Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Kwasi Kwarteng

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

On tonight's episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored with Richard Tice and Isabel Oakeshott they are joined by Kwasi Kwarteng for his first live TV interview since he was fired by Liz Truss. Also Richard and Isabel discuss whether it is time to legalise cannabis and even tax it. Watch Piers Morgan Uncensored at 8 pm on TalkTV on Sky 522, Virgin Media 606, Freeview 237 and Freesat 217. Listen on DAB+ and the app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tonight on Pierce Morgan Uncensored with me, Richard Tice. And me, Isabelle Oakshot. Quasi Quarteng held the nation's purse string as the British economy imploded. His friend and ally Liz Truss fired him to save her own job, which she lost anyway just six days later. Tonight, in his first live interview, since the 44 days that changed political history, Quasi Quartang joins us in the studio. Plus, almost 2 million British people use illicit black market cannabis to manage their medical conditions. Is it time to relax the law and possibly even tax it? We'll debate that as well.

Live from London, this is, here's Morgan Uncensored with Richard Tice and Isabel Oakesholt. Well, he was a man who had it all blessed with a brilliant brain. He was a King's Scholar at Eton, got a double first at Cambridge. He was a Kennedy scholar at Harvard, and then he added a PhD to his name. His first taste of the lime light was way back in 1995 when he was a member of the team that won the BBC Quiz Show University Challenge. After a stint in the city, he landed one of the safest seats in the country, becoming a Conservative MP in 2010. He then worked his way up to the second most powerful political position in the country as Britain's first black chancellor. Quasi Quarteng is one of those annoying people that are good at almost everything,

except perhaps looking after our cash, because within 38 days of his appointment to the Treasury, it was all over. His first budget had blown up, and his close friend and political ally Liz Truss had thrown him to the wolves in a vain attempt to save her own skin. And in the ultimate humiliation, he actually learned he was about to be fired when he read it on Twitter. Well, reeling from one of the most shocking political betrayals in modern history

and amid accusations he'd crashed the economy, Quasi, quite understandably, went to ground. Now he's finally ready to talk live about how his career went up in smoke, along with his vision for the UK economy. Well, the former Chancellor Quasi Quatering joins us now. Hello. Thanks for being with us. You blew that pretty badly, didn't you, Quasi? Well, it was a turbulent time.

I mean, we can laugh about it, but we try to do a serious thing. We try to reduce the tax burden on this country. And we were caught in a real firestorm. And I think it's a shame what happened. I do regret some of the things that we did in terms of the speed. But I think the general direction in terms of lowering tax was right. Well, look, before we get on to all that, I want to just step back a minute. I mean, this is your first live interview since you left office.

You're kind of off the leash, aren't you? I mean, previously you've always had to watch what you say because you were in cabinet for a very long time. Well, quite a long time. I mean, I was a minister or a PPS of the Chancellor, which is very, it's taken to your back venture, but you're kind of on the road. But you still have to watch what you say.

Yeah, you're part of what they call the payroll. So I hope you're not going to hold back. Well, I'm going to speak as freely as I can. But what I would say is that I was in those jobs as a PPS, whatever, for about seven years. Yes. And now this is the first time really since 2015, I think. probably 2014, that I've had a live interview as a backbencher.

Well, look, before we move on to all things you can all right, which I know Rich is absolutely itching to get into, let's talk for a minute about Nicholas Sturgeon. You know, this is the big story of the week. Absolutely. What do you make of her sudden resignation? I think it's been fascinating. I mean, I just found out about it again on Twitter.

And it was very sudden. I mean, she said, oh, she'd been thinking about it a lot. But really, the straw that broke the camel's back, as you'll remember. was the, I think he was called Adam Graham when he was a man. And then he had surgery and was called Ila Bryson. And this man had been convicted of rape twice and then was put into a woman's prison, which defies all common sense.

And I think Nicola trying to say that this was the right thing to do and she got herself into lots of knots was really the straw that break the camel's back, her ratings plunged. And essentially, her woker general, ended up blowing up in her face. I mean, she got herself into a hell of a muddle, as you say. I don't know whether you remember the clip of her getting into a real twist

over the definition of a woman and, you know, whether a trans woman is a woman. What is a woman as far as you're concerned? Well, a woman is somebody like my mother who gives birth or can has the capacity to give birth to children. The question that she got into a pickle over is, are trans women women? Well, that was a great... I mean, I don't think biologically they are. I think you can call them what you will,

but biologically, they're clearly not. It's extraordinary how so many senior politicians are getting in such a pickle. I mean, it's pretty obvious. It's pretty basic stuff, isn't it? It is, but I think the woke agenda has just taken over. And for Nicola... I mean, she's a very able politician.

