All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
May 14, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
30:30
20240514_was-eurovision-a-propaganda-tool-for-israel
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
Eurovision Hypocrisy Exposed 00:03:30
The Eurovision Song Contest means many different things to many people.
To me, it generally means sitting in a dark room and ignoring social media to prevent my head from literally exploding.
But for reasons that will always baffle me, it's one of the biggest TV events in the entire world with hundreds of millions of deluded viewers.
This year it was overshadowed, like so many things are, by protests about the Israel-Hamas war.
And in the charge was a charming non-binary Gothic witch, their words not mine, called Bambi Thug.
The Irish entry was ordered to remove pro-Palestine slogans from their costume, but didn't hold back in media interviews before and after the main event.
The thing that makes this is the congestion.
The community behind it.
The love and the power and the support of all of us is what is making change.
And the world has spoken.
Your queers are coming.
Non-binary speakers.
The queers are coming.
I see.
Well, thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators picketed the event in Malmo, demanding that Israel's act be removed from the competition and calling for a boycott.
Personally, I would boycott Eurovision in its entirety, albeit probably for very different reasons.
Well, Granna Thunberg was, of course, there and removed by police.
That seems to be her full-time job these days, annoying people and getting arrested.
Meanwhile, Israel's entry, a 20-year-old singer named Eden Golan, was loudly booed and heckled by the audience in the arena after being shunned by many of her fellow contestants in the build-up to the show.
Whatever your views on this Israel-Hamas war,
it should surely be self-evident that it's ridiculous to blame it on a 20-year-old woman simply trying to perform at a song contest.
And to the palpable fury of those who campaigned against her, it spectacularly backfired.
Once votes from the viewing public across Europe and the world were added to the total, Israel's surged up leaderboard.
More countries gave Israel the maximum 12 points in public votes than any other entry.
And the song has now reached number seven in the entire world on iTunes.
Israel supporters say it's emphatic proof of a silent majority.
Critics say it shows Eurovision has no moral compass.
Well, one thing is certain, it lays bare one of the most startling hypocrisies of this protest movement.
Many of the Bee Kind Brigade were furious that the pro-Palestine Dutch entry was kicked out of the competition, even though he allegedly verbally abused a female producer.
Bambi Thug then performed a satanic imagery, wearing an X-rated bikini in the colours of a trans pride flag, which he'd earlier waved on camera.
And many of the Eurovision super fans who called for a boycott are very stridently pro-LGBT, and the other letters, of course, I can never remember.
The irony, of course, is that Israel is pretty much the only place in the Middle East where gay people have any rights at all.
I've got a pretty good idea about how a Bambi Thug concert would go down in Gaza.
It definitely wouldn't be winning any public votes.
Well, joining me now, comedian James Barr said he was moved to tears by Eurovision this weekend.
Well, as was I, had I watched it.
The thought of it reduced me to tears.
Terror Attacks and Moral Lines 00:14:57
Israeli writer and activist Hem Mazik, host of Navarra Live, Michael Walker, and the drag artist Crystal, who boycotted Eurovision over Israel's inclusion.
All right, well, thanks all of you for joining me.
James Barr, you reduced to tears.
You said, I keep thinking of all the artists, delegations, production, and people working behind the scenes who spent their lives building up to this moment, only to be thrown to the wolves by the EBU, not taking appropriate action.
You said this was over the EB now disqualifying Israel when the lyrics of the song were originally deemed political.
Here's what I get about this.
Why should Israel not be allowed to compete in Eurovision?
Because they've murdered over 33,000 people.
Well, they were the subject of a terror attack.
But they've murdered 33,000.
At what point do we...
They've lost the moral high ground, Piers.
This isn't okay.
Right.
But just to be clear, a country that suffered a massive terror attack should not be allowed to have a contested Eurovision Song contest.
I'm saying that if you murder 33,000 people...
What about October the 7th?
October the 7th is horrendous.
It's awful.
One of the reasons why they're not going to be able to do it.
Why should that country not be allowed to perform in a Eurovision Song contest?
Because they have murdered.
There's nuance here that you're missing.
They've murdered 33,000 more people.
You can't just excuse that by, oh, well, there was a terror attack.
There's a line in the sand you have to draw.
Would you ban Ukraine for responding to Russia invading them?
