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July 4, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:16
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Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Royal Apologies and Colonial Sins 00:04:20
A royal apology in the Netherlands sparks yet more demands for British royals to atone for colonial sins.
As Americans celebrate independence and are Davis now accused of racism.
Should we celebrate our glorious past and present, even if it's flawed, or just keep saying sorry for everything or debate?
Australia's cricket treachery becomes a diplomatic incident and Aussie PM tells us to stay in his crease.
A minister of the British Crown will enter the fray on uncensored.
And I finally found an Australian willing to debate me.
But she's the controversial YouTuber who's racked up legions of followers by claiming divorce should be illegal and women shouldn't vote.
Hannah Pearl Davis says she's just telling the truth about feminism.
Who is she?
She joins me live.
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
We're all grateful for the police.
They're the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect us.
So most of the time that's what they do.
For a member if your family went missing, someone threatened to attack you, if your home was in danger, who would you call?
Well most of us would still call the police and we still feel safer for it.
But how about if you're burgled or someone steals your car?
What if it's rowdy behaviour upsetting the neighbourhood or a spade of thefts on the high street?
Wherever you live, there's a very strong chance that many people have lost the faith in the ability of police to do anything about those kind of crimes.
And incidents like this one in Sussex are a major part of why.
A member of the public reports a crime to a PCSO who's sitting in his patrol car less than 30 seconds away from the scene.
His response is frankly shocking.
Honestly, there's just been a fight around there because people are trying to stop the shoplifters that you're doing nothing about.
There's a member of public just being assaulted by a 15-year-old girl who's drunk, had a drink thrown in her face, got punched.
People have called the police.
We come around here and you're sitting here.
I'm not responsible, I'm aware.
I know you're not, but the sight of the car will make them scatter.
Even then I have to deal with it.
And you're afraid to deal with it then?
That's not the point.
It kind of is the point.
That's the perception.
That's just cowardice.
No, it's not.
No, it is.
No, it's not.
I'm afraid it is.
This is the whole reason these problems exist.
That's a pretty poor attitude, I'm afraid.
Yeah, it is.
It's hard to disagree with anything that motorist recorded that video said.
Looks like a terrible attitude.
It does look like cowardice.
Or perhaps even worse, disinterest, as a crime is literally being committed round the corner.
And it sums up how many people feel about the police these days.
That they don't care about petty crimes, even if they do, but don't have the resources or the ability to deal with them.
Every day now, we see videos from the United States of shoplifters quite literally running riot.
Robbers quite literally taking calculators into shops in places where thefts below $1,000 in value are now de facto legal.
In the UK, almost 600 burglaries a day go unsolved.
77% of all cases are closed with no suspect ever being identified.
I had a death threat made on my eldest son's Instagram in public, a specific death threat.
And after an 18-month investigation, nothing happened.
It's not good enough.
I sympathise with the police.
I always have done.
I think the vast majority of police officers do a damn good job, often risking their lives to protect us.
But their numbers and budgets have been slashed.
They're policing with one arm tied behind their backs.
And I feel sorry for them for that.
There should be more police on the streets.
We all know this.
But if the attitude to the police who are on the streets is to throw in the towel and not even try, then public sympathy will very soon run out.
Okay, well, let me just start by my regular nightly apology for the quality of my voice this evening.
The world's worst cold, as always, mine are worse than everybody else's, has now entered day six, and my voice is now descending into Barry White's little brother, as I said yesterday.
But I won't be singing any love songs.
Policing with One Arm Tied Back 00:13:03
unless you really behave yourselves.
So now to the topic, most beloved of today's generation.
Shame-faced apologies for all of our past.
The British monarchy is facing the new demands that it atones for the UK's historic evils.
It follows the decision by King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands to say this.
We carry with us the horrors of slavery in the past.
The consequences of this can still be felt today in racism in our society.
Mr. President, von d'Aach, today, I stand here before you as your king and as part of your government.
And today, I make these apologies myself.
Well, today is, of course, the 4th of July.
It's a day that America celebrates because they booted we British out, our monarchy out, our mad King George dropped the ball.
Otherwise, I would possibly be King Piers right now of the United States of America.
So we don't obviously celebrate it with quite such enthusiasm over this side of the pond.
But amid the hot dogs and fireworks, even this day of patriotic celebration in the States has become divisive.
There's a growing trend for black Americans to celebrate Juneteenth as an alternative to July 4th.
Veteran Congresswoman Maxine Waters in 2021 claimed the Declaration of Independence wasn't for equality and it was only for white men.
Her comments were echoed by a fellow Democrat Cory Bush who said black people still aren't free.
So is there something in all this?
Should these national institutions and occasions be opportunities for reflection and apology rather than celebration?
Well joining me now as best-selling author of The War on the Western Conservative Column Douglas Murray, country music legend Lee Greenwood and my talk-to-view contributor Paula Ron Adrian and talk-to-view presenter Richard Tys.
All right, well, a stellar panel.
Douglas, let me start with you.
You read a great piece this week for the Telegraph about this weird trend.
I agree with you.
I think it's weird.
Where we've been compelled to just apologize constantly for everything that happened in the past.
Why are we doing this?
That's right.
It's a very strange act of masochism, really.
And an act of masochism carried out by people who don't seem to know anything.