I mean, to her credit, she's lasted eight years, which is a lot longer than certainly I was Chancellor. But actually, she got herself into a terrible pickle on these quite basic issues. And I think the woke agenda essentially just took off course. But the truth is, you talk about the woke agenda as if it exists sort of has a life of its own. But the truth is that the woke agenda is pretty rife throughout all our institutions now.

I mean, take the NHS, for example. Do you think your own party may possibly have been a bit too timid on these issues? No, I think if you speak to people like Kemi Badnock or Michael Gove, they've been pretty clear about fundamentals on this. And I think it's very easy for people, politicians, to get completely muddled and defy common sense. And I think if you speak to people like Kemi Badenov, others in the Conservative Party, there is very much a common sense approach to a lot of these questions. Okay. Just let's move on because there's been recently some pretty awful, apparently racially aggravated attacks,

including one, I believe, alleged in your own constituency. That's obviously going to fuel claims that, Britain is a racist society. What's your take on that? So my view broadly is that Britain, I mean, you look at any country in the world, Britain is a pretty tolerant place. I mean, you look at, you know, the fact that the Prime Minister is from an ethnic background. I was in cabinets with lots of colleagues who are from ethnic backgrounds. That's a huge deal. That doesn't mean that there is no racism in Britain. I mean, that's too bold. Do you feel that you've ever,

in your whole life, have you ever encountered it? I can tell you, growing up in the 80s in London was much more racially aggravated, there was much more tension than there is today. I mean, you regularly get abuse on the tube. Right. Frequently, there was open hostility to ethnic minorities in a way that you don't see very much today. Now, I'm not saying it's a perfect world that we live in

in terms of racial harmony. There are still outstanding issues. But I think Britain has come a very long way in the 40 years that I can remember. I mean, in the firestorm after your... resignation or firing, however we're going to call it. You know, all sorts of stuff was being hurled at you. Was there any racially motivated stuff there?

I didn't really get involved in that. I mean, I'm not a Twitter warrior. I deliberately avoid getting down those rabbit holes because you can get into all sorts of fights. You know, some of my colleagues are tweeting all the time. Yeah. And they're in these kind of crazy battles. So I avoided that.

And I wasn't really plugged into a lot of that criticism. Did you go into hiding somewhat? No, well, when you're, getting door stepped as I was by media, I just fled. Where did you go? I'm not going to say. Because I knew what would happen. I knew that they would, and every day there were people.

But after about four or five days, the story moved on. So when I came back to my house, I came back to my house, there was nobody there. It was about six days later. The truth was, though, Liz Truss made a catastrophic mistake firing you. I mean, you were in it together and you had to survive it together. And I think we've got a clip here of her trying to sort of defend that decision. Let's just look at that. I can't say it was anything but extremely difficult,

but he was in Washington at the time at the IMF meeting. And I was getting some very serious warnings from senior officials that there could be a potential market meltdown the following week if I didn't take action and I needed to do as much as I could to indicate

that things were different. I get that. How do you feel watching that? I mean, I was looking at your expression. You look pretty pissed off, I have to say. Well, look, you know, the fact was she had a very successful leadership campaign, which was

all about not putting up tax. And I was very clear. it repeatedly that we were going to be joined at the hip and that was what I was there to do. And so I was in Washington as you, as she mentioned and I was summoned back, I should have stayed an extra day. And my thinking was, well, this is just going to create more drama. Should you have gone at all? Because actually, the truth was there was sort of, there was, there was conspiratorial activity going on behind your back while you were there. But it was one of those things. If I hadn't gone, it would have been a massive deal. It was, you were, you were, you were, you were, you were, you were, it was six of one, half a dozen

of the other. You were damned if you did. You were damned if you didn't. If I hadn't gone, it would have been the first time since God knows when that a British Chancellor hadn't gone to the annual meeting in the IMF. And that would have been the story. So she, so that, you know, it was a difficult call. She said she had no option, I'm quoting here, she had no option but to sack you. Do you agree? Well, of course I don't agree. I mean, I think we could have, we should have actually worked together. But, you know, I'm not here. But you should have toughed it out, do you think? Well, I mean, tough it out. I think. I think the one thing that I would say is that in any political,

it's a general point, in any difficulty, in any, you know, a strong, stressful situation where people are buffeting, you know, there are lots of people buffeting around. The one thing you have to do is, you know, you've got to, I think, have a very calm approach. But leadership... And that was what I wanted to do.

And I thought, summoning me back a day before the... Everyone could see it. I mean, my plane was being tracked, you know, by thousands of people. And it just shone a huge light on the fact that there was this turmoil. But, you know, these are finally judged, finally balanced questions. And the Prime Minister, you know, was advised. She took a difficult decision.

She said to me it was a difficult decision. But at that point, when I was sacked, I knew that there wouldn't be much longer of her premiership. And actually, I think it was reported in the Sunday time. Do you think that she panicked? Well, look, I mean, I don't want to relive all of that. Would that be fair? I mean, if the argument was, I'm going to sack my chancellor so that I can prolong my political life, I don't think six days was a sign of massive success in that.

Do you feel let down by your officials, possibly by the sacking of Tom Scholar, and indeed let down by the Bank of England? If they'd acted differently on that Monday morning, if they'd started buying some bonds, things could have been very, very different. Well, they'd been committed to that. I think Tom Scholar, I've said it publicly at the time, it's been forgotten, was an excellent civil servant. But he'd been there 30 years.

But you fired it? Yeah, but he was. And he got a knighthood. The press said, oh, this is a total, you know, shows that they got it wrong. But he'd had 30 years. And we felt that it was time for him to move on.

What about the Bank of England? I think the governor of the bank had got on quite well with him. In the short time, I was working with him. People had said that they had, you know, interest rates hadn't gone up quickly enough. There was a lot of chatter around that. but I had a good working relationship with the government.

Well, what was quite extraordinary is that having sacked you, Liz Trust then chose Jeremy Hunt as your replacement. Now, she's not close to Jeremy Hunt, so where did that idea come from? Well, I don't know you'd have to ask the Prime Minister, but I think it's quite odd that in her essay she's been talking about the fact that the Treasury did this and did that. But she appointed Jeremy Hunt. I mean, she should be backing. Do you think someone told her to? No, I don't think so. I think she had a good measure of.

Because she wanted to stabilize the markets. I think they had, I think Jeremy did a good job in that. And it's very much now, you know, let's try and stabilize things and not get too excitable, not try and agitate. How would you characterize Hunt's ideology? I think it's a very orthodox treasury ideology. So pretty boring and not going to lead us. I mean, look, it's not about being boring or being exciting. It's about an approach to economic management.

And I think what he's doing is trying to stabilize the market. That's what he's been brought in to do by Liz Truss. And Liz who appointed him. It wasn't Rishi. Yeah. Okay, well, next tonight, the gloves are off. We'll be talking Brexit. We'll be talking net zero with the former Chancellor Quasi Quartet.

Don't go anywhere. Welcome back. Well, the former Chancellor Quasi Quirten is still with us. And it's time to talk budget before Brexit. Yeah, well, yeah. Before we get on to Brexit, the budget's looming now. Fortunately for you, you're not in charge. But clearly something has to be done about the tax burden, doesn't it?

It's way too high. Well, look, I mean, that was the whole premise of the leadership contest that we had in the summer, which Liz won. But of course, you know, what happened in October or September happened. And now we've got a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor. And their job, and I think they're doing a good job at it, actually, is to try and stabilize the markets which they have done. I think that's been successful. And they've always said that they want to reduce taxes when, it's appropriate to do so.

Yeah. But the question is when is that? Well, the reality is we've got companies like AstraZeneca, Britain's biggest publicly listed company, announcing this week that they're setting up a new base in Dublin. Citing tax reasons, by the way, because corporation tax is so much lower there. How do you see the implications of that?

Look, so I think that we had... Will there be more that do that? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think... I mean, I've always been very clear about the fact that I don't think high tax... you get to prosperity by high taxes. I don't think that's the route to do it.

Is there a risk that a growing number of wealth creators are just going to leave the country? There's always a risk. When you put taxes up, there's always a risk that people who generate wealth decide to upsticks and go somewhere else. And that's what Pascal Sorio, the head of AstraZeneca, who I know, and I used to speak to when I was business secretary,

he made that very clear in his statement. And how do you feel about that? I think it's regrettable. I think they're a great company. and I hope they would come back and maybe reconsider their decision. Right. On to Brexit. Come on. You're a Brexiteer. You saw it as a great opportunity.

And for three years, you were first a minister of state in the Department of Business and then you became Secretary of State. And as a Secretary of State for Business in a Brexit government, I mean, the whole thing was take control of our money, our laws and our borders. You had a great opportunity

to start to cut back on the mountain of daft, bureaucratic EU laws, and you did nothing about it? No, we started on that. I mean, Jacob was brought in, Jacob Rees-Mogg was brought in as a minister in the cabinet office. We looked at regulation. We've got a bill that's coming through, which is going to get rid of a lot of the EU regulation. But in reality, come on, you know that bill's not going to go through. No, I think it has a chance.

I don't. Has it a judge. They're talking about deferring it. I never prejudge. I never prejudged legislation, but that's clearly the statement of the intent of the government. But the, yes, but the establishment is trying to delay it now. by three or four years to 2026. You know, we left in the end of 19.

The end of the transition period was the end of 20. That's right. We Brexiteers. We said to the country, we'd deregulate, we'd go for growth, we'd cut taxes, we'd control a borders. Yeah. You had a major opportunity to cut regulation, and you really didn't start.

We did start. I mean, the thing I would say about the whole EU debate, a bit of perspective. We were in this thing. We're in the EU for nearly 50 years. Certainly before I was born, okay? And I think that a lot of... It won't take 50 years to get the benefits.

It shouldn't do. But having been this... We're under pressure now. Having been in it for 50 years, I think it was a lot to expect that immediately we left, suddenly everything would be hunky-dory. That wasn't realistic.

And the other thing that people have forgotten about, and you mentioned my whatever departments I was in, I was also in the Brexit department for about nine months. So even more opportunity that you didn't take advantage of? Yeah, but at that time, Richard, you'll remember, in 2017, we didn't have a majority of it.

I mean, it was a completely confused situation in terms of where the parliament was. I accepted in 2017. Between 2017 and 90, so for three years, essentially, we were in gridlock, and then Boris actually managed to liberate the gridlock. Then COVID came three months later. But you weren't involved with COVID. You should have been preparing all of this stuff to just slash and burn these DART regulations, and you didn't.

We had a legislation. We have legislation in place. I worked on that. Jacob has worked on that. on that and it's going through the House of the Parliament. Well, rather than raking over what's now ancient history, what about where we are now? Do you think, I mean, we've got Jeremy Hunt in number 11,

he was a Remainer. Rishi Sunnet was a Brexiteer. I don't know whether he's a convincing one. You've heard about the Ditchley Park gathering. I don't know about, I mean, I've been to those gatherings. You sadly weren't invited to that one. I wasn't invited, funnily enough. I mean, is there a danger

that there is a move to slide us back into the EU? I think there is a risk of that. Absolutely. I think that... But, I mean, you heard, I think, Michael Heseltine say this earlier on your show. He just says, well, oh, the Brexit years have messed it up, then let's go back into the EU.

And, of course, they're not stupid. They're not going to say, oh, let's rejoin the EU. But they'll dress it up in some form of words, which essentially means it will be the EU... On worse terms. On worse terms. I don't know. I think the party is committed.

I know the Prime Minister, Rishi, is committed. What about Jeremy Hyatt? Is he committed? Well, the Prime Minister, I mean, he's running the government. It's one thing having left, but you've got to take advantage to the opportunities. And two years later, after the end of the transition period, you've got nothing as a government, as a Conservative Party, to show for it. I think we've got quite a lot to show for it, actually.

If you look at the big debate, and you'll remember this because we were on the same side, was the amount we were putting into the EU, okay? In the old budget framework, it was 10 billion a year. It would have been more in the new budget framework. So if you think that's nearly six years of where we would be paying 10 billion years, that's a lot of money. What about your record on controlling borders? So on borders, at least we've got an immigration policy. The policy doesn't count for anything.

No, no, no, people come. No, no, policy does matter because what was happening before is that we were having 150,000 people coming into the country, that we had no control over whatsoever. Have you got any control over the migrant boats? I think we are trying to get more of a grip on that. Have we got any grip on it at the moment? But in terms of immigration, Isabel, we have a lot more say. We've got a lot more control of what our policy is.

But the current Home Secretary admitted that you had lost control of the borders. She admitted that to, I believe, a select committee. Last year to June, to June, was the highest ever lawful immigration. So essentially, you've sold to the nation as a government. you've sold a pup. You said Brexit was all about controlling our borders and we've got record levels of lawful immigration and we've got record levels of unlawful immigration.

So Brexit, as I remember, was not about banning it all immigration. No, but it wasn't about that. It wasn't about that going to record levels up at the top of the mountain. No, but, you know, for the need... And I'm someone who I think we should be able to attract the best talent into the country. I don't see any problem with that. And in many instances, people still want to come here, which is a good thing.

Is that talent coming over on boats? No, I mean, they've got to... to do it legally, okay? It's got to be legal. It can't be trafficking. It can't be any of that. Because I feel like you're kind of defending your government's record. And remember, you are a backbencher now. So you can speak freely. I am, but I'm also a team player.

I mean, I find it very frustrating. How do you honestly feel about the never-ending numbers coming over illegally on-boats? It's really frustrating. It's extremely frustrating. Aren't you embarrassed? And also, well, I'm not embarrassed. Well, you should be. I'm focused on trying to come up with solutions.

And the other thing that I would stress is that, you know, there are too many people who, you know, having been ministers, go on the backbenchers and then just freely slag off the government and don't give the measure of support. When they were ministers, they expected backbenchers to support them. So they should be supporting as backbenchers for government. Talking of support, obviously, one of the things that you're involved was the price of energy, the cost of energy, which was going through the roof. And essentially the cost of energy is it's the other side of the net zero coin. That is the reality. now got a situation where the government subsidising people's energy bills and we've got businesses, we touched on AstraZeneca, the other massive problem for businesses is the cost of energy.

The car industry is collapsing for just yesterday, announced 1,300 layoffs as they move towards electrification. Yeah, there are 3,000 across Europe. I mean, there's a context here. But JLR are moving production overseas mainly because of the cost of energy and to do with net zero. The steel industry is begging for hundreds of millions of handouts because of the cost of energy, because of net zero. Many other firms, particularly hospitality, pubs, restaurants, their energy bills are going through the roof, they're shutting when they get off

their existing tariffs. This is all because of net zero. It's all because of net zero. The cost of energy, right, is directly linked to the move towards renewables. We're subsidising 11 billion to offshore wind farms. There's a lot of 5 billion of balancing costs that people have to pay for.

And the truth is, net zero, is making us poorer, it's making us colder, and you are responsible. No, look, I totally disagree with you. The idea that nets, just burning more coal and burning fossil fuels is the future, I think, is wrong. It's false. If you look at the costs of energy, what was driving it in the winter of 2021 was the fact that China essentially came out of COVID restrictions, and there was huge demand coming out of China for gas, and that pushed the price up.

And the second double whammy we had was, of course, Putin's invasion of Ukraine. We're sitting on a century's worth of our own cheap energy treasure that you as a government. It's not just fracking. We've got onshore gas. We've got onshore oil. Yeah, we do.

We've got coal. We've got all these things. We're not exploiting them. Did you see the profits of centrica today? That's a lot of that's from British gas. That's from the naughty. But that's what they do. But the reality is we've got all this shale gas.

Yeah. You and Liz briefly wanted to I was never a big fracker because I realized that there was a big political problem. You say that the cost of energy is nothing you can do about it. In America, the cost of their energy, their gas is a quarter of ours. Why? Because they're fracking. Because they're using their own domestic energy. They're self-reliant on it.

And you as a government have bottled it. So look, in Wyoming, there are two people per square kilometer. In Lancashire, where there was some preliminary fracking undertaken, it's about 450 people. Okay? So your ability to get through any political pressures by fracking in Wyoming is far greater than is the case in England and in Laosius. Final question. Is there a risk the net zero agenda has gone too far? I think the net zero agenda is absolutely the right agenda. Oh, you're going to say that. Do you really? Do you really?

You are destroying this country's economy. You are making people poor. No, no, no, no. The idea that you can burn coal like we did in the 50s forever and ever is completely. It's completely upset. Thank you so much for joining us. It's gone way too quick. We'll have to have you back on again.

Thank you, Pazzi Quartet. Next tonight, we will get reaction from tonight's stellar panel, including Alison Pearson, on the Dominic Raab bullying accusations. Lucky we didn't ask you about that. Welcome back. We're joining us in the studio now, our talk TV contributor, Paula Road, Adrian, and for the first time on Pierce Morgan, uncensored, Daily Telegraph columnist, best-selling author, Alison Pearson.

We've been listening to the interview there with the former Chancellor, the first time he gave a live extended interview. I'll come to you, Alison, first. You're a Brexiteer. How do you feel he dealt with the criticisms? He was being very diplomatic, wasn't he? He was praising the present government quite a lot. I'm going to put my cards on the table, Richard and Isabel.

I would rather Quasi Quatteng was still the chance to the exchequer than Jeremy Hunt. Jeremy Hunt, who, when he was campaigning for the Tory leadership, said he was going to cut corporation tax. to 15%. He's now going to raise it from 19% to 25%. I think that Quasi Quatereng and Liz Trust were on the right lines. They just decided to do everything on the same day and that backfired politically. I think economically they were much more sound than what's going on at the moment. I mean, interestingly, he really did emphatically fail to endorse Jeremy Hunt as someone

with whom Brexit can be trusted, didn't he? He kept coming out, well, I think the Prime Minister definitely agrees with Brexit. So I sense that he was being quite guarded on some of this, because I think ultimately Quasi is a team player. And that is why his firing by one of his

oldest political friends was so shocking because he'd always said privately that he would never ever stitch her up and then he did that. And he's beginning, Paula, to talk a little bit more openly about how that felt, isn't he? He is, and it's good to hear. However, when I'd hope to hear

today was first of all a very clear apology. Oh, I knew you were going to say that. To the hundreds and thousands of people who are now facing the possibility of losing their homes, if not an increase in their mortgage rates and mortgage repayments of up to £500. I'm not sure that was actually quasi-quarteng's fault. I mean, Richard, you know,

you're better on these issues. The reality was that inflation was going up, so interest rates had to go up. Actually, the Bank of England, I think, raised them too slowly, and hindsight's an easy thing. But yeah, there's no question. There was a massive crisis, short-term crisis, that was then stabilised,

and that was their own fault without question. Absolutely, and we know that because that's where all the professionals point to. And secondly, of course, we also know that on the first day that Mr. Quartan was in office, he was offered the opportunity to consider the OBR's independent review, independent assessment,

and he refused to do that. Well, if you actually, I don't know whether you read Liz Truss's article. So she wrote it, I think it was a new paper, wasn't it? So Liz Truss, her coming out from the wherever she's been hiding, wrote a long defence, an explanation of what they did. And she addressed that point specifically about the OBR. She said that it would have been incredibly unusual for them to have given an assessment on what was an emergency statement.

and that that in itself would have been semi-meaningless. I mean, I'm paraphrasing here, because of the way their modelling works. So there was a rationale for not doing that. But look, the reality is she accepts that they didn't communicate this well. They didn't prepare the ground for it. I thought it was quite interesting, Alison,

what he had to say on the culture wars. And, you know, the resignation of Nicholas Sturgeon being the first example of, you know, the extreme woke agenda really hitting the buffers. Yes, and that's been a great victory, actually, for the Conservative government, a rare victory, actually. I mean, Rishi Sunak invoking, I think it's Article 35 of the Scotland Act to stop this thing in its tracks.

I mean, actually, someone was joking this week that Nicola Sturgeon may have gone, but she could be back as Nicola Sturgeon. Oh, crazy. Please. Let's not go there. But, if you think about it, that that absolutely appalling thing that she tried to push through. We did have, as Quasi Quatteng was saying,

we had this double rapist who, halfway through his trial, decided that he was going to be called Ila and would have been allowed to go to a woman's prison. Yeah, and I think this is a very strong issue for the Tories. But I think, just coming back quickly to the economics thing, I think Quasi Qateng was being quite loyal to Liz's trust, because I understand that there were certain things

in the package that he didn't want, lowering the top rate of tax, from 45 to 40, he didn't think they should do it all at once. And that's where it came unstuck, Richard, don't you think? I think so, but Paul, do you also think that I pushed him quite hard about the Bank of England, about some of the people around him, and I think he was very, he was very coy. But I suspect that cagey. You might want to say.

I suspect he felt let down by a lot of people around. Yes, yeah. I mean, the problem is he was let down by a lot of people because it's, you know, it seems that they didn't include the right people in terms of those important decisions. That may be a fair point. Everybody was caught off guard. Now, look, we want to talk about Dominic Raab, don't we? Because I know, Alison, you feel very strongly about the minister who's under a lot of pressure

over a number of bullying allegations. I know Dominic Raab. I've never detected that side to his personality, but then again, I don't work for him. For me, the thing that concerns me is, a pattern of behaviour emerging whereby unelected, unaccountