the reaction, even for a lot of people like me who are pro-monarchy, even I was wincing a bit and thinking, have they really thought this through?
I know even you and Sarah Vine, there was this wonderful moment of unity between left and right, everyone feeling a little bit queasy.
But do you know what the problem is, Piers?
When we drill into you beyond the tiaras and the tinsel, I would question whether you really are a monarchist.
Because the point is with hereditary monarchy, you don't get to choose.
And that is where this oath is all wrong, because it's reminded us of the horrible, inconvenient truth that hoisted above us as our head of state is someone we have no say of.
Well, look, I have no problem with that if the head of state is of the caliber of the Queen moved.
Well, hang on.
You've had your say.
Just for the record, I am a monarchist and I do believe in the royal family and I think they do more good than harm.
But Rosanna, the problem I have with the oath is right now I'll pay allegiance to King Charles because I think he's earned it.
Right.
But I'm not, you know, there's some problem.
He's not there suddenly.
You can't pay an oath on conditions though, Piers.
You can't say I'm going to withdraw this at a later point.
Why should it be in perpetuity for everybody else on the cab rank?
I am going to listen to the historian Tessa Dunlop on this and that is how inherited, you know, power works.
But I'm glad that you brought up in your opening monologue that point about dictatorial because when I was thinking about this, there's something quite Soviet almost about everyone looking towards a TV set.
Yeah.
And pledging allegiance.
The TV set does not.
They say it was an invitation.
You're not compelled to do it, obviously, but you're not going to get police running into houses, arresting people.
But I agree, it did have a slight Kim Jong-un feel.
Right, you will all...
We can all agree on these things.
Yeah, but I don't actually agree with you.
I think they were trying to conjure up ideas of Merry England and the Maypole.
Allegrance to the king.
Ho-ho, the medieval times.
Where is the green man?
It just failed.
Hustle.
Okay, let's bring in Michael Cole.
Michael, you've been listening patiently here.
What do you think of this oath?
Well, Piers, as you've said, it is an invitation to people to make an oath of allegiance to the king and his successors.
And like any invitation to a dance or to a wedding, it can be declined or it can be accepted.
It is an attempt, and I think it's a well-meaning attempt by His Majesty the King to involve as many people as possible.
It may be that some people don't want to, they may sneer at the idea, they may be part of a metropolitan elite, but there are many, many people around this country and around the world who will welcome that opportunity to play their personal part in the coronation.
Hang on, okay, hang on.
Michael, do you actually think that large groups of people in homes up and down the country are going to sit around a television and recite this?
Do you really think that's going to happen?
I do, and I'll tell you why, because this is notionally a Christian country, and many people are not observant, but most of us, given the right occasion, will stumble our way through the Lord's Prayer, and we will take comfort in that.
And I think people will actually feel involved.
And let me just say something about hereditary monarchies.
There are in the country, in the world, 43 monarchies, and there are 149 republics.
So there's plenty of choice.
And by and large, the monarchies are the happy lands.
And the republics are not necessarily so.
By the way, I know you think you're the stato of royal statistics.
So what about this one, which I saw on Twitter today, which I loved?
The United Kingdom is one of only two countries in the world that have monarchies where the coronation is a Christian service.
Can you name the other one?
Well, of course, the king has 14 overseas realms like Canada, Australia.
No, no, it doesn't include those.
I mean, actual individual countries which have a coronation.
Probably Sikkim in the Himalayas.
Apparently, according to this guy on Twitter, a historian, is Tonga is the only other place which actually has.
Did you get that right?
No, we didn't.
I would love to pretend I did, but of course she stole the show at the 1953 coronation.
Yes.
Looking extraordinary in a downpour.
I've got a question for Michael.
Can we go back to him?
As he's such a believer in us notionally remembering the Lord's Prayer and likewise this Pledge of Allegiance.
Can you pledge it down the lens right now?
Have you learnt it off by heart?
No, I haven't, but I have got written down because I prepared to be on the Piers Morgan show the oath that Prince William is going to swear.
Oh, yeah.
And he says, I, William of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship.
And faith and truth I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folks.
So help me, God.
Wow.
And that was from the days when, yes, indeed, that was one of the days when it was important for the monarch to establish who his friends were.
A monarchy and a coronation was a matter of life and death.
