Piers Morgan Uncensored tackles the Gaza conflict, contrasting Alan Dershowitz's defense of Israel's military response against Norman Finkelstein's accusations of genocide via resource denial and Amalek rhetoric. The episode critiques Hugh Grant's casting as an Oompa Loompa in Wonka for excluding dwarf actors and condemns Harry and Meghan Markle as Hollywood failures due to their documentary's flop and charity collapse. Finally, it debates whether Gary Lineker breached BBC impartiality rules by signing a petition against the Rwanda plan, suggesting these cultural and political controversies reveal deep fractures in modern media ethics and social responsibility. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The Gaza Dilemma00:15:24
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan uncensored.
Good evening, London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
It's not every day I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with President Biden, but his latest remarks on Israel are blisteringly accurate and they could mark a major tipping point in this war.
Biden accuses Israel of bombing Gaza indiscriminately, which is, of course, a breach of international law and therefore a war crime.
He says it's now beginning to lose international support.
He's right.
Well, last night, the UN General Assembly voted for a ceasefire.
153 countries backed the motion.
153 in favour.
10 against.
23 abstentions.
Well, that vote was non-binding and the UN has been no friend to Israel, but it's clear the winds are changing fast.
The grief and fury that followed October the 7th is now pouring in the opposite direction as more stories and scenes of abject misery emerge daily from Gaza.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's compared this to the Second World War to the atomic bomb and the carbit bombing of places like Dresden in Germany, inflicting massive civilian casualties to defeat the Nazis.
But as President Biden reminded him, we created global institutions and international laws after World War II to make sure that kind of thing didn't happen again.
Israel is dependent on the United States, not just for military muscle, but for diplomatic cover.
The US fights Israel's corner at the UN.
It builds alliances around the world for Israel's right to defend itself and to exist.
History shows us that when the White House says stop, Israel's guns usually fall silent.
And the window of legitimacy for this war is closing.
It cannot simply carry on pounding Gaza to rubble without proving it has a plan and a purpose and a moral clarity.
Most people might agree that Hamas, after what they did, should be eradicated and that Israel has both a right and a duty to its people to defend itself.
I certainly do.
But more than two months into this gruesome war, with many thousands of innocent children already killed, is that still what Israel is doing?
Last month we debated whether an Islamist British GP with extreme views should remain in his job.
But during that debate, I was asked a pertinent question.
Do you consider it as terrorist?
I do not consider Israel to be a terrorist organization.
The definition of terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians.
That is what Hamas specializes in.
That is what Hamas did.
That is what is happening here in Gaza also.
Is what Israel is doing terrorism?
No, for the following reason.
They target terrorists like Hamas and there are civilian casualties.
Yes, there are.
But it is not the aim of the IDF any more than it is of the British or American armies to target civilians.
I've agreed up till now broadly with that distinction.
The difference between Hamas and the IDF is clearly intent.
But the longer this goes on, the blurrier that line becomes.
At what point does Israel's campaign become the very terrorism it's fighting?
Already the appalling violence of Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has been called a policy of terror by France, specifically designed to displace Palestinian people.
And with the Gaza Strip in ruins, where are Gaza supposed to go when this war is finally over?
Where is the evidence that Hamas is being eradicated?
Many thousands of people have been killed.
We don't know how many of those are actually Hamas terrorists.
What we do know is they're still in charge.
Hamas is still negotiating the release of hostages.
It still has a chain of command.
It's still in control.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's government is stuffed with far-right hardliners who won't tolerate backing down and will never consider a two-state solution.
Just tonight, Israel's ambassador to the UK reiterated a two-state solution is no longer something Israel is even considering.
But the US has sounded a clear warning that Israel cannot destroy Gaza and its people with impunity.
And right now, Israel needs to listen to its friends.
Well, it's been two decades since my next two guests agreed to debate one another on live television.
Both Norman Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz are Jewish, but their perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict couldn't be more different.
And they both join me now, the lawyer and author of the war against the Jews, Alan Dershowitz and Professor Norman Finkelstein.
Well, welcome to both of you.