I think it's a completely different conversation.
Would you ban Ukraine?
Piers, you're trying to equate two different things.
I'm asking you, Ukraine have killed a lot of Russians responding to the illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Should they be banned by your criteria?
I mean, they haven't killed people.
Well, hang on, hang on.
I will come to you.
This is a good point.
They haven't killed that many children.
It's a completely different conversation.
They have killed a lot of people.
But Piers, it's not as simple as that.
And you know it's not simple.
Well, as simple as that.
It's interesting.
It's not.
Look, there's a lot of people.
Your moral line on the other side.
I understand that.
And there is a lot of hypocrisy, but this is quite a difficult thing to just answer.
And a question like that is not helpful.
It's divisive for no reason.
All right, Hen, I think there's a lot of hypocrisy generally about all this, but I just think fundamentally, why would Israel be banned?
I don't understand.
I mean, that's the level of the dehumanization that we have reached to.
I mean, a British person would sit here and tell you that because of the actions of Israel, they should be banned from everywhere.
I mean, a British person, have you looked at your history?
Have you looked at what your country has done throughout the war, the world?
And we illegally invaded Iraq?
Well, I know that.
I agree.
Should we have been banned then?
Probably.
But you did.
You didn't call for a boycott.
I didn't call for a boycott.
You can't show even born here either.
Actually, was I bought when?
2003.
Yes, I was.
Thank you, though.
I'm glad you think I looked at you.
But you were young, right?
This isn't about.
But I oppose the Iraq war, for example, as editor of the Daily Mirror.
And I don't remember anyone calling for the UK to be banned because of the invasion of Iraq.
Right, but that's what the dehumanization of Israel and Israelis has gone to, that a 20-year-old girl is being held in her hotel room.
This bumby thug is demanding that she would be moved from the room that she's at because she doesn't want to see her in her presence.
A European girl asking a Jewish girl to leave to a different room because she doesn't want to see her.
We know when that happened last in Europe.
And you have a mob of tens of thousands of people sitting, chanting outside her hotel room.
You had helicopters around her.
For what?
For going to a music festival, to singing at a music festival?
And then they're putting out the kafir and they're upset that Israel and Israelis are triggered by that.
Of course, the last time that people came with a kafir to a music festival was on October 7th.
Right.
And we know exactly what happened.
And several hundred innocent young people were butchered.
And that's a mass terrorist.
All right, Michael, let me bring you in.
You wanted to jump in earlier?
What do you think of this?
Well, I found your line of questioning, why should they be banned?
Because they've been subjected to a terrorist attack.
I mean, no one's claiming that's why they should be banned.
People are saying they should be banned because they are fighting what now looks to many people like a genocidal war, right?
You've got 13,000 kids who have been killed.
Now, the argument you seem to be making there was why are we bringing politics into Eurovision?
We didn't kick out Britain during the Iraq war.
Now, I was too young to have an opinion on it then.
Probably I would have agreed if people had said we should have done that then.
But what we do have is a very recent example of us saying Russia can't engage in this competition.
It's such a false equivalent.
Well, it's not a false equivalent.
And the reason I said this, actually, I think there's a stronger case, there's a stronger case for kicking out Israel than there is for Russia.
The reason I say this is very specific.
Israel has killed more civilians by quite a considerable degree in six months.
According to Nga.
The UN says that the numbers are false.
Fog of war, they came to the United States.
There are two different sets of numbers going around at the moment.
So one is how many people have been identified, so sort of names, social security numbers.
Now, if you're looking at names and social security numbers, it's 8,000 kids, 5,000 women, right?
Now, the UN...
After every attack, they know exactly that.
The exact same announcement.
But hang on, hang on.
Look, I'm moderating this.
Here's what I would say.
Let's not quibble about how many thousands of civilians.
A lot of civilians have been killed in Israel's response to a terror attack.
Now, the Russia illegal invasion of Ukraine, to me, the idea that that is not as bad, given they illegally invaded a sovereign democratic country and have ravaged large parts of it, stolen a third of Ukraine, killed countless civilians in the process.
Why would you somehow think that that is morally less disagreeable than what Israel's been doing responding to a terror attack?
Well, so both are absolutely terrible, right?
Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a war of aggression.