I mean, people talk about the British monarchy having to apologise for slavery.
It was King George III who signed the Anti-Slavery Act into law in 1807.
Prince Albert gave one of the most extraordinary anti-slavery addresses when the British were still policing the anti-slave trade on the high seas in 1840 to the Anti-Slavery League in London.
All of this was addressed 200 years ago.
And today, unfortunately, there's a kind of new type of malcontent and usually also a huckster to boot who just decides that none of this happened.
Usually it's because they don't know it happened.
And as a result, they look at our history and everything in our country, right up to just, you know, innocent pastimes like cricket, and they decide to name everything as guilty.
And, you know, you could do this to everyone and to everything, but most civilizations and cultures don't behave like this because most of them aren't just masochistic and so self-hating.
All right.
Paula.
Good evening.
Your response to that.
I actually agree with Douglas about the fact that we don't know enough.
He's absolutely right.
We don't know enough and it's important that we do.
But part of the knowledge is also understanding the hurt and pain that were caused, not just about the good things.
It's not just about the cherry-picking.
And wrongs are not about being massacre.
Saying sorry is not a bad thing.
Saying sorry is actually a very empowering thing to do.
Why does it matter that a bunch of royals now get forced into issuing grovelling apology?
Who cares?
How does it change anything?
It doesn't do anything in my estimation to impact on current slavery where it exists around the world.
It doesn't really make any difference to institutional racism as we've seen in certain parts of society.
I don't know what difference it makes.
It might make people feel a bit better to see a royal grovelling, but so what?
See, I don't agree with you, surprise, surprise.
I do think it makes a difference.
I do think it makes a difference that people, people in power, are heard to acknowledge pain and hurt.
I do think it's important that people in power have taken the time.
Whose pain and hurt are you talking about?
It's not people living today.
These are going back hundreds of years in some cases, these crimes of slavery and so on.
We all agree it was outrageous.
It's been debated, you know, really year after year after year.
We all know this.
I don't think that people have a lack of knowledge.
And I'm not quite sure where the apology talk ends.
What's the end game here?
So the end game is about the ability to understand the true history, not just the part of history that we have been taught.
And that is the difficulty.
So you're talking about who's the apology for?
Well, the apology is for me.
The apology is for those who have suffered.
The apology is for those who continue to struggle through colonialism and through slavery.
And I do think that it's important that royalty are coming forward and saying we apologise for the part that we've done.
So is that it?
Is that enough?
When is enough enough?
If we all say sorry today.
Hang on, hang on a minute.
The British government, when is enough enough?
To repay, to compensate slavery.
So if we all say sorry today.
Well, that's my question to you, and you're not answering it.
My apologies.
If we all say sorry today, it was terrible, which we all know, can we then say, right, that's done?
We're going to look forward.
We're going to be positive.
We're going to celebrate our achievements, learn from our failures, and we're done with apologising.
Absolutely.
And so how are we going to learn from our failures if we do not understand what we did wrong?
You learn from your failures because that's what we're doing at the moment.
The sort of report you have from...
How do you learn from your failures if you don't?
You report what you did wrong.
If you refuse to accept that you did wrong.
Because the cricket board, the ECB, they've just produced a report.
They've reported.
Some of it was good.
Some of it you can criticise or question.
The point is, we've learned from that.
We're moving on.
We're celebrating.
We're being positive.
But how have we learned?
How have we learned that?
It depresses everybody.
It leads to apologies.
I agree with that.
I think what it does, I want to bring in Lee Greenman here, who's a big country star in America.
And he wrote God Bless USA, one of the great anthems celebrating the United States.
It's July 4th.
Obviously, as I said at the start here, Lee, we don't celebrate it with quite such enthusiasm this side of the pond.
We sort of take a view that Mad King George dropped the ball a bit, but I'm happy for my American friends that you have this day to celebrate.
You wrote this great anthem really for your country.
Can we be proud of our country anymore?
Or is this kind of this desire to feel this terrible regret about everything and apology for everything?
Does that mar the pride?
How do you feel?
Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and just say the people that I run with and talk to, and believe me, I tour across America all the time.
We do 140, 50 days a year, every doghouse, outhouse and roundhouse.
And I talk to the American public.
They listen to what I say, listen to what I sing.
I happen to be a country music performer, but I was born in California, spent 20 years in Nevada.
I live in the South now.
And I wrote this song because it was for unity.
It's for unity and for military sacrifice.
And yeah, America started as an interesting expedition and then an experiment, and we fought it out.
We fought each other in the Civil War and said, okay, we're going to bury the hatchet here.
The trouble is, as we move forward, a lot of people try to change history.
I'm okay with history.
I'm okay with apologizing for what happened back then.
But I agree with you.
That was back then.
Let's move forward.
Let's move on past that and let's not change history and try to change what happened.
Yeah, I completely agree.
Douglas, the problem is we've forgotten how to be genuinely proud of our great countries, both America and the United Kingdom, two of the greatest countries in the world.
It's almost like every day now, somebody somewhere, normally on the left, the woke left, is queuing up to find a reason to hate the countries and their histories.
Well, it's a kind of grievance competition.
Your guest earlier just tried to engage in it.
I don't know what hurt she believes she's had from slavery.
All of this was addressed two centuries ago.
Everything has consequences.
All history has consequences and ramifications.
But, you know, if we were to play this fairly, we would at least look at all of the countries around the world that engaged in the slave trade who are simply not interested in any form of reparations.
The Ottoman Empire, all the Arab countries who not just traded far more slaves than across the Atlantic but castrated all the men so that there wouldn't be any more African slaves after them.
They worked them to the bone.
I see no interest across Africa in paying reparations for selling their brother and sister Africans into slavery or for working them to the bone to the present day.
There is slavery across Africa today.
In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than there were at the height of the transatlantic slave trade.
So some of us are simply a bit bored of hearing people ripping at closed wounds and then crying about their hurt or their presumed hurt because everybody could do this.
A million Europeans were stolen by North Africans over the course of decades of the North African Barbary pirate slave trade.
Where would you end if you did that?
The answer is you couldn't end because nobody is alive who has actually suffered the hurt and nobody is alive who did the wrong.
And I'd make one other point if I may.
It's always the countries that people want to come to who are put through this struggle session.
Britain, like America and France, are among the most desired destinations for migrants worldwide and have been for centuries.
Why is that?
It's not because we're racist, it's because we're better, it's because we're good.
It's because when we see racism, we actually call it out and recognize it as a sin.
Try finding that across Africa.
Try finding that across the Middle East or in China.
Nobody would hear.
So what we have is a situation where the more virtuous countries are presented as the worst countries.
It's sick and most of us are tired of it.
Thank you, Douglas.
I am so sorry that Douglas is bored by the pain that has come from slavery.
He didn't say what you're doing there.
Yeah, but hang on, Paul.
Paula, you're being very disingenuous.
That's not what he said.
The viewers aren't stupid.
They know exactly what he's saying.
He's not saying he's bored by the pain.
He's saying, and I think it's a perfectly valid point.
The pain that people who are alive today are claiming they're suffering for what happened 200 or 300 years is not a real pain.
They're not the ones who suffered what was going on two, 300 years ago.
So in terms of justice for all, I mean, I think we'd all agree that there's a lot of people who are not.
Well, I'm not suffering from when the Normans invaded this country.
I'm not suffering from what my ancestors went through.
I noticed I've not been allowed to respond.
Or from the Romans.
In other words, where do you take this?
I mean, should I now be feeling what the Romans did to this?
In terms of slavery, I can take it to 2015 when the slave owners were compensated by the government.
So I can take it to that.
What is your personal pain?
And I can say to you, and I can say to you, that I don't think that apologising is a bad thing.
I think that apologising for a wrong is a good thing.
I think that the Dutch royal family have done a fantastic thing in acknowledging what has gone through.
I honestly think it'll make no difference at all.
Richard, before we finish this all, I just want to ask you about what I talked about at the start of the show.
This police video, really quite shocking.
What do you make of it when a police officer in a car sitting there is told there's a crime going on round the corner and just says, I would have to deal with it if I could.
It's so shocking, it's actually hard to believe it's true.
It's as though someone sort of made it up in some TV studio.
It's unbelievable.
Our police are better than that.
We know they are.
So something fundamental is going wrong with the leadership, with the training, with the confidence and the belief in the world.
You know the worst thing about this video is I know so many people say, I've just stopped calling the police about local stuff, right?
And what New York found was that they called it the breaking windows.
Broken windows policy.
Right.
Where if you look after the broken windows, the more serious stuff looks after itself.
And we have stopped looking after the broken windows.
And that video confirms what many people are thinking.
And therefore what's happening is actually it is less safe on our streets and in our towns and villages than ever, but the reported crime numbers are going down because people have given up calling.
Now, if you want to have a police chief of Sussex issuing a public apology for that, I'm all in for the public apology.
Do you know what?
King Charles can join in too, Paul.
Broken Windows Policy Explained 00:02:02
I know you want to silence me, Piers, but I'm ready to hear what is going to make a difference for racism.
I'm ready to hear.
I'm really sorry.
Thank you.
There you go.
Thank you.
It's the start.
For all of it.
And that opened up our population.
And I also like, I'd like the Romans, I want the Italians to apologise for what the Romans did to my ancestors.
I want the Normans on apologies for that.
I want the Vikings.
We're going to return to the Protestants.
I want the Dames to apologise for the Spanish.
And I want the Australians to apologise for Sunday.
And I definitely want the Australians to be apologising for that.
Absolutely appalling incident on Sunday.
Thank you both very much indeed.
Douglas Murray, as always, brilliant over in New York.
Thank you.
And thank you, Lee Greenwood.
And happy July 4th to you.
And God bless the United States of America.
It's been great for Douglas, great for me, great for you.
And it's a wonderful country.
So even though I don't particularly get the bunting out today for reasons that you will understand, I do hope you have a great day of celebration.
Take care, guys.
All the best.
Well, that says the next.
She's been called the female Andrew Tate.
Pearl Davis has picked up legions of followers, Hannah Pearl Davis, of course, that is, for her incendiary views.
But is she for real?
We'll find out next.
So Pearl Davis has racked up a legion of online followers and plenty of breathless newspaper coverage by sharing her incendiary views on modern feminism.
The New York Post called her the female Andrew Tate.
So she tapped into genuine female pushback to the excesses of wokery, or is she just an attention seeker?
We'll find out in a moment.
But first, let's take a look at the clip that sent her viral.
Pearl Davis vs Modern Feminism 00:09:17
A lot of people think I'm insane because I don't think women should vote.
Everybody thinks I'm crazy for this opinion.
If anything, this is probably my most extreme opinion.
90% of women have been on birth control.
One out of three women has had an abortion.
One out of three women has an STD.
Average body count is over five, so that your average wife has slept with over five people.
95% of women are not virgins on their wedding days.
So I understand the complaint.
Okay, well, Paul joins me now alongside political journalist Ava Sante, who was nodding furiously along there to everything she heard.
Right, Paul, you've become be called the female Andrew Tate.
How do you plead?
Well, I take it as a compliment.
You know, I'm a fan of Andrew Tate.
Of everything he says?
It depends what we're talking about.
But overall, I think he's got a good message.
I think he's good for young men.
Okay, look, you're talking about women predominantly, which is why you've got this big following.
And your view is that modern feminism is deeply flawed.
I would argue a lot of your proposals, like taking the vote away from women, are deeply regressive.
Why would you want to remove just from yourself the right to vote?
Well, what happened was I had the same view, right?
Back when I started, I was like, why?
I found out that only 5% of women wanted the right to vote.
And I couldn't figure out like, why would women not?
No, it's true.
She'd be looking at it.
At the time.
At the time.
Because they've been conditioned by men to think that they shouldn't have a vote.
I mean, that's what they say.
But, you know, I started reading their writings, right?
And what I found out was that the reason a lot of women advocated for it was because they believed it was the beginning of the breakdown of the family.
You know, before you became one in marriage, 85% of people were married.
And, you know, I hate to say it, but they were right.
What has happened 100 years later?
Well, what's that going to do with them having the vote?
Well, it also goes back to responsibility.
Again, men are 80 to 90% of the military.
They run all of the infrastructures that make society run.
So I just think if we want an equal say in society, then be equal.
Do 50% of the hard jobs.
Be 50% of the military.
In the U.S., they're fined $250,000 if they are not, they don't join selective service, which is essentially the dragon.
Okay, but specifically on the vote, what would having the right to vote have to do with family cohesion, for example?
Well, because again, before you weren't trying to divide a family, it was one family unit.
You had one vote for the family.
I mean, I don't think it's good for a family to have two votes.
Ava, your mouth seems to have dropped a bit more.
No, do you know what it's sort of now?
I know.
No, no, it's just sort of a bit galaxy brain.
I feel like, you know, the stats that you're putting down are perhaps correct in some switch stats.
They just kind of don't really add up.
I mean, just to take you back to the women's writings that you've allegedly read.
I mean, actually, what do you mean, allegedly?
At the time that you're talking about, you know, women weren't really allowed to write.
They weren't allowed to go to school.
Yes, they were.
Yes, they were.
That's incorrect.
The first female property owner was in the 1600s.
The idea that women couldn't work in country.
And you say so.
No, no, the first female millionaire was in the late 1800s.
And was that inherited?
No, it wasn't.
It was self-made.
Yes, it was.
Yes, it was.
Yes, she did not.
What permitted that?
What law permitted that?
Well, there was no law.
I mean, there's always been women that were influential.
Let's get on to the vote.
So what I don't understand is, you know, a part of your message, I've just, you know, I've researched you today.
And hang on a minute.
You know, your big push is that you care about men and you don't think that men are getting enough of a say.
But hang on, I haven't made the point yet because of feminism, okay?
What I wonder is when you start making calls out like repeal the 19th, women shouldn't be allowed to vote, how is that helping young men?
Because these young men have women in their lives.
They have mothers, they have sisters, they have teachers, and they turn around, they don't know how to act around women because you're giving them license to be misogynistic.
I wouldn't call it misogynistic.
I say be equal.
So again, men do all of this.
That's the feminist as well.
Well, then, okay, I'd love for the feminists.
Please apply for the oil rigs.
Please go do the hard jobs in society.
They're open.
They're hiring because I don't equate for, I don't think men or women are equal until we do the equal work.
So no, no, listen, listen.
Go, go apply to be on the oil rigs.
Go be a plumber, go be electrician, go be on the front lines of the military, and then we should have equal rights.
But until feminists are willing to do that, I don't believe we should have the freedom without the responsibility.
Okay, well, I don't think that I'm physically built for that.
You might be, but I'm absolutely not.
No, but you said you're right.
Wow.
You said you were a volleyball player, and so you've got more strength than I do.
I don't think you're right.
But I don't have more strength than I have.
I'm going to take your right away to you.
I don't have more strength than the average man.
But my, again, it goes back to go be a plumber.
You want to be equal.
Go beyond.
But you don't want divorce to be made illegal.
Yes.
Why?
Yes, because I don't think what we have today is really marriage.
What is marriage?
It's for better or for worse, for richer or for poor, in sickness and in health till death do us part.
That's what marriage is supposed to be.
But feminists have ruined marriage for the people that actually believe in marriage.
How?
When there's a 50% divorce rate and the average manager...
Why is that all down to the women though?
I didn't say that it was all down to the women.
Why for the women?
You asked why I want divorce to be banned.
Can I finish that first?