I feel a bit like Kofi and Ann bringing you two gentlemen back together, but I'm glad that you've both agreed.
And I hope we can have a civilized debate.
We've had some pretty rancorous debate this week on the program.
And I want to try and really have a proper conversation about where we are in this war and about this burning question.
And I'll start with you, Alan Dershowitz, about what we're seeing in Gaza now is, to many people, now the very terrorism which Israel set out to destroy.
What do you say to people that think that?
It is terrorism.
It's terrorism by Hamas, taking human shields, putting children in the way of Israel's legitimate military concerns.
Hamas has a strategy.
It's called the CNN strategy.
I call it the Dead Baby Strategy.
Kill as many Jews as possible, provoke Israel into doing what every democracy would do, responding, then hide your tunnels and your fighters and your rockets behind civilians, knowing that Israel, no matter how hard they try to avoid civilian casualties, and why would Israel ever want to kill a civilian?
It's absurd.
It hurts them tremendously.
But every time Israel kills a civilian, the world condemns them.
The United Nations condemns them.
And then that process continues over and over and over again.
The people who are being killed today are being killed as a result of Hamas actions.
Hamas started it.
Hamas uses human shields.
If Hamas lay down its arms, if it surrendered, if it agreed to give up control, if it closed its tunnels, if it stopped its rockets, then no civilians would be killed.
So it's a terrible tragedy.
There's no good solution.
There's no perfect solution.
If Israel stops now, Hamas continues to do it over and over and over again.
If Israel continues, it gets condemned and loses friends abroad and even risks using the United States.
It's a terrible dilemma for Israel.
All the responsibility, all the fault of Hamas for starting this.
And let me just end with one quote.
On the day after, literally the day after these horrible tragedies with murders and rapes and robberies, this is what Mr. Finkelstein said.
It warms every fiber of my soul, every fiber of my soul.
He called the people who murdered these innocent Jews, many of them peacenicks.
He called them part of the heroic resistance.
And he compared them to the Jews who were fighting against Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.
It's that kind of animosity toward Israel before Israel fired a single shot, which makes it clear that no matter what Israel does, it's going to be condemned by people like Norman Finkelstein and by the United Nations General Assembly.
I think it was Abi Eben who once said, if the General Assembly were asked to vote on an Algerian resolution that the earth is flattened, that Israel flattened it, it would win 128 to 32 with 65 abstentions, and he would name each of the people.
So the United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, these are not objective assessments.
Israel is in a very tough situation, and the future of civilization depends on Israel being Destroy Hamas and avoiding repetition.
Let me bring in Professor Fingenstein.
Your response to that.
Well, I won't address the question of my remarks on October 7th because we already went over that ground in the previous program, and so it would be a waste of your viewers' time if I were to revisit that.
Yeah, but first.
So let me deal with the substantive.
Thank you.
So let's deal with the substantive issue.
Number one, what you seem to be describing as a new development, namely Israel's indiscriminate assaults in Gaza, that's hardly a new development, with all due respect to you.
I've lost the substance.
Israel from literally day one set out as its goals.
So I can quote, first of all, the defense minister, there will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.
Everything is closed.
We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.
Now, that was not directed at Hamas.
That was directed at the entire population of Gaza.
I think your listeners understand what is the consequence of denying a civilian population all water, all food, all fuel, and all electricity.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that that is a recipe for genocide.
Number two, you quoted or you had on Douglas Murray, who made a distinction between what he called the deliberate targeting of civilians versus the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
Not to want to sound pedantic, but Israel's leading authority on international law is a fellow named Joram Dinstein, who I'm sure Alan Dershowitz knows.
And Mr. Dinstein, or Dr. Dinstein, he stated that there is no fundamental difference under international law between the deliberate targeting of civilians and the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.
There is no substantive difference.
Therefore, under international law, according to Joram Dinstein, Israel is targeting the civilian population of Gaza.
That's another indication from the get-go, not from yesterday, not from when it was revealed to President Biden, but from the get-go, Israel has been engaging in a genocidal war in Gaza.
Now, the genocidal war takes various forms.
Again, I'm going to cite you old quotes.
So let's take Georg Eiland, who was the head of Israel's National Security Council, the equivalent of our CIA.
And he said, quote, Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.
Now, I'm not here to try to persuade Mr. Dershowitz or Professor Dershowitz.
I am here to try to enlighten your listeners.
So I would like them to cogitate, to meditate over what does it mean to say Gaza will become a place where no human beings can exist.
Mr. Eiland, the former head of the National Security Council, went on to say, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers.
And then there is Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister.
Not on one occasion, not from the spur of the moment, but twice in national addresses to the nation, very soberly, Mr. Netanyahu said, remember what Amalek did to you.
This is a war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.
Now, as Professor Dershowitz surely knows, because he attended Hebrew school, actually he grew up just a few blocks from me, or I should say I grew up a few blocks from him because he's older.
He surely knows that in the midst of a war in a country that is schooled in the Bible, that when you say your enemy is Amalek, then you are calling for the destruction, the killing of every man, woman, and child.
So with all due regard to Mr. Dershowitz, I have to say this issue of human shielding is totally beside the point because it doesn't even come into play in this particular situation.
The orders from the get-go denying food, water, electricity, and fuel to the entire civilian population,
the order from the get-go to turn Gaza into a place that is not able to sustain human life, the order from the get-go in this battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.
I repeat, I do not believe it requires a rocket scientist to figure out that from day one, which is to say to the point of the point of view.
I get the point though.
You've made the point.
Israel has been waging a war of genocide in Gaza.
You've made the point.
You've made the point.
Come back to Professor Dershowitz.
Here's the problem, it seems to me.
I've just listened to Norman Finkelstein at length outlining that side of the argument.
It's very hard when you look at what has actually been happening in Gaza in the last two weeks in particular, to avoid a conclusion that Israel doesn't really seem to care if it levels Gaza to the ground, as long as it can get rid of Hamas.
Two-State Solution Reality00:10:35
My issue with that is, having defended their moral right to defend themselves as a country, is I don't think they're going to eliminate Hamas.
And they're certainly not going to eliminate the ideology.
And they're going to basically end up with a Gaza that's flattened, two million people displaced.
Where are they going to live?
Who's going to run Gaza?
How does this actually play out other than catastrophically badly?
It will play out catastrophically badly because of what Hamas has done.
We have to remember, first of all, you judge people by their actions, not by their words.
The quotes from Professor Dinstein, who's been retired for probably 25 years, and Eland, who has nothing to do with the Israeli government, are individuals.
Dinstein is 100% wrong.
I'll give you an example.
Is there no difference between Nazis putting Jews deliberately, six million of them, into gas chambers and other means of death, deliberately targeting them, and what the United States did at Hiroshima Nagasaki?
They may both be wrong, but there's an enormous difference between deliberately targeting civilians, such as the Nazis did during the Holocaust, and engaging in war actions, which you know are going to inevitably cause death of civilians.
So there's an enormous, enormous difference there.
Then he talks about Amalek and Hamas.
I know the Bible very well.
And of course, Amalek was a group of people that sought to destroy Israel.
But when people refer to Amalek, they don't refer to the Palestinian people.
They refer to Hamas.
And Hamas is Amalek.
Hamas is the Nazi party.
Hamas are not heroic resistance people.
They cut off the breasts of women and throw them around.
They behead children.
They put children and burn them to death.
Yes, they should be destroyed.
It's going to be very difficult.
This is not going to have an easy solution.
Israel may in the end not be able to completely destroy Hamas.
I hope they can.
I hope they can in the way that the United States and Germany destroyed Nazism and destroyed Imperial Japanese.
And in the end, what happened is the Japanese and the Germans were grateful for it.
And then the United States and Great Britain helped rebuild Germany and Japan and turn them into great allies.
That's my hope for Gaza.
My hope for Gaza is that the people of Gaza will finally be rid of Hamas, that took over in a bloody coup, and that the United States and Europe can then rebuild it better than it was before, like a Marshall Plan, and hope that a democratically elected Palestinian people will then have a two-state solution.