It was illegal.
They have killed less civilians in Israel have killed, but they have killed a lot of soldiers, and those weren't people who wanted to go fight the Russians, right?
I don't think actually provoking a war with a country and then killing a lot of their soldiers, you know, that's morally outrageous.
Okay, well, the reason, well, I'll put it this way, because I think saying there is more reason why they should be kicked out.
Because I think the biggest evil and why so many people right now are incredibly passionate that Israel shouldn't be engaging in these kinds of competitions is because people don't care that much about politics.
They don't like to see women and children bombed, right?
They don't like to see people kicked out of their homes time after time.
But they're not as bothered by seeing innocent Ukrainians killed.
Well, the issue with Ukraine, right, was that our government was pretty much in line with a fairly moral position, right?
So most people on the left thought that Russia's...
There were some exceptions, but most people on the left thought Russia's invasion of Ukraine was completely outrageous.
And then what did our government do?
They put sanctions on the Russian regime.
Now, most people on the left, and actually the general population more generally, if you look at polling, it's much more representative than who votes in Eurovision contests, right?
People are incredibly outraged at what Israel is doing because they are seeing civilians being killed.
Were you outraged by October the 7th?
Yes.
What did you tweet about it?
So my position on October the 7th is I think...
What did you tweet about it?
Well, I tweeted very early on that Palestinians have a right to self-defense.
Well, they do.
Well, hang on.
What did you tweet about the terror attack?
I can't remember.
And I think.
Well, I tweeted that they shouldn't have killed the civilians.
What did you tweet about the October the 7th terror attack?
Well, okay.
This isn't particularly...
I'm just curious.
I don't really understand the line of questioning.
If you're asking me, what you're asking is that Iraq would be able to meet what I'm saying.
You're saying that everybody was outraged by Israel's response.
Okay, a lot of people are.
I get it.
But were you as outraged by what happened on October the 7th?
And if so, you're on a public platform.
You're well known.
You have a lot of followers.
What did you tell your followers about it?
So I think the ultimate root of what is going on.
You're not going to answer the question.
I'm going to answer the question as I want to answer it, okay?
You're not going to answer the question.
Well, I'm going to say what I think about this particular issue, which you're asking me.
Why do you come?
First of all, answer my question.
Then you're going to be able to do it.
So what is the question?
What did you say publicly about October the 7th terror attacks?
So first of all, I said something along the lines of Palestinians have a right to resistance.
That was your response.
Yes, resistance.
So you thought it was justified.
Okay, can you let me finish the sentence?
I'm summoned by what I've just heard.
It's because you're not letting me finish the sentence.
You think the toilet responded to 1,200 people being butchered, raped, burned alive, babies being kidnapped, Holocaust victims being kidnapped.
You think that's somehow justified?
No, you haven't let me finish the sentence.
You said that your first response was to say Palestinians.
Can you please let me finish the sentence?
This seems a little bit pointless, okay?
I have a very coherent position if you would like to listen to it.
I could have expressed it in about 20 seconds, but you kept into it.
You said that was your response.
Okay.
You didn't let me finish the sentence.
Okay.
Palestinians do have a right to resistance.
That's enshrined in the UN, sort of in international law.
They don't have a right to target and kill civilians.
So the moment it became clear that they had targeted and killed civilians, I condemned that.
I think you shouldn't.
I don't think any...
I don't think any...
Was it a terror attack?
I don't think any cause.
Yes.
I think it was a terrorist.
Okay.
Are Hamas a terrorist organization?
I think pretty much.
I mean, there are levels of it.
All right.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
The bar is so low that we would accept even then.
I mean, well, let me look.
We're going to lose Chris.
Let me bring in Crystal, who is a drag artist.
Sadly, not in your costume.
I noticed, Crystal.
A little bit disappointing for people like me that love a good drag queen.
But you boycotted Eurovision over Israel's inclusion.
Why?
You know, for the reasons that have already been outlined, I'm outraged by Israel's behavior in Palestine.
And I think that when you are killing innocent civilians, you shouldn't get to promote a cultural.
So just to be clear, every country in the world that kills innocent civilians should be banned from Eurovision.
Who could qualify?
I think we are in a very specific situation this year because...
Well, no, hang on.
I'm just taking your criteria.
If killing innocent civilians is your position, that's fine.
I respect it.
But how many countries in Europe do you think you've killed innocent civilians in the last 20 years who, by that criteria, should be banned from Eurovision?
We're seeing mass, mass casualties on a scale that is pretty unprecedented in modern history.
So I think it's justified.
Okay, I mean, you presumably...
Are you aware of the Iraq war?
Are you aware of the Afghanistan war?
Are you aware of what's happened in Syria?
I am curious.
Are you aware of what happened again?
I wasn't even actually aware of Eurobit's.
Far bigger death tolls have been seen.
Far bigger death tolls have been seen all over the world now in the last 20 years.
It just never got this attention, which does come back to one sentiment that Jewish people feel, which is they get singled out.
And it's actually hard not to conclude that when you hear people just airbrush all these other conflicts like they never happened.
Uh-huh.
I mean, you just said that I did that, but I didn't do that.
Well, by all means, correct me if I'm wrong.
I wasn't living in the UK during the Iraq war.
I hadn't even heard of Eurovision.
So frankly, I don't have a position on Eurovision.
But as an artist, as an artist, targeting a young 20-year-old woman who's living her dream, representing her country, Eurovision.
I would say that she's something like that.
Would you like me to answer?
I would say that anyone who targeted her personally is, I think that's a mistake.
I do see, however, that she was representing her national broadcaster and essentially there as a propaganda tool for the Israeli government, singing a song.
Propaganda tools, Ollie Alexander, the UK's contestant, who managed to get no points in the public vote, which is quite an achievement, actually.
Although, from what I hear, he's dreadful.
And Bambi Thug, they've supported the Queers for Palestine movement, which is such a touching movement, given that actually, if you were openly queer in Palestine, Amas would have you thrown off a roof.
What is the Queers for Palestine movement all about?
Well, I don't think that the right to life, I don't think the right to queer liberation is not more important than the right to life.
And I think that's just a reasonable position to hold.
You know, if you're queer right now in Palestine, you're not going to die because you're going to be thrown off a roof.
You're going to die because of an Israeli bomb.
So I think this is a disingenuous line of questioning to say that we're suddenly caring about queer people in Palestine when those people are.
So you only care about them being killed by Israelis.
Didn't care about them being persecuted before Israel responded to the terror attack.
What?
No, I didn't say that.
But gay people being killed.
They're frightened center in Palestine and I'm I?
I condemn any government.
Have you, have you murdered anything about gay?
Go on television programs like this and publicly express your own program.
Did you pull out of competition to do so?
Did you pull out of competition?
No one asked for my views on on Iran's treatment of gays or Russia's treatment of gays, but no, they're scared of this problem.
No, I think I mean I'll defend what Chris was saying there.
I'm the same.
You know sometimes you forget to tweet things and others you don't.
But ultimately we're not narcissistic.
We're not that narcissistic that we think that queer rights are more important than the actual lives of people, like people's lives more important.
I was horrified.
I don't remember exactly what I tweeted, but I was absolutely disgusting.
You remember the kind of general context of what the context would have been, how disgusted I was.
It was awful.
You do.
I have friends that work in the music industry.
It was at a music festival, peers.
It was horrendous and so upsetting.
But it's really hard to talk about it because as soon as you say anything, you're thrown under a business argument.
Lots ridiculous conversations about the war in Iraq like, of course we should have been told we couldn't, even because of that's my point.
Once you bring politics into these things, where do you?
Politics was always in your revision and I think that's the lie here, why the EDU is so entrenched with national broadcasters, who are entrenched with public.
I think the whole thing's a lot of crap.
I wouldn't watch Eurovision if you literally held a gun to my head ironically, and of course, a lot of politics is in play in there.
But if you're gonna start singling out countries for elimination and boycotts and treat young women like that, no one should reprehensible manner because it wasn't just that, it wasn't a boycott crying about all of the people that are working for that event, who are unfortunately behold, beheld by the decision that the EU didn't make and therefore look bad as well.
And that's why you weren't crying for her, you were crying for the vaccine.
I genuinely do feel very bad.
Soon, as you're very obsessed with what people tweet on any particular day.
What did you tweet when Russia were kicked out of the Eurovision Song Conference?
I think it was completely justified.