So I'm saying, you know, the people that believe in divorce, go be in long-term relationships.
Leave marriage for the people that actually believe in for better or for worse, for richer or for poor, in sickness and in health till death do us part.
Doesn't the sanctity of marriage also rely on the woman being a virgin?
So you wouldn't be able to get married.
What do you mean?
Well, you've spoken quite openly about how you're not a virgin.
And so if you want to preserve that sanctity of marriage, I just think that you're upholding standards that you don't actually.
You know, and that's a fair, that's a fair complaint.
I wish I was.
But, you know, we can't go back.
I don't know what you want me to say.
Yeah, but I just don't think it's fair that you get to be here and you get to be paid for your views.
And you're telling other women that they shouldn't be allowed to be aware of that.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Okay, if I may.
Some stage jumping.
Isn't the whole point of being a feminist, though, that women are entitled to have their own views?
Absolutely.
So she's perfectly entitled to her views.
Yeah, but you can't.
You might not like that.
But I'm here to challenge you.
Isn't she exercising her right as a...
Are you a feminist?
No, I am not.
Really?
No, you know, don't go that part.
You don't want to be a feminist?
No, because I think if feminists really believed in equality, but you guys don't, I would love for you.
There is an oil rig hiring.
There is an engineer.
I would actually love to see Ava Santa Rosa.
No, seriously, seriously.
There is a building being built next to my building.
Go do it, feminists.
Go do it.
And me, I'm saying right now.
When you find the man you want to get married to, are you saying you will literally, you will be with that man whatever happens the rest of your life?
Yes, for the vows that we're supposed to live.
How do you know you can keep them?
I mean, look it, I think it's a choice.
And that's the thing.
Like women are so willing to leave marriages because they're not happy.
This is not about happiness.
The most important thing is the children.
And the problem is we have a modern society where it's me, me, me, my feelings, leave when I feel like it instead of doing what's best for the kids.
Ava, I've got to say, it's a little like listening to Andrew Tate, where some of it I really don't agree with.
I don't agree with the vote stuff.
When I hear things like that, I think there'll be a lot of people, especially older generation women, perhaps, who think, you know what, she's got a point.
Well, I mean, I believe in agency.
So I think that if a woman is going to look after her children, that's absolutely fine.
I also believe in your right to speak your mind about it.
What I don't understand.
I'd like to see what I don't know.
You know, before the 1920s, women could speak openly.
This idea that like women couldn't talk the last 500 years, there have been women in the world.
You know, the American state education system has failed.
There have been women throughout history that have read, written, and been very influential in society.
Okay.
So this idea like women could never do it to be a good idea.
You know what?
What I don't understand though is when it gets spiteful, okay?
Because you put down a few arguments that I think are perfectly like, you know, they're kind of evangelical and they're Christian, but those are your right to say it.
Don't understand is when it kind of seeps into this sort of you call women fat, you say that they shouldn't have a horse.
You say that they have epsilon jeans, you know, I mean, the question is, are they fat, yes or no?
The average American woman is 170 pounds.
That's that pounds.
That's objectively overwhelming.
I mean, let's be honest, we now we now celebrate morbid obesity as some kind of body positive thing and it is complete nonsense.
So actually, on that point again, there's a bit of truth and this is the problem.
This is the problem.
How have we come to celebrate morbid obesity as body positive?
We're not talking about morbidly obese.
I was actually watching your podcast earlier and you spoke to someone who was, I would say, probably a size 12, and you called her it fat, obese and a divorcee.
She was fat, obese and a divorcee.
I mean, like I don't know what to say.
This is the thing women, we don't want to live in reality.
We don't want to say things that are true.
Was she fat?
Yes, was she a divorcee?
Yes, these things are just objective facts.
Okay, i'm gonna have to objectively.
She insulted me first.
They always i'm gonna have to objectively end the debate, but it was an interesting conversation.
I thought we should get you two back together as a matter of urgency.
Uh, thank you very much, pearl.
Political Points on Food Banks 00:15:37
Thank you over Uncensored.
Next, Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, on his quest to get every homeless veteran off the streets by the end of a year, and what he thinks about Australia's cricketing treachery, which is now a major international scandal.
Welcome back to Piers Women.
Uncensored British Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer says he wants to end rough sleeping for all ex-military personnel this year.
Delaudable quest, but not without controversy.
Mr. Mercer's been criticised for suggesting today that some veterans may be using food banks because of personal decisions and bad budgeting.
I spoke to him just before we came on air.
Well, joined by Johnny Mercer.
Johnny, thank you for joining me.
You've had a busy day.
Yes, we have.
First of all, I think the initiative you're doing is brilliant and we're going to come to that.
To rid homelessness for our veterans seems to me a root one thing for any civilized society to be doing.
And I will come to that.
But you've blown up on social media, you know this, because of this comment you made about food banks.
What service personnel should not be using food banks?
Yes.
Yes, absolutely correct.
So the reaction's been quite strong.
You've been trending at various stages on Twitter.
I want to just play first of all what you said to Kay Burley on Sky this morning.
Look, these are personal decisions around how people are budgeting every month.
I don't want to see anyone using food banks.
Of course I don't.
But we're in an extremely difficult time around the cost of living.
People don't choose to use food banks.
You're saying it's a choice whether they use them or not.
It's not.
They're using them because they're saying they have no other alternative.
Well, in my experience, Kay, that's not correct.
So people have taken this as you being a little blinkered, perhaps, about why people use food banks.
Do you stand by what you said this morning?
Did it come out the wrong way?
What do you want to say about it?
Because people will take whatever they want to take from what you say, right?
I clearly said that service personnel should not be using food banks.
That is absolutely correct.
That anybody on a wage like that who has subsidized food and accommodation should not be using food banks.
And in my experience, that is not the case.
It's a comment about personal choice.
No, no, but that's not.
There's nothing wrong with that.
No, that's right.
People then take that and say, I think people should generally not use food banks and they make a personal choice.
That's not what I said.
So there's no point debating that because that's not what I said.
But what I said was service personnel.
And I was very clear with that.
But you said that people make personal choices.
And what the influence...
I'm not talking about service personnel, yeah.
And people have said the inference from that is that they shouldn't be on food banks.
They're making a choice to be on them.
The criticism has been, actually, for most people on food banks, it's not a choice.
It's a necessity to feed themselves and their family.
So I don't dispute that for the wider population, right?
And I come across and I work in, you know, I visit food banks in my constituency and I see the need for food banks in some of our most complex and our poorest communities without a shadow of a doubt.
But that's not what I was saying this morning.
I was saying service personnel should not be using food banks and they shouldn't.
On their way to subsidized food and accommodation, they should not be using food banks.
If any of them are, please do get in touch because I'll be able to help them.
But do you genuinely think anyone of military personnel is using a food bank through personal choice?
I think there is no requirement whatsoever for anyone in the military to be using a food bank.
Okay.
A guy called Fred Thomas, who's a former Royal Marines captain.
He's standing as a Labour candidate, MP for Plymouth Moore View.
He says he's shocked and appalled by the comments you made.
And he says Johnny Mercer may well be able to make budget adjustments on an income of more than £150,000.
But how could he not know that for so many of our people, no matter how hard they work and how well they budget, they just don't earn enough to keep up with the spiralling costs and the despair this causes?
Well, again, I mean, you know, firstly, it's an individual who's trying to get elected, right?
And everyone on the other side of the fence on this has taken this to mean that I don't think anybody should be on food banks and that's a deliberate choice.
Actually, what I was saying was if you're in the military, you shouldn't be on food banks.
It was a very reasonable thing to say.
So, you know, people use these opportunities.
There's been lots of people today using these opportunities.
To be totally honest with you, Piers, I just don't get involved because I haven't got the energy for it.
They're arguing about something I didn't say.
They're trying to make a political point.
I'm not interested.
I've launched a scheme today to end veterans' homelessness.
This is where political debate is in the country.
And I'm just not interested in it because it's like a false, silly little game for people to put things on Twitter.
You know, I've got bigger things to do.
I've got really important things to do.
I just have any time for this nonsense, I'm afraid.
Let's turn to Operation Fortitude.
How many ex-servicemen and women are actually homeless?
Do you know?
Yeah, so look, there's always been conversations about how many homeless veterans there are in this country.
And it's been a difficult thing to work out because we have traditionally not had a real grip on veterans data, right?
So we didn't even know how many veterans there were in this country when I started this job.
For the first time last year, we got it in the census, right?
Where you could declare if you're a veteran.
So we know roughly there's about 2.27 million veterans in this country at the moment.
Of those, about 13,000 people who completed a survey who are in sheltered accommodation, about 1.8% of them were veterans, right?
So there's an underrepresentation of veterans in the homeless community.
And so clearly, it is a manageable community that we can deal with.
If we can put in wraparound services and clear care pathways for these people to get out of homelessness, we can do it.
And that's what we've done with £8.5 million worth of funding from the Treasury.
What time scale have you put on this?
I don't want to see a single homeless veteran by the end of this year.
And if there is, you know, again, I'm happy to go around and visit people and find out exactly why that is.
So to be clear, that is a veteran sleeping rough because of a lack of provision.
Clearly, some people will want to sleep rough.
And I met a man last week who wanted to sleep in a tent because they, for a number of different reasons, from their time in service, I've met plenty of people who want to go and live in the woods for a week.
And, you know, if that's what they want to do, that's fine.
That's not what this is about.
This is about people whose lives have become incredibly difficult through addiction, through debt, through substance misuse, whatever it may be.
And it's about getting them in, getting a roof over their head, providing those services and getting their life back on track.
I've got a lot of military in my family.
My brother's just retired after 37 years and rose to be a colonel.
This issue of homelessness with veterans, it really stings with the military because we shouldn't be having any homeless veterans in this country, should we?
Well, it's a very kind of visceral representation, isn't it, of people who've served in the military and put their lives on the line and then have fallen on.
Do we care enough about them as a country?
I think, to be honest, things have fundamentally changed in the last sort of four to five years.
So I came into this because veterans care was not very good, right?
And I fought in Afghan 2006 onwards and I came into this because I was fed up with how my generation of veterans were treated.
Yes, it's been a fight.
I'm not going to lie to you, but the British people have always kind of got it, right?
They've donated millions to help for heroes and people like that.
I think the government's been a lot slower.
It's been very difficult in that space.
We've now got veterans out of the MOD, right?
So we have the UK's first Office of Veterans Affairs, something the Americans and the Australians and Canada, Canadians did decades ago.
We have a cabinet minister who is responsible for veterans, able to pull in all different parts of government and make it work for veterans.
So yes, we are fundamentally changing it, but I want this to be the best country in the world to be a veteran, not because I say so, but because people actually feel that, right?
You've put a time scale on it.
Your boss, Richie Sunak, has had his own five pledges.
And when I interviewed him at the start of the year, he said, come back at the end of a year and mark me.
As things stand, the report card isn't going to be good because he possibly may not hit any of those pledges.
Yeah, I mean, hang on a second, Piers, because at the beginning of this, right, when he made those five pledges, people were falling over themselves to say this is going to happen anyway.
Inflation is going to half.
We're going to stop the boats.
Okay.
These were actually incredibly difficult things to do.
So inflation doesn't just fall.
You need to do a series of measures to make that happen.
And he is making progress on those things.
Do you think he'll hit your pledges by?
Yes, I do.
Yes, I do.
You know, we're six months in and it's difficult, right?
It is difficult.
Solving migration is difficult.
It's not easy.
Halving inflation is difficult and all these other things, right?
We're halfway through.
You know, we're super keen to knock people who are doing their best in public service like he is or like I am today.
I think if we just take the gas off that a little bit and actually see what these people are doing.
If he was to fail on all five pledges by the end of the year, where does that leave the Prime Minister?
I mean, if you set your stool by five pledges.
I don't think that's going to happen, Pierce.
So I'm not thinking about that.
I think he's going to get there.
I think that we've been through an incredibly difficult time.
I think the last couple of years have been pretty painful, both personally and for the country.
But I think things have changed.
We've got a new guy in.
He's clearly extremely gifted and capable.
We need to rally around him.
He's clearly the best individual to be Prime Minister.
And we need to get into that election and win it.
He's come out batting very aggressively for the England team over Bear Stone.
Anthony Albanese, who's the Australian Prime Minister, has hit back telling him to stay in his crease.
So there's now a major diplomatic row.
Clearly, the English all believe that we were done in here.
The Australians all believe that this was whining pommies who should shut up.
Where do you sit with this story?
Look, I think he was by the rules of the game, obviously this guy was out, right?
But I mean, these Australians, they were caught like Sam Proping the ball three years ago, and then they all cried when they got caught and went home and all the rest of it.
It's pretty embarrassing.
You're not going to get any sort of, you know, spirited sportsmanship out of that.
You've just got to get to the next game and give them a good pacing and that's the way to get through it.
Fine words, Minister.
Good to see you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Fighting talk there from the British government.
Uncensored next, the act of unsporting treachery has become a diplomatic furore.
Are we just whinging poms or did the Aussies cross a line?
I finally found an Australian who thinks that we are a bunch of whiners and is prepared to debate me live.
That's next.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensore.
I've taken a bold stand against the unsporting treachery at Lord's on Sunday by the Australian cricket team.
The Australian press in turn has taken an equally bold stand, well, against me.
Take a look at this morning's Daily Telegraph in Sydney has addressed me, Ben Stokes, Sir Jeffrey Boycott and Rishi Sunak as giant babies with the headline, a wobbly lower lip.
Suki Poms keeps spitting the dummy.
Well, I'm joined by Chief Cricket Rider, The Australian, Peter Leilor.
Well, Peter, great to have you on the show.
You were on your podcast yesterday saying I've been ignoring all messages from radio and television.
I'm only disappointed.
I didn't have enough time to go on Piers Morgan's show.
I'd have loved to have gone on that.
It would have been very entertaining.
Well, now's your chance to see how entertaining it's going to be, Peter.
Right, let me start with this.
I want to show you again what happened.
Just to remind everybody, this is what went down.
Here we go.
So, another short ball.
For those who don't play a lot of cricket, what's happened here?
Johnny Bairstow doesn't even try and hit the ball.
He just ducks.
The ball goes over his head.
He then scrapes his boot inside the crease.
You see him here from this angle.
So when he scrapes his boot, he's denoting the fact it's the end of the over.
Six balls have been bowled.
They're going to change ends.
Scrapes his boot.
Everyone in world cricket history knows that denotes that the batsman is marking his crease.
And then he goes up to walk to his captain.
And at that point, I don't blame the wicket keeper, Mr. Carey, for what he did.
He instinctively threw the ball.
Fine.
The person I blame, Peter, is your captain, Pat Cummings.
And here's why.
Three years ago, the Australian cricket team were in total global disgrace over sandpaper gate.
I think you were pretty censorious yourself about it.
And here we have a chance, three years on, for the Australian team to show that they really have changed their spots and actually do believe in the spirit of the game, sometimes overriding the basic laws.
What happened?
Why didn't Pat Cummings withdraw that appeal and bring Johnny Bairstow back?
You don't in your guts feel comfortable about what you saw, do you?
100% comfortable.
Anybody who plays cricket, Piers, knows that the over's not over until the umpire calls it over.
There's a lot of people making a lot of noise about this and sounding like you, but there's Michael Vaughan, Michael Atherton, Nassau Stein, Andrew Strauss, four people who have a few things in common.
They captained England and they agree with Australia's position on this.
It was out.
He was dopey.
It was dozy.
It was stupid.
Well, hang on.
On all of those, I agree with you.
He was out.
He was dopey.
He was dozy.
And he was, from a cricketing perspective, stupid.
I don't disagree with any of that.
I think my wider point, though, is that given everything that the Aussies have been through with their cricket team in the last few years in terms of the spirit of the game, right?
And downright cheating, frankly, with a sandpaper gate.
I don't accuse the team of cheating this time.
I didn't like the scenes in the Laws Pavilion.
It's not cheating, but I would equate it to what happened with Trevor Chappell in, I think it was 91, wasn't it?
When he was captained by his brother Greg, and they were playing a one-day international against New Zealand, and Trevor Chappell was directed by his brother to bowl the last ball of the match where New Zealand wanted six to win to bowl it underarm.
And he bowled underarm.
And he created such a furore that even the older Chappell brother, Ian Chappell, condemned it on the commentary box.
Richie Benno called it one of the worst things he'd ever seen.
Both prime ministers of both countries condemned it.
In fact, Muldoon, the New Zealand prime minister, said that he thought it was appropriate Australia were wearing yellowed shirts and so on.
And they changed the law as a result.
Isn't this the same?
Where you've got something which is technically within the rules.
It's in the laws of the game.
But everybody felt uncomfortable.
And you cite all the captains of England who defend it fine.
The public, to a man and woman that I've spoken to, all think this was wrong.
Trevor Chappell's act was an extraordinary act.
And I think we all condemn it.
This is...
Well, hang on.
Sorry, just on that point.
Johnny Bearstoke.
Johnny Bear just said that.
Just on that point.
Hang on, hang on.
On that one point, Murph Hughes tweeted today that he thinks it was completely justified what Trevor Chappell did.
So not everyone thinks it was wrong.
All right, that's Merv.
That's our Murph.
Yes.
There's a Joker in every pack.
Johnny Bestow attempts the same dismissals in the same very same test match.
He attempted it in the previous test.
It's not the same thing.
Not the same thing.
The batsman was out of their crease.
He attempted to throw down the steps.
The batsman is taking guard outside the crease, and therefore he plays and misses.
The wicketkeeper has a legitimate chance to stump him if he took guard outside the crease.
Bairstow clearly here scrapes his boot inside the crease.
He clearly scrapes his boot.
Everybody knows what he's doing there.
He is saying, I'm marking the end of the over, and both umpires have moved to move away.
Right, come on, this is not the spirit of cricket.
Spirit of Cricket Lost 00:02:54
And you're a very experienced and very uncomfortable cricket writer, and I just don't believe you.
If it was the other way around, I don't think you'd be saying the same thing.
Happens every weekend in club cricket in Australia.
I don't know what you do here.
It's not up to Johnny Bearstow to decide where or when an over ends.
It's up to Johnny Bestow to respect the laws of cricket, which were written by the English, and to stay in his crease until it's safe to get out of that crease.
If he wants to get out of that crease while the ball is live, he's fair game.
I'm sorry.
I think your country's kind of lost its mind over this.
And I reckon it's a bit of a smokescreen, to be honest.
You're 2-0 down in the ashes.
You've all been sort of doing handstands about this great new brand of cricket you play, Basball.
And good on you.
It's fantastic.
It's exciting cricket.
But it's faceplanted in the ashes.
You're 2-0 down, and you're carrying on about a fly spec on a pulpit.
Well, we should have won in Edge Baston.
I don't understand what's coming.
Let me explain, just to defend Basbull.
We should have won in Edge Baston.
And if Ben Stokes catches Lyon when he's on two, it's all over.
And secondly, in this last test match, if you hadn't basically divvied out poor old Bearstow, we'd have won that match too.
So we probably would have been 2-0 up.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda.
You know, you talk about the spirit of cricket.
The spirit of cricket talks about accepting the authority of the umpires, of creating a positive atmosphere in the way you play.
I find, I think that English cricket owes Australia an apology.
And I've been playing with a lot of people.
Australian players' mothers.
Yes.
But you just said yourself.
You just said yourself that's...
Absolute hooliganism at laws.
Well, that I agree with.
Absolute hooliganism.
Okay, no, no.
From your members and from the public, and it's been spurred on by your team.
The fact that it lost, it's 2-0 down in Legal.
Let me respond.
I agree that the behaviour of the members chanting cheat, cheat, cheat was wrong.
They shouldn't have done it, and that is ungracious.
But the idea you, as an Australian, are going to lecture us on the way crowds treat the opponents.
I was at the ashes in 2013-14, where a baying mob were literally baying for blood.
And in fact, they were baying at one stage for my blood in Manette against Brett Lee.
So I won't take any lectures from you, Law, on how crowds behave.
Our crowds behave poorly, too.
But we're not claiming to set the standards.
And I'll tell you what, our crowds haven't been jostling, jostling players as they are.
Sorry, I'm not addressing it.
Did you know Stephen Smith's speaking?
We're running out of time.
I want to thank you for coming on because very few others would come on.
I appreciate it.
The Ashes is now incendiary.
Headingly will be an abattoir and you lot are going down 3-2.
Thank you for coming on, Peter Laylor.
Not a chance.
Start sobbing.
Not a chance.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
And Johnny Bairsto, go get 100 a heading
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