I've been in the United States.
But let me just jump in there since 1970.
Let me just jump in there.
Only tonight, the Israeli ambassador to the UK made it abundantly clear: two-state solution is gone.
Israel, I'll play you the clip.
I'll play you the clip here.
Yeah, but he's wrong.
Is there still a chance for a two-state solution?
I think it's about time for the world to realize the Oslo paradigm failed on the 7th of October, and we need to build a new one.
And in order to build a new one, does that new one include the Palestinians living in a state of their own?
Is that what it is?
I think the biggest question is: what type of Palestinians are on the other side?
Is what Israel realizes.
The answer is absolutely no.
You see, when When you hear that, this confirms, Alan, this confirms what many Palestinians have feared, that for 20 years or more, the Israeli government, and Netanyahu in particular, have had absolutely zero interest in any two-state solution.
And so if that's the same thing.
But let's remember that Israel offered a two-state solution in 1948, 1967, 1994, 2000, 2001, they came very close to 2001, 2005, 2007.
The vast majority of Israeli people, Israel's a democracy, unlike Hamas, the Israeli people will vote for a two-state solution if the circumstances are right, if there is no Hamas, and if the Palestinian Authority will have elections, and if the people of the West Bank and Gaza vote for the USA.
There will be a two-state solution.
I'm going to come back to Professor Finkelstein in one second.
But again, today, Netanyahu has said explicitly there can be no Hamas run or Fatah-run Gaza after this.
He said it today.
He's got no intention of either Hamas or Fatar running Gaza.
So who is going to run it?
He thinks he's not going to be in power after this.
After this, there will be a national security government, probably headed by people like Gantz, maybe Bennett.
The people of Israel are going to decide, and the people of Israel get to make that decision, and they're going to decide on a two-state solution.
The one thing that's clear is with Gaza dominated by Hamas, there cannot be a two-state solution.
Let me go back to Palestinian.
Without Hamas, anything's possible.
Okay, I agree with that.
I don't think Hamas can possibly be left in control.
I just don't think that this mission is going to eradicate Hamas in the time scale which America is now clearly laying down for their support.
Professor Finkelstein, how do you see this playing out from here?
Okay, I would like to say a couple of things, if you don't mind, it's okay.
Number one, Professor Dershowitz attaches a lot of importance to what the people of Israel want.
And so let's look at what the people of Israel want.
According to the most recent polls, 60% of Israelis believe, Jewish Israelis, 60% of Jewish Israelis believe that Israel is not using sufficient force in Gaza.
60% believe that Israel should, or the government, should escalate the amount of force it should use in Gaza.
Number two, it's the Israeli government, excuse me, it's the Israeli people who democratically elected this ultra-right-wing government.
It's not as if the claims are made that Hamas has been imposed on the people of Gaza, but there is no imposition in Israel.
I quite agree with Professor Dershowitz, at least for Jewish Israelis, for Jewish Israelis, it's a democratic country.
And they democratically elected the ultra-right-wing government.
So I think those are two very good indications.
I can't say they're very auspicious indications, but they are very good indications of what the Israeli people want.
Number three, I'm not now going to go into a long disquisition on the history of the so-called peace process, but I would ask your listeners, if they have the time, patience, and interest, to just Google what's called the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.
And that's a General Assembly resolution that comes up every single year for decades.
And it calls for that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border, and it calls for a peaceful settlement on the basis of international law.
Now, if you look at the voting record every single year, it's the whole world, including the state of Palestine, on one side, supporting a two-state settlement on the basis of international law, and on the other side, opposing its United States, Israel,
and usually some South Pacific ATOs like Tuvalu, Nauru, and Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
That record is written in stone.
It can't be changed.
And it makes very clear what is the obstacle to a settlement.
The obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States, opposes a two-state settlement on the basis of international law, the law that has been defined by the International Court of Justice, the legal arm of the United Nations.
Now, I'm going to make one remark now, which you will find perhaps controversial or unacceptable, Pierce.