You think it was completely justified, so you are happy with politics being brought into Eurovision?
No, no.
Here's my point about the Russian political right.
I agree that it was good that they were.
I think if you illegally invade a sovereign, democratic country, absolutely you shouldn't compete.
What about illegally occupied with this?
West Bank Occupation Debate 00:08:22
Come on, everything is just you.
You love to throw in facts that are just wrong everyone.
Have a gay British guy, a drag queen, being out here advocating for Hamas.
Okay, not supporting, okay.
That is what I meant.
I have never once said that making the case for their.
Okay sure, you condemn Hamas, but at the end of the day, all you care about you said it and the drag queen said that.
Both of you that all you care about is what people tell you to care about.
Right, that's not what you said.
Why didn't you speak about Iran?
Why didn't you speak about gay people being killed in Iran?
Why I have spoken about that?
I've spoken about that a lot.
I've spoken about gays being thrown off roofs a lot of Austinian gay person that was beheaded in the West Bank four years ago.
Why didn't you talk about all of that?
Let's bring this up to be Anti-Israel.
That's what it is.
I am not Anti-Israel.
I want to bring the debt international law, because I think you made a really important point there where the reason that you think it was sort of justifiable for Russia to be kicked out of the Eurovision Song Contest was they had you know it was a war of aggression.
That's one of the ultimate war crimes.
Now another really important war crime is occupying someone else's territory and settling your people there, moving in your people.
Now, whatever sophistry you might try and employ, I think you're going to struggle to deny that the West Bank is under Israeli occupation.
So there's constantly.
You say that there's Hamas in the West Bank.
They attack you.
No no, so it's Gaza.
Right, we're talking about Gaza.
Don't conflict each area specifically.
We're actually not about the West Bank.
Leave the West Bank.
We're actually not.
Think about Gaza.
Maybe it's you guys who should leave the West Bank.
Right.
Okay.
It is.
If we're talking about international law, which I think is very important, we need a framework as to how we can understand the world and how we can hold people to account.
Now, you're absolutely right.
Russia did conduct a war of aggression against Ukraine.
That was against international law.
Israel has also been conducting an illegal occupation for 57 years.
In a different area.
It doesn't matter, right?
It doesn't matter what area you're committing your international war crime, right?
Wait, so there is a Palestinian state, it's in the West Bank and Gaza.
I'm working on it.
I'm saying it's uncomfortable.
Michael, Michael.
Michael, here's my response to it.
Here's my response.
The UK broke international law with the illegal invasion of Iraq.
That was 2003.
That's a much shorter time period than the one you're talking about.
So why?
No, no, no, but it's not a shorter time period.
This is important because I'm not talking about something that happened 57 years ago.
I'm talking about something that's been happening for 57 years.
So Israel is still expanding settlements in the West Bank.
I wanted to clarify that.
And for the record, I've been challenging them about the expansion of settlements.
I think it's completely indefensible, right?
I think the issue whether they're committing war crimes in their response to the October 7th attack has yet to be.
Expanding settlements is war crime as well, right?
I believe the expanding settlements are completely wrong.
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I think it's completely wrong.
But I do think that we need to focus back on this, which is Israel is being punished in this debate because of its response to a terrorist attack.
Russia illegally invaded Ukraine.
There was no provocation from Ukraine whatsoever.
I mean, there were political posturings, but nothing that warranted an illegal invasion of their country, right?
So to me, they're completely different things.
And I just wonder how far you take it.
If you start to say, as Crystal said, that actually if you kill innocent people, you shouldn't be allowed to compete in the Eurovision.
Okay, well, that's pretty much most countries in Europe would have blood on their hands.
The ones who took part in the illegal invasion of Iraq, France, Germany, you know, and so on and so on.
So my point is, once you fly this moral halo over an event like that, there is rank hypocrisy.
But I don't understand how you can both make that argument and then also back Russia being expelled.
Either you have a non-political Eurovision or you have a political Eurovision.
Maybe you're having a faithfulness.
I think if you illegally...
Because I think I see a moral difference.
That's what I'm saying.
Israel has been breaking international law for 57 years.
No, but that's you're talking about.
So you think now, does the UK has any issues at all?
So the issue here, I think...
There is issues with international law.
So I'm not aware of the UK.
I mean, I'm hoping that...
You're not aware of anything.
I'm not aware of the UK currently breaking international law.
I think we have done in the recent past.
I think Israel is currently breaking international law.
It's fighting through a window without the USB.
And they have to be, wouldn't it?
For 57 years.
And you don't think any of the countries in the Eurovision, in Europe, are not engaging in any violation of international law in Darfur, in Africa, in Asia, anywhere around the world.
Do you think there's no engagement at all?
All those countries are perfect.
There's only one country that has an issue, and it happens to be the Jewish state.
I don't think any country is perfect, actually.
And I think the UK is not perfect.
Do you think America's broken international law?
Well, I mean, I think the war in Iraq was illegal for the US.
So America is hosting the next World Cup, for example, right, with Mexico and Canada.
Should that be boycotted?
We shouldn't be boycotting.
We're going back to the same issue, which is, is it happening?
We're saying how far do you fly the moral flag?
Is it happening right now?
Right?
So Israel has continuously been breaking.
Did you start hearing about Israel the last eight months or did it start before?
Did you advocate for Palestinians before?
So I advocate for people following international law.
And as I keep saying, I'm sure if we'll measure your tweets, Europe has been heavily focused on Palestine, right?
In the last, how many years you've been doing this work?
I mean, heavily focused on the people.
So to pretend that it's about the war that is happening right now, to pretend that it's about occupation.
For the last 10 minutes, I've been talking about the occupation of the West Bank.
And you're saying, well, if you tweeted about it before October.
You're saying your interest has not started because of the war.
You're saying because there's a war right now, that's why you think it's a problem.
Did you support the BDS movement before October?
Yeah, I support the BDS movement.
You did.
Exactly.
So you supported boycotting Israel long before the war that is happening right now.
So when, how is that making any sense?
Okay, so because you're saying you care about it because of the war.
Please explain.
So I think lots of people have this question.
Why do progressives and young people care so much about Israel and Palestine?
Relatively small part of the world.
Now, I would say...
The reason is, one, that Israel is heavily backed by, for example, our government, so people feel implicated.
Somewhat different to what's going on in Sudan and Darfur, where our government sort of opposes the people who are not in the world.
So is it?
Let me finish this.
No, just say, but make sure that you include all the facts.
I think this would be simpler if you let me finish my sentence.
No, but the point is that we're talking about single-stand.
I'm going to explain why.
Before October the 7th, you're quite right, lots of people cared about the Israel-Palestine issue.
The reason is they think that our government, and I think this is true, has given Israel pretty much unconditional support to continuously break international law in expanding settlements in the West Bank.
And one reason why people find this so sort of objectionable is because it's done on the basis of ethnicity.
We rightly have a business when it comes to racism kicking people out of their homes because of their ethnicity and replacing them with people of another ethnicity.
Now that's been taboo for a good time.
For a long period of time.
What ethnicity are you talking about?
Jewish and non-Jewish.
Jewish is an ethnicity.
I don't know what you want to call it.
But it's a basis.
And Palestinians are an ethnicity as well.
They're not Arabs.
So is it Jews versus Palestinian?
Tell me your world of the race science here.
I'll try to understand.
Well, I'm talking about Israeli law.
So the issue is with Jews, right?
No, the issue is with the fact I'm explaining how the colonization of the West Bank worked.
Where did the Jews came from?
Well, this is a completely separate question.
No, it is important.
You're talking about ethnic cleansing and replacing population with other ethnicity.
You're talking about Jews and ethnicity replacing Arabs, right?
You might be able to do that.
You're talking about the Jews came from.
You might be talking about 2000.
Where did the Jews clean correctly?
It doesn't make a difference because it doesn't.
It recognizes where the one came from.
You're talking about liberating the land.
I'm with you.
You're talking about liberating the land.
So you think when you're...
If you take a Palestinian out of their home and replace them with a Jew, that's the variation.
I'm asking you.
You're talking about liberating the land from Jews, right?
From the ethnicity of Jews.
And the Jews replace Palestinians.
And I'm talking about Palestinians in the West Bank with Jews.
It's completely irrelevant.
It's the interesting thing, right?
We're moving slightly off topic, which is the...
There is an interesting question about the double standards of this, right?
I mean, you raised it about Russia and so on.
And James, I mean, where is this line going forward?
There's been a huge kerbuffle here, right?
I feel very sorry for this young female singer who had her big night ruined.
But you have to feel sorry for all of the other performers who've also had their dreams ruined too.
Because everybody has been affected by this.
Everyone is affected by this.
But they were affected by the Israel people in Korea.
People around the world are all affected by this, no matter what side you're on.
Double Standards in Cancellations 00:03:40
By Eurovision.
Wherever you're at.
By Eurovision.
No, by the situation.
That's my point.
And the boycott thing, like, everyone is entitled to boycott something if they wish to.
That's totally fine.
Targeting a young woman like that.
We've condemned that, Piers.
We don't need to keep coming back to it.
That's obviously awful.
You shouldn't target anybody.
On a separate issue, what about the fact that some of these people putting their halos on, right?
Bambi thug who put on what many thought was a satanic performance, right, involving a lot of spells, black magic, dark clothing, satanic symbols, voodoo dolls.
Do you believe in all of this?
I just think it's odd given there's such a very young audience watching around the world.
Kids, right?
So we had the Finland contestant, right?
I mean, I only caught up with this on social media, thank God.
But imagine watching this with your kids, with the Finland contestant, who just basically strips naked, right, on a show televised around the world to literally millions of kids watching this.
I mean, is that right?
I don't think that's entirely true.
I'd like to see the actual statistics on how many children were watching because of mainland Europe.
This is after 9pm.
Billions of kids watching this.
This song was also later.
Do you know what time kids go to bed in Spain, Italy?
Do you?
I think it's ridiculous.
Literally 10 o'clock.
People have seen Disney films, right?
Whether men get magic like that.
No.
And it was mostly covered, wasn't it?
No, not really.
No?
I think it pretty much was.
No.
And also, there was a terrible, by the way, an absolutely appalling piece of misgendering.
I don't know if you noticed it.
It came from a very surprising source.
Let's take a look.
2008.
He's done it.
Switzerland have won the 68th Eurovision song contest.
What a worthy winner.
People make mistakes all the time.
I thought it was a non-binary they them.
Yes, they are non-binary.
Graham Norton, who's gay, called.
I'm sure Graham made a mistake.
It happens, but it's when it's a deliberate.
Should he be banned from ever hosting again?
I mean, what a stupid question.
Of course not.
Wow, I would be.
I'd be cancelled.
You would have done it.
People like you screaming away.
Misgendering is a good idea.
Because you'd have gone in there and you'd have deliberately misgendered.
You know what, my four times.
I honestly have a new rule.
If there's only one of you looking at me, I can't call you a plural.
That's your new rule?
Has to be.
But you, I mean, you use the correct pronouns earlier.
Because you looking at me and you demand to be called they.
I demand to be called my pronouns, hot, hot, or hottest.
I'm afraid those don't fit.
Am I going to have that?
No, I'm afraid not.
Okay, final point to you, Michael.
I know we've got to wrap this up.
But just on that point, never mind the Israel component of this.
Has Eurovision just become pretty unpleasant fair for kids?
I'm not a Eurovision expert.
I'm in a similar position to you, so I don't know how much has changed over the years.
Do you think it's absurd?
I saw Ollie Alexander's performance.
I thought it wasn't quite as good as George Michael's sort of situation in a toilet.
In the toilet, I mean, what's he doing?
UK contested.
I think it was amazing.
I have no idea if it's not weirder than it is.
If it was amazing, it was always been Buck Sfizz with the skirts being ripped off, Poland with the butter churning.
This is part of Eurovision.
Some idiots in a urinal representing my country.
Why don't you end Silent Piers?
I couldn't do worse than him.
Why don't you enter?
You've got literally no public suits.
Just wear the same suit.
He literally got the infamous noupoin.
The entire world went, what is this crap?
You may as well be having a crap.
Anyway, on that bombshell, great to see you all.
I give you a bunch of people.
Thank you very much.
I think we're all agree Eurovision's become an absolute waste of time.
I mean, the one way to solve all this problem is to cancel it.
Just get rid of it.
Eurovision.
Problem solved.
Can we cancel your show first?
Absolutely not.
We cancel you, though.
Thank you to my panel.
Appreciate it.
Export Selection