You see, I would only say, to be honest with you, I would only say stuff like that to Thierry Henri or Dennis Burkham.
And your wife.
Possibly Lord Botham, Ian Botham.
That's about it.
Three sporting legends.
Revanna, you've been waiting patiently.
I want my chance with Michael now because I want to speak on behalf of the sneering Metropolitan given that, you know, I'm a sort of millennial journalist type, even though I live in the countryside in a village.
But I think what people are doing here when they're saying, I don't really want to swear allegiance, you know, they may feel agnostic about the royal family.
But the other key thing is they're using their brains, their critical thinking functions, their brain capacity, which is something when it comes to the monarchy in this country.
And God bless this country.
I love it so much.
People seem to sort of remove their brain when it comes to the monarchs and they just sort of follow through.
And I think that's what this quote-unquote sneering metropolitan elite, you're targeting.
All right, you've answered for charge very well.
I want to move on to the other story that's been bubbling today.
A new interview with the Markle family, led by Thomas Markle, who of course had a stroke a few months ago and was actually quite seriously ill after it.
And he's given a new interview in which he talks about Meghan Markle effectively treating him like he's dead.
Let's take a listen.
Let's go somewhere and talk.
And I say, what's wrong?
What?
How can I fix this?
How can I fix this?
Of course I love you.
And the bottom line, Harry, nice guy.
I love you for my daughter.
Meg, I love you.
I love my girl and children.
I'd love to see them.
And I'm open to any kind of conversation.
I mean, I found that pretty sad, actually.
I mean, whatever your view about this family war that's going on, he hasn't seen his daughter for five years now.
He lives 70 miles away from Montecito.
It's an hour in a cab.
And he's a broken man by the look of it.
He's obviously got a lot of health issues now since the stroke, hence his voice and so on.
But you take your heart or stone, don't you?
My issue again with Megan and Harry, they preach a lot about compassion.
The Archer World Foundation is all about compassion.
Where's the compassion for this guy?
Even if he is giving another interview, which drives them nuts.
As he says, what else can I do?
He's got nothing else he can do.
Yeah, I think that felt like lifting a lid and looking at something that I felt I shouldn't actually be seeing.
Right.
It was, I agree.
We all felt uncomfortable.
Very tough watch.
A very tough watch.
You want to get in the house of Montecito, knock a couple of heads together and look, time's not on your side, just taking one look at Thomas Markle.
But Harry and Megan bonded through pain, their childhood pain.
Where Is Compassion for Harry 00:02:55
They both did.
They both carry massive elephants from the room, skeletons from the past, difficult childhoods that we can't fully understand.
Well, hang on.
I'm sorry, but we can't pick it up.
She went to live with Thomas Markle for years, right?
So whatever pain it was probably involved her mother at the time.
But hang on, we don't, none of us.
Well, we know she lived on her own with Thomas for years.
None of us know.
We all know that the optics for Megan would look better if she could reconnect with her father.
For some reason, she doesn't feel able to do that.
It's just a tawdry and sad state of affairs when you've got a family communicating via exclusive TV interviews and Netflix specials.
He will have been paid handsomely.
Very, very handsomely.
And, you know, it's awful to watch a man who is so sick appealing to his daughter like that, using a TV show.
However, of course, he received payment.
Of course, Megan and Harry have come out and said that they felt exploited.
Yeah, because the one thing those two don't ever want to do is sell their privacy for money.
I mean, obviously, it would be the last thing they'd think of.
Michael Cole, you reported throughout periods of unbelievable royal traumas, the Diana, Camilla, Charles trilogy, and so on.
What happens?
I mean, it seems to me what's going to happen if this plays out the way it looks like it is.
Thomas Markle's going to die and he's going to die without ever being reconciled with his daughter.
And it's just going to be, on any level, a human tragedy, right?
That's deplorable and it's very, very sad.
And if Meghan Markle looks into her soul, she will recognize that her father was her entree into show business because he was a very skilled television lighting man, a chief man.
He wasn't just the man changing the bulbs.
He was the man making the pictures look good.
And that's how she got into show business.
That was her entree.
And now, we've got a situation where Prince Harry is not on speaking terms with almost all of his own family, and she is not on speaking terms with any of her family, apart from her mother and one niece.
So you've got to ask yourself, in all of this, why is that as it is?
Well, I'm doing the maths, and I'm working out who the problem is.
You know, my thing is they've been joined, you say, by terrible experience.
I think they've been joined by a love of victimhood, which is a modern day curse, and a love of weaponizing things like mental health, racism, and so on, to promote their brand and make themselves stinking rich.
I really do.
And I know it sounds cynical to say that, but I am very cynical about what they've been doing.
I do think that's what they've been doing.
Both of them would argue, it's a chicken and an egg.
Which came first?
Thomas Markle?
Prince William has been through exactly what Harry's been through.
Exactly the same.
He's ever sold out.
Hang on.
Oh, hang on a minute.
Who's got the second to one big gig on Saturday?
You cannot compare the experience of William versus Harry.
Going back to that allegiance.
You know what?
When I go home for a family dinner, I get the last sausage.
It's what happens.
Media Weaponizing Victimhood 00:14:46
Oh, yeah.
It's what happens when you're the big boy.
When you're the firstborn, when you're the eldest, you get a few treats in life.
Me, the extra sausage.
William, he gets to wear a crown and be king.
You can't make a comparison.
Yeah, my siblings don't like it either, but tough titty.
Anyway.
Did any of your family talk to you?
Do you want to talk about it?
They all talk to me.
And you know what?
If one of my family did what Harry's done, that would be it.
And what if your dad did what Thomas Markle did?
He wouldn't.
Well, lucky you.
Lucky you that you have a dad you can.
But I wouldn't ostracize him.
I mean, Harry's never met the guy.
Harry's never met the man whose daughter he married.
It's unbelievable.
That is unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
That's amazing.
I mean, seriously, it's ridiculous.
I think, given the way we're talking, what's unbelievable is Harry actually brave enough to say is that sadly we have to lose you now.
Losing me.
We're cutting you, I'm afraid.
You're out.
You're being replaced brutally and heartlessly.
Not because of your views, but because we're moving on to another segment.
Lovely to see you, Tessa, as always.
Uncensored and uncancelled, it turned out.
Well, uncensored next.
Silence on the normally censorious Guardian newspaper journalist on a shocking anti-Semitic cartoon just a week after it published a shocking anti-Semitic letter.
What the hell is going on at The Guardian?
What is this staggering obsession with being anti-Semitic?
And where is the hypocrisy of these sanctimonious commentators?
Remember, they were founded on slavery, these people.
We need to have a chat about The Guardian after the break.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan.
The Guardian is Britain's woke Bible.
It revels in its self-appointed role as a nation's morality police.
But for the second time in a little over a month, it's been forced into a grovelling apology for its own foul play.
First, it says sorry on its front page for its founders' links to slavery.
And now the editor's facing calls to resign after an anti-Semitic cartoon this weekend caused outrage in the Jewish community.
The image in Saturday's newspaper used anti-Semitic tropes in a grotesque caricature of outgoing BBC chairman Richard Sharp is Jewish.
Sharp was depicted with an enlarge nose, carrying a box stuffed with gold, a squid, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's head.
A pig's head was featured behind him.
The image is clearly offensive, but no prominent Guardian commentators have joined the near-universal condemnation.
Can you imagine if the Sun or The Times or Daily Mail had done something similar with, for example, a Muslim public figure?
The hypocrisy of that silence is deafening and outrageous.
And this, of course, follows The Observer, which is the Guardian sister paper, publishing that now infamous letter from Diane Abbott, the Labour politician, in which she effectively said that Jewish people only suffer the same kind of prejudice as people with red hair.
Well, joining me now, I was talking to V Presenter Richard Tyres, talent agent Jonathan Shallett, and Rosanna's still with me.
So, yeah, Rosanna, let's talk about The Guardian.
What is going on at The Guardian?
I knew you'd come to me because, you know, I take umbrage with your points here, given that it is my woke Bible.
Right, of course.
You know, I love The Guardian.
I think it's a great newspaper, some brilliant journalists working there.
This lapse is absolutely abhorrent, though.
Absolutely.
As with the Diane Abbott letter as well, there needs to be some serious questions there, but I do think it's a great paper stuff with great journalists.
Why are none of those great journalists on Twitter doing what they normally do when a newspaper commits an outrageous act of anti-Semitism or racism?
And that's expressed their indignant, personal, wounded fury.
That is shocking to me.
You would expect somebody to break ranks, because you know, working within news organisations, often we're hamstrung by what we can and can't say on social media and what the bosses want to say or not.
But journalists need to have inquiring minds.
Why aren't they speaking out against this?
It has been not as loud as you would hope from absolutely silent.
I mean, Richard, there's a rank hypocrisy here.
Never mind the offence of the cartoon.
Now, I know Martin Rosen, and he's a brilliantly talented cartoonist.
But this was, immediately I saw it.
I was like, what the hell have they done?
Because it followed, also followed the Diane Abbott thing in the Guardian Sister paper.
How could one media group get it so badly wrong in the space of about eight days?
The first one was pretty unforgivable, but I think this is actually as bad or worse.
And how the editor is, frankly, still in the job, because as you said, if it was any other media organisation, there would be screams and howls of condemnation saying, resign, resign here.
If that happened here, we'd all be asked to resign.
Jonathan, you've worked in the media a long time.
You're one of the top talent representatives, management guys I know.
You're Jewish.
What did you figure this?
I mean, this is our first Diane Abbott and now this, both from the same media group.
And it's the media group that leads the woke stuff.
The one that leads the charge against friends.
They were so guilt-ridden and ashamed by the discovery that hundreds of years ago their founder may have employed slaves.
They've paid 10 million, I think it is, to ease their guilt in reparations and so on.
How can they keep being so blind about anti-Semitism?
Is it the same reason Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour Party were so blind?
Actually, maybe quite a few of them are anti-Semitic.
Well, I think clearly they might say they're not anti-Semitic, but there must be a degree of anti-Semitism, certainly subconscious anti-Semitism, because how can you let, how can one week you be saying Jews in the Holocaust is the same as a redhead being picked on at school, six million Jews, gypsies, travellers, and a redhead being picked on and teased?
I'm not defending redheads being picked on and teased, but you can't even make that.
No comparison.
And now, and now, if it was a black person, there'd be race crime prosecutions possibly.
The editor would have gone by now.
And the fact that people even think it's okay.
I'm hoping that come the working week starting tomorrow, things will actually happen because talk's easy over a busy weekend.
Well, the Guardian loves accountability and everybody else.
Where is the accountability here, Piers?
I mean, come on.
There has to be some.
Someone has to go.
It can't keep carrying on like this, week after week.
Oh, we're so sorry.
We're so sorry.
And where's people like Gary Lineker?
Quite happy to say that the government shouldn't appoint a chairman of the BBC.
Where's he on this?
People do not view anti-Semitism like they view racism.
That's the fundamental issue.
Staggering because six million Jewish people were murdered in a holocaust simply because they were Jewish.
A more glaring example of racism, it'd be impossible to find.
Do you think that the nation needs a renewal of education or something like that?
Because it just seems like mass-scale ignorance on the part of a lot of these media organizations that are doing this at the moment.
They didn't realize the cartoonist said, I didn't know this is anti-Semitic.
It's not mass-scale.
It's one media organization, the Guardian Media Group.
They're incompetent, they're anti-Semitic, someone needs to be held to account at the top.
Okay, look, let's move to something else, which I found in a very different way, very unsavoury.
And it's Leeds United Football Club, who had a nightmare game at the weekend.
They got stuffed.
And there were a group of people waiting as they left the hotel where they'd been staying for this game, including a young kid in a lead shirt.
Look what happened here.
Let's just watch a bit of this.
One by one.
These players, you've already disgraced themselves on the pitch.
Totally ignore this kid.
Headphones in, marching past, or actually diverting to avoid him.
A little boy.
I've been that kid when I was young in my little Arsenal shirt waiting for Frank McClintock and Bob Wilson.
It would have been unthinkable when I was that boy's age, 1972-3, right, when I was eight or nine.
If I was that kid, for these players to have done that then.
Unthinkable.
What has happened to these footballers?
And we saw, by the way, I'm not going to spare my own team.
We saw the same thing with Arsenal players about two weeks ago.
Similar kind of scenario with a young girl, right?
Here, where again, they all came and signed her segment.
Not one of them engaged eye contact.
Not one of them talked to her, even said hello.
And she kept looking up like, I've got a daughter, desperately wanting one of them to just show some kind of interest.
And they've all got their earphones in and they all just marched on again.
Now, apparently, in both cases, there were other times in the day when they did, whatever.
These videos show what they show, Richard.
It's happened to basic respect for fans.
A decency.
I think it shows they're out of touch.
I think it shows they're elitist.
But most of all, where's their passion for their club and their supporters who actually drive everything, who motivate everything?
That's part of the passion.
You can have passion on the pitch, but where's the passion for the club?
Jonathan, you've wrecked a lot of big stars.
If you saw one of them treating fans like that, what would you say to them?
I'd pull them up on it immediately and remind them they're only there because of their fans.
Piers, I hate to praise you, but I see you out and about.
People come up.
Being mobbed.
Yeah, I mean, it's just relentless.
But the truth is, you always give time to people want to say hello to you.
Always.
You know why?
You know why?
When I was a kid, my brother Jeremy, who's a British Army officer till very recently, just retired.
We used to go down to Sussex County Cookie Ground and we go every home game, get on the train, mum would drop us off, we get on the train, and we would collect autographs for years.
We used to collect albums full of things.
And we can remember to this day the ones who treated us like dirt.
They are mentally scarred into our minds.
And I always vowed if I ever got to be famous, I would always sign every autograph I was asked, pose for every picture, and never be the ones who left me and my brother.
We can remember them to this day, 50 years later, the ones who treated us like dirt.
Rosanna, if you forget about your fans, I'm not sure why you're in any game, football, entertainment, journalism, anything that brings with it a form of celebrity status.
Why are you in that?
If you're actually going to shun your viewers, your fans, the spectators, whatever it may be.
They say never meet your heroes.
And I've met plenty of senior journalists who I hero worship.
Well, I know.
Yeah, there we go.
Sat around the table with John and was disappointed, quite frankly, with the way it behaved.
I love the way that that way, conversation.
But on this point, I've always said football isn't the beautiful game, I'm afraid, that a lot of football supporters think it is, and it has because there is this attitude of behaviour.
You don't see rugby players doing it.
Yeah, exactly.
I would think you'd see rugby players smiling, you know, signing the signatures.
There is something at play here within the mindset of young footballers overpaid.
The headphones in.
That is so sad.
Look at that boy.
It's just one of you.
It's so sad.
Just one of you.
It's so sad.
Just at least acknowledge it.
You just let down the club, right, on the pitch.
You'd be useless.
I think it's failure.
It's the money.
It's failure of management.
It's too much money.
It's too much money.
I don't think Alex Ferguson would have put up with that.
I was going to say, it's failure of management leadership because the managers and leaders of the club should be telling these young guys how to behave.
They know there's going to be a short walk.
They know they're fans there.
It doesn't take when you're £30,000, £40,000, £50,000 a week to look your fans in the air.
Let's move quickly.
Google bosses have told their UK staff to stop using a lot of phrases.
This is part of the woke war on our language.
Banned phrases include chubby, crazy, bonkers, which rules out at least one of my ex-girlfriends.
Kill, mad, whitelist, and dummy variable.
Right?
I mean, what is happening, Richard Tice?
What is happening to our language?
You can't call someone chubby.
What if they're chubby?
You can't call someone crazy.
What if they're crazy and chubby?
What are they bonkers?
I know people who are literally bonkers.
And mad.
Why can't I call them bonkers?
You can and you should, and we must.
That's the whole point about free speech and just telling it as it is.
Are there any limits to this?
Of course.
This is ridiculous.
But I think what will perturb you more, Piers, I think if you scratch the surface of every single, especially listed company out there, they are all doing this type of stuff internally.
And you would hope, the shareholders would hope that they are actually, you know, doing stuff for the business and focusing on that.
And I think the staff as you spoke to on this said, you know, we're not, we're kind of excited.
I'm going to disagree.
I actually think some of the words you missed out, blacklist and black hole, the word black is historically negative.
The word white is negative.
But whitelist has been banned as well.
Yes, but blacklist.
So we're going to ban whitelist and blacklist.
What list are we allowed to do?
The answer is, I looked online and blacklist does historically come from negativity.
So I think you have to be careful.
But all these things are negative.
Chubby obviously is not a compliment.
But what if somebody is literally chubby?
Yes, but equally, if you offend a lot of people with words like blacklist, that should also be considered.
I think it's very easy for a group of white people.
I think once you go looking, once you go looking to be offended, once you go looking for potential racism or whatever it may be in these things, what The Guardian did is serious to me.
Banning words, which have been the lexicon of history.
There was one in one of the Roll Dahl books, they banned the word phrase black tractor, as if somehow that was negative.
It was a black tractor.
The tractor was black.
It's got nothing to do with skin colour, to do with the colour of a tractor.
Piers, a lot of the words where black's involved do come from negative moments in history.
And I think...
What about whitewash?
Some words do, some words.
Which is what England will do to Australia this summer in the ashes, right?
Are we going to have to ban that?
Is that offensive?
I think you have to be careful about saying all words.
I think once you go down this slippery slope, it's all over.
Every word becomes offensive to somebody.
To somebody.
They're probably, I don't know how many billions of blacks there are in the world.
There's a lot of people to offend.
That's not somebody.
Man hours has been banned.
Man hours.
You know why?
Sexist.
That's not racist.
We'll end up not talking at all, and that's a terrible thing.
Imagine Neil Armstrong on the moon if it happened today, right?
One small step for man.
Oops.
Sorry.
Persons.
One giant leap for, oh no, personkind.
Is that the world we want to live in?
You're right about your point on wokeism, but I do think you have to be careful on some words because a lot of people get offended and you have no right.
You know what, people.
You know what?
They're all entitled to be offended, and I'm entitled to ignore them.
As you do.
And I do.
Thank you, Pac.
Good to see you all.
Remembering the Queen's Legacy 00:07:16
And since the next and national treasure, Sparkles in a Week, it's all about the crown jewels.
World-class singer Catherine Jenkins joins me with a very exciting announcement about what she's going to be doing tonight on this show and every night of Coronation Week.
That's after the break.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan.
My next guest is the lungs of the nation.
Love that phrase.
And a firm favourite of our royal family, Catherine Jenkins, performed regularly for the late Queen, most recently at her Jubilee celebrations at Windsor Castle last summer.
She's a national treasure in her own right.
If you don't believe me, just ask her, she'll soon tell you.
She's the new dame Vera Lim with a unique ability to bring people together in patriotic fervor.
I couldn't think of anyone better to perform on my show, not just tonight at the end of our interview, but Catherine's agreed to sing every night.
In fact, she recorded them all this afternoon in the studio.
We'll perform at the end of every show for the rest of the week leading up to the coronation, ending in a rousing rendition of God Save the King.
Catherine, thank you.
No, thank you for that.
For bringing your golden sparkle dust to the show.
And I believe it's the first musical guest you've ever had.
You are the first person to sing in our studio.
How do you feel?
Obviously, the greatest honour of your life.
Greatest honour.
I've known you a long time, but you've also known the royals a long time.
What does this week mean to you?
Well, I think, you know, it's a huge, iconic moment.
You know, it's the first coronation of my lifetime.
We haven't had one for 70 years.
As you said, I've sung and have met the king many times through our sort of shared charity work.
He presented me with my OBE award, which is a really beautiful.
I think at the time I was running the marathon, so we talked about my training for the marathon.
Well, that's the thing with him.
He's always so informed.
Last time I saw him, it was at ITV three or four years ago.
And he just came down the line.
He was saying hello to Susannah Reed and all these people.
And he got to me and he went, are you still around?
He is really funny.
But then we had a good laugh about Donald Trump.
Yeah, he wanted to know all about my interview with Trump.
I've always found him very engaging, always got a ready quip at hand, and probably the longest apprenticeship for any job in history, right?
I mean, he's been waiting decades to do this.
Absolutely.
And I think, you know, for those of us who have met him with the different charity things, for example, I worked with him on the British Forces Foundation.
You know, you can see that he is, as I said, informed, but really passionate about those things.
I think he wants to do good in the world.
And I think he has been doing a lot of good, you know, with sustainability and environmental issues, conservation, all of those things he cares about, and I care about.
And so that makes me really happy to see.
The thing is, it's a bit like you following, I don't know, Barbara Streisand in Vegas, right?
In the same theatre, isn't it?
In the sense that he's following the greatest, right?
The greatest monarch there's ever been, in my estimation, his own mother.
And he had to follow, you know, succeed, if you like, after she had died.
I mean, that's an amazing thing to think about, that it was the loss of his mother that made him king.
On a human level, so difficult to do this.
And it's got the whole world watching him.
Yeah, and I think that's you know, that's actually a positive is that he has learned you know from her.
And as you said, you know, she was an amazing monarch.
Well, you had two amazing things with her.
I mean, you had a lot, actually.
You performed before the Queen at the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance of Albert Hall, amazing.
You then sang the national anthem of the Queen of the Epsom Derby, the big horse race for her Diamond Jubilee weekend.
You were chosen to sing at the Queen's 90th birthday in Windsor.
You then performed at the Platinum Jubilee event at Windsor Castle.
That was the last time you sang for the Queen, but also the last time you saw the Queen.
And she gave you a little wave as she went.
It was such an emotional moment.
The whole audience were just so thrilled that she had been able to attend the event.
Well, we've got a clip of you singing, I think, from the event.
So let's take a little look at that.
Gotcha, haven't you?
Wow.
But that was at the end of the concert, Her Majesty drove around and sort of gave everybody a little wave as she left.
And she pulled right in front of the stage and she sort of went, Oh, hello, Catherine.
And I genuinely sort of welled up.
I thought it was such a lovely amazing moment.
Yeah, it really, really was very special.
But that was the last time that I saw her, sadly.
But I'm so grateful for the honour of being able to sing for her at the different.
Well, you had another amazing honor because when the Queen sadly died, you were performing a little event down in Sussex, I think, or recording down there.
And you got a phone call to tell you this terrible news.
But unlike the rest of the country who could sort of mourn, you were asked, Look, it's the BBC, and we want somebody to record the first version of God Save the King.
What an amazing responsibility to be asked to do that.
Yeah, I was in a very small, beautiful rural church, as you said, with microphones in front of me.
And we got the call to say, We would like to play this on the BBC in the next hour.
Is it possible that you can record it?
And it felt like one of those things like this was meant to happen.
Here I am.
I could have been anywhere, but I'm standing in a place with a beautiful sound and microphones.
So yeah, we actually stopped what we were recording.
We said a prayer sort of because it felt strange to then sing the new words.
And I had to think about the new words, having always sung it with God Save the Queen.
And we all had a little prayer and prayed for the new reign and for her.
Did you find that emotional, doing that?
Yeah, it was really emotional.
And it was one of those I welled up when I heard the Queen had died.
I mean, genuinely, I really felt that.
Yeah.
I think we all did that kind of end of this connection, which we'd all had our entire lives.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to sort of sing it, you know, in that moment when you are feeling so emotional.
But, you know, something clicked in, and I sang it in one take.
But it was interesting because, you know, everybody who's so used to seeing performances and whatever, the minute we went to record it for the very first time, you know, everybody's camera phones went up and you thought, oh, yeah, this is this is historical.
This is the first time to ever sing these words.
So it was a huge honour.
Did you hear from the king after that?
I have not seen him at anything yet, but I look forward to it.
You will do.
And have you met Camilla?
I have, I have.
Singing Raw Britannia Live 00:04:57
I love her.
So do I. She's one of neighbouring villages in East Sussex.
Oh, I think.
And we always joke about.
Yeah, she's from Plumpton.
I'm a Newark boy.
We're about a mile apart.
She grew up there with her family.
I grew up with mine there.
And she's got that kind of earthy southern England, local village spirit about it.
You know, down to earth, no nonsense.
We've got a picture of you and her there.
That's when I remember.
That's the very first time I met her.
And we sort of hit it off.
I thought she was great.
And I sang a couple of years ago at one of her charity events.
I've got her rhino on my wall.
Oh.
Yeah.
I think she told me I'm the only person who owns a private watercolor by the woman about to be queen.
Really?
I bought it in a charity auction.
She gave it to the Daily Mirror's charity auction.
Or we bought it in a charity auction.
And it's a beautiful picture of a rhino in the bush.
And she's signed it and it's on my wall.
That's amazing.
And every time I see her, her opening line is normally, Hi, Piers, how's my rhino?
Which always makes everyone's eyebrows go up.
But I think she's great.
And what I really like about it, she comes from that old school of royal duty, which is never complain, never explain, and rarely be heard speaking in public.
Three sentences you could not imagine being regurgitated by people in Montecito, for example.
I'm not trying to get you in trouble.
He says, trying to get you in trouble.
Trying to trouble.
Move it on, Pierre.
Have you ever been invited to California to sing for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex?
And I hope if you were, you'd say no, would you?
Move it on, Pierre.
We are actually moving on for a commercial break.
I'll let Catherine sweat for a few minutes and see if she'll answer that question after the break.
More from Catherine Jenkins in a moment.
Plus, she's going to sing for us.
And that is worth definitely hearing.
He'll definitely do that.
Back with Piers Morgan on Sensor.
So we're in celebration mode for the coronation coming on Saturday.
Catherine Jenkins is still with me.
You just told me an amazing thing in the brain that you are in New York at the end of this week.
What are you doing on Friday?
I'm going to be helping to switch the Empire State building into red, white, and blue.
That's unbelievable.
I know.
How fun is that?
Did you ever think as a little girl growing up in Wales, one day you'd be turning on the Empire State building?
Not at all.
I think it's just going to be a really lovely moment to start all of the celebrations that I think are happening across America for Brits to get involved and celebrate even if they're not at home.
Now, the other thing is you very kindly gave me this as well, which you didn't ask me to promote, but I like it because it's a bottle of gin and A, I like gin.
Yeah.
This is your new venture, gin.
Yeah.
So you're going into that whole sort of Brangelina thing of they were the rose and then Beckham with his whiskey and they've all got their thing right.
George Clooney and tequila.
Right.
This is the Jenko.
What is it?
Jenkins.
Catherine Jenkins.
Catherine Jenkins.
It's called Cygnet.
It's made six miles down the road from where I grew up in Wales.
And no, it wasn't something I'd say.
Well, sell it to me.
Come on.
What does it taste like?
Well, I love gin.
I come from a family of gins.
Oh, I've seen you knocking back.
And I wanted to create something that was like a really high quality ultra-premium gin with like all of the ingredients that I love.
So for this one, this is our Cygnet 22 that's got Manuka honey in it.
Well, you did me a massive favour.
Why?
So I was doing an audio book.
And if you've ever done them, they are hell on earth.
You get put in a little booth eight hours a day for days on end.
I had to do four days.
And after three days, my voice had gone.
You just talked for eight hours a day, even by my standards, talking about myself.
This was too much.
My body packed in.
And so I messaged Catherine and she said, I'm sending the cavalry.
Did you know?
She turned up at my house.
I mean, it's a bit stalkerish, obviously, but she turned up on my house 25 minutes later and left throat tea and manuka honey.
Yeah.
And you said do that and also sip water all the time, right?
Sip water.
And my voice came back.
Yeah, so you know what?
It's the same thing.
Drink the gin.
If I'd known that was the option.
It would have made the audio book a lot more listenable.
Well, you know, the other option whenever you get a sore throat peers is to go on vocal rest, but I'm not sure if that's possible.
I couldn't do permanent vocal writ.
Where do you get these pipes from?
When I listen to you sing, even now, it just is staggering.
The power of your voice.
Where did that come from?
I don't know.
When did you first let loose of the?
Drinking Gin Before the Show 00:02:44
Oh my God.
Well, when I was four, I sang in public for the first time.
You sang like that when you were four.
No, but I remember there being a reaction to it.
And I was always singing because I loved it.
I was never thinking about, oh, one day I'd like to do this, this, and this.
It was just a genuine passion.
And do you think you're now a national treasure?
Is there still a bit of work to do?
No.
Does anybody think that?
I do, actually.
I do think you're the new virulin.
You get wheeled out for all the big events looking lovely and you sing beautifully and everyone likes you.
I'm very proud of where I come from, and I try whenever I'm going to sing for us every night.
Yeah.
Every night.
Tonight you're going to sing Raw Britannia.
Well, Catherine Jenkins, thank you.
And Katherine Jenkins, take it away!
the charge of the land, that good in the angels sung in history.
Roll it with a waves.
When nations mourn just blessed me shall do the happy cause to be there.
My happy cause we met, I happy cause to be fair.
Blessed I with beauty, with much disputing, and hope me holds to God and fear.
Robert, we told you the ways.
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