However, I hope you'll allow me to say it, and then you can engage it, as you said, in a civil fashion.
You say that the actions of Hamas have disqualified it from any participation in a peaceful settlement.
Now, I am not going to make any brief for Hamas.
It's for the people of Palestine to decide who should be their leaders, who should represent them.
But I do have to ask you, Pierce, and I respect you, so I'm asking you this as a matter of not rhetoric, but one intelligent person to another.
I'm asking a simple question.
If it's the case that the actions of Hamas on October 7th disqualify it from being party to a peaceful settlement, roughly 1,200 people were killed, about 30 of them being children.
Why is it not then also the case that the absence of the state of Israel since October 7th, the deliberate, the deliberate war of genocide against the people of Gaza, which has left about 15,000 people dead, not 1,200, 15,000,
Blockade and Disqualification00:04:48
and has left dead not 30 children, but has left dead about 7,000 children, and as we speak now, 7,000 more children are threatened with death because of starvation, I ask you, as a logical proposition, why isn't the state of Israel disqualified from any final settlement of the question?
And one last thing, because you ask, what do I believe?
I will tell you what I believe.
I believe number one, immediately after the war comes to an end and the blockade of Gaza, that cruel, inhuman blockade of Gaza, that war crime in Gaza, that crime against humanity, the blockade of Gaza.
It has to be lifted.
But once there's a ceasefire, And once that inhuman blockade of Gaza is lifted, once the walls of that concentration camp come tumbling down, then I see two steps.
Step number one, there have to be war crimes prosecutions.
I have no problem in saying on both sides, but there must be accountability.
You cannot get away with executing a war of genocide in broad daylight and then continue.
And number two, there has to be a settlement on the basis of international law.
That is the only consensus basis for ending the conflict once and for all.
Okay.
I want to just very quick reply, please, Professor Dosh.
I was going to end it there, but I want to give you a right of reply on that one point.
You're a lawyer.
This point about international law, when President Biden, the head of America, the biggest, strongest ally for Israel, comes out and says that the bombing has been indiscriminate, he is accusing Israel directly of committing war crimes.
That is a war crime, if it has indeed been indiscriminate.
Is this war now at a stage where America may pull its support because they believe that Israel is breaching international law?
It's not.
Today, 10 Israeli soldiers, including a commander, were killed in northern Gaza because Israel refused to bomb that site, which it could easily have done.
Instead, it sent in brave 18, 19, 20-year-olds, some of them considered children under the Hamas definition of anybody under 19.
And they were all killed because Israel made a decision not to bomb indiscriminately.
It has never bombed indiscriminately.
It has always been part of the process.
Because he usually, very often, carelessly uses words.
I'm a supporter of Joe Biden, but he's wrong.
It's not indiscriminate.
It's very, very discriminate.
In terms of international law, Fickelstein is just dead wrong.
I helped draft 242, the UN resolution.
I was working with Arthur Goldberg in 1967, and that talked about territorial adjustments.
Israel has the right to make some territorial adjustments.
They shouldn't have had occupation of civilians, but going back to the 67 borders is an invitation to suicide.
And you know when the blockade of Gaza will end?
The day that Hamas is no longer in control and the day when rockets no longer attack Israeli civilians.
That's the day the blockade will end.
The blockade is a good thing designed to prevent Hamas from firing rockets, using tunnels, and doing a repetition of what happened on October 1st.
Okay, I do not agree that the blockade is a good thing.
I do think that the occupation of Gaza for many decades has been a terrible thing.
The plight of the Palestinians has been horrific.
None of that justifies October the 7th, which was one of the worst terror attacks of modern times.
But I'm grateful to both of you for agreeing to come together and having a civilized debate about this.
We've got to do more talking.
This will only get resolved in the end by people talking and reaching a resolution.
So thank you, both of you.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Welcome back.
Hollywood Role Controversy00:11:19
We'd like to stand up for the little guys on this show.
And today that means literally standing up for little guys against Hugh Grant.
First, he took the sole role as an umper lumper in the new Wonka movie, depriving dwarf actors of their chance at a coveted role.
And he has had the audacity to whine about it, moaning about everything, about the facial cameras used by animators.
It's like a crown of thorns, he wailed.
Very uncomfortable.
I made a big fuss about it.
I couldn't have hated the whole thing more.
I slightly hate making films, but I have lots of children and need money.
Meanwhile, he said he's too old and fat and ugly to star in romantic comedies, which is actually the first time he and I have ever agreed about anything he's ever said.
But returning to the show now is Dylan Postle, who's also known by his wrestling ring name, Hornswoggle.
Dylan, great to have you back on Uncensored.
I thought about you immediately.
I saw Hugh Grant moaning about the role that he played as an umper lumpa, because not only did he take a role that should have been for an actor like you, but he then complained about it.
What was your reaction?
I don't, I fully don't understand why he's complaining about it.
He knew what he was getting into when he accepted the role.
He obviously knew.
So if there was any thought in his mind that there would be backlash or whatnot, even himself feeling that way, why take the role in the first place?
Whether it's the production crew asking him to do the role, he should have then, if there was any question of it, should have not accepted the role.
Right.
Now, the president of Little People of America, Mark Povanelli, said the most troubling aspect of the Hugh Grant situation is that from what I can tell, they have CGI'd him, they have the physical attributes of a person with dwarfism, like the larger arms, the shorter hands.
So he looks like a person with achondroplasia, just like the umpa lumpers from the film of the early 70s.
They're trying to maintain the physicality of dwarfism, but erase the authenticity of dwarfism, which is troubling.
And that's why you go, well, this is like a physical version of Blackface.
Would you agree with that?
I wouldn't go that far.
What do you think?
I'm not going to have a chondroplasia myself.
I have a chondroplasia myself.
This is kind of going back to the CGI or the normal size actors in the seven dwarves roles, where it's taking roles from the dwarf community, from my community, and giving them to average-size actors when those roles for my community are very few and far between.
So when roles like the Oompa Lumpa or the Seven Dwarves are really key roles for people like me, it's really a kick in the guts and it's a hard pill to swallow.
It really is.
And of course it comes to then.
I'm sorry, I was going to say, it's very hypocritical.
Because we've seen time and again Hollywood stars standing up and saying only gay actors can play gay roles, only disabled actors can play disabled roles, only trans actors can play trans roles and so on.
It seems like you're the only group who do not have Hollywood's protection in that regard.
That's yeah, I just don't understand.
Especially now you're spending the extra money on CGI and on edits and all of that when there are actors such as myself and other dwarves out there that would have loved this role, I'm sure.
I would have loved it, obviously.
I'm trying to do more acting and more roles, whether it be dwarf roles or normal size roles.
So for me, it would have been an absolute dream role.
It's all in nowadays how it's viewed.
And I understand completely how the oompa loompas maybe have been viewed in current day compared to in the past.
But it's just, these are roles that were made for people like me.
And what is your message to Hugh Grant that he couldn't have hated the whole thing more?
He said he was asked if he liked the final product, not really.
Was it fun?
Should have been, but it wasn't.
I hate making films.
I just have lots of kids and need the money.
He has got lots of kids, but lots of women.
Probably does need the money.
But it just struck me as being just so dismissively cheap of him to do that, knowing the backdrop of the controversy.
He knew what he was getting into when he took the role.
That's my whole thing.
He knew the character.
He knew how it would be viewed, edited, and all that, but he still took it.
That's where I don't really, obviously I have zero sympathy for him feeling this way.
And it's even more than that.
I just, I feel it's a shame that he did take that role because it could have went to someone in my of my stature.
Well, not only somebody more appropriate, frankly, but also somebody who would have probably loved the role and celebrated the role and talked about your joy at playing that role in a movie of this size.
It's an absolutely huge movie and an absolutely huge part of the wonka story and backstory, how they're perceiving it.
So for it to go to a person in the dwarf community would have been absolutely enormous.
So are we agreed then, Dylan, that he is Hollywood's biggest wonker?
I mean, I don't know about that.
I know that I would have loved that role.
Like I say, I'll spare your blushes.
Normal size roles?
Yeah.
I'm going to call him out.
I'm calling him a Hollywood wonker of gigantic stature, a massive size wonker.
Dylan, great to have you back on the show.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Welcome back to what Sanson.
Harry and Megan have been making headlines again.
This is the Sun's front page today, naming them Hollywood's biggest losers, which is what they were branded in a withering report in the Hollywood Reporter, which is a very credible Bible of the Hollywood industry.
It's also been revealed that their family trashing Netflix documentary, costing 88 million pounds, didn't even rank in the top 200 most watched Netflix shows.
It was beaten by both Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig.
And it's also been revealed that their charity, Archua, which you may remember, boasts of being the absolute pillar of compassion.
That's what its mission statement is.
When, of course, the two people behind it don't show anybody anything remotely to do with compassion, that their donations have absolutely collapsed in year two on year one.
So all in all, not been a good little period for these two.
I'm joined by the host of Outkicks Tommy Lehren's family, it's Tommy Leroy, and my pack, talk TV contributor, Esther Kraker, the Daily Merrills Associate Editor, Kevin Maguire.
Before I get to Megan and Harry, Tommy, your reaction to Hugh Grant playing an oomper lumper in Wonka, We just had an interview with Dylan Postle, you know, on behalf of dwarf actors, just saying not only did he have the audacity to take their coveted role from them, but he also has never stopped whining about it ever since.
Is he the biggest whiner in Hollywood, Hugh Grant?
Well, there's a lot of whiners in Hollywood, so that would be a hard crown to put on anybody's head.
So many contenders to discuss.
But I will say this.
Hollywood for a long time is like a snake eating its own tail.
They want all of these diversity, equity, inclusion standards, but then they wrap themselves up in a messy bow because they can't figure out if they should discriminate against dwarf actors or they should put more in or who they're going to upset or who they're going to anoint one day to the next.
That's the problem.
They decided that merit wasn't important anymore and they decided that trying to appease everybody and to tiptoe around political correctness was the way they were going to go.
And now they can't navigate the waters they've created for themselves.
So I don't shed a tear for Hugh Grant.
I don't shed a tear for Hollywood in general.
Certainly not Harry and Megan.
They are all products of the same disease, which I refer to as leftism or liberalism.
But it can go by many names.
Wokeism might be another name for Harry.
Wokeism.
Let's agree on wokeism.
So many people.
You and I agree about everything to do with wokeism.
Quick reaction to Hugh Grant from you two, Esther.
I mean, he's just a spoilt brat, isn't he?
I mean, this is the kind of the ungrateful sod section of the show.
Harry Megan fits into the same bubble.
You know, I feel sorry for him because he's someone who I think is a fantastic actor.
He's had a very decorative career.
Well, he always plays the same role.
Well, yeah, but the thing is, I don't know.
And as he says, by his own admission, he's now too old, fat, and ugly to play a romantic league.
Yes, he is.
He's still getting a role.
This is the point.
To then take the role, take the money, and then whinge about it, it's so disrespectful.
Kevin, I think his finest role was Jeremy Thorpe, a British politician in a BBC series.
But it does feel like he's ungrateful and privileged.
He's taken the money.
Now, perhaps he thinks an umbalumpa is beneath him.
Maybe he wanted to be Willy Wonker himself.
Well, then let's play the role.
Yeah, but he is an actor.
You've argued many times.
Yes.
I have, but I'm actually throwing back the hypocrisy of the Hollywood Republicans.
And then you'll come back to whinge about us about climate change and helping the poor and supporting labour and all the things.
Let's go back to Tommy and talk about Harry and Megan.
I've got to say, I did chuckle when I saw that the Hollywood Reporter had completely buried them as the biggest losers of the year, culminating in the South Park takedown, which made them a laughingstock.
But I think the reality is America's just seen through them, right?
Yeah, these two suffer from not only wokeism, but narcissism, and I would also say laziness.
And that's proven in the Spotify deal that they had where she failed to produce really any episodes.
So that's their problem.
They think very highly of themselves.
They want both things.
They want fame and privacy, but they also don't want to work very hard for anything beyond their royal titles, which they continually crap on.
So they try to have it both ways.
Once again, I'll use the analogy, the snake eating its own tail.
I do think it's interesting that Hollywood is turning on these two because, you know, when they moved to the United States, they really were put out on a silver platter.
Like, we would be so happy to have them.
I will tell you all, you can gladly have them back.
We do not want them back.
Thank you.
I think I said to you before, Tommy, you Americans, you've sent two of your women over to our royal family and it hasn't gone well.
First one led to the abdication of our king, and the second one has nearly brought down the monarchy.
So you lot are banned.
No more American women in our royal family.
You can keep them.
Just to repeat what Hollywood Porter said, after a whiny Netflix documentary, a whiny biography, spare, even the titles are pouty gripe, and an inert podcast, the Harry and Megan brand swelled into a sanctimonious bubble, begging to be popped, and South Park was the pin.
A glorious assessment of these two little wastrels.
Gary Lineker BBC Precedent00:03:04
Tommy, always great to have you on the show.
Thank you very much indeed.
Appreciate it.
Love your show on Outkick.
So keep that going.
Thank you for being here.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Mike, Esther and Kevin are still with me.
Let's talk about Gary Dineke.
So Gary Denica, good friend of mine, full disclosure.
I've never understood why anyone cares too much about his views on political stuff.
He's perfectly entitled to.
I watched him on Match of the Day.
He never mentioned it on that.
I couldn't care less personally.
However, interestingly, it's been a big fullory because he was one of a number of celebrities who signed a petition about this against the government's Rwanda plan.
And that apparently is allowed under the new BBC rules for people who are not using current affairs presenters like him.
But he then got into a bit of a set to with various Tory MPs.
One was Grant Schaps, who had a pop at him.
And so Gary hit back a tad rich for someone who can't even stick to one name, four chaps schnapps, quite a good line.
And the other one was Jonathan Gullis, who had said he breached impartiality rules.
And he said, Jonathan hasn't read the new guidelines or should I say had someone read them to him.
And Shaps has said he should stick to football.
And it's on these two points that Samir Shah, the incoming chairman, said seemed to be a breach because it's attacking individuals.
To which, Kevin, I would say if Tory MPs want to have a pop at Gary Denica for something he's done, he's perfectly entitled to have a pop back, isn't he?
I agree.
No, no, absolutely.
And if he was picking on them and singling them out, that would be totally different.
But the BBC is tying itself in knots.
He's not doing news and current affairs.
He's a sports presenter.
On Match of the Day, when he's presenting the highlights of the football, he's not going into politics.
He's not seeing down the right wing is better than Suella Bravo.
The one time I criticised him was at the start of the Qatar World Cup when he did this big horror spiel about their human rights.
I thought, well, he won't do that when they go to America, right?
Exactly.
I didn't like that.
But otherwise, I just don't have a plan.
The thing is, even if I agreed with his politics and what he was saying, I think the issue is not with him, but it's with the BBC because the BBC have set this precedent.
So what should they do?
You can't have someone like him on the bottom.
Because the thing is, if you're Alan Sugar does.
Here's the issue.
But the public has to pay for the BBC.
And so with that, we have certain standards that we expect.
I don't care if I agree with everything that came out of Gary Dineke's mouth.
I don't want this person who's clearly very partisan in his views representing the BBC in some way.
And he doesn't need the money.
He doesn't need the money.
I honestly think you just say, look, news, current affairs, you don't tweet about anything which shows your political colours, right?
Unsustainable.
Not bad.
But the ones who have nothing to do with it.
I mean, unsustainable.
Alan Sugar, Sir Alan Sugar, Lord Sir Alan Sugar presents.
The apprentice does it very well.
Hugely controversial tweets all the time.
And all these people don't need the money.
But he should be sacked.
No, I'm not saying he should be sacked.
I'm saying why would they want to keep working for the BBC?
Whether you agree with them or not, it doesn't matter.
It's their right to say what they guys got to leave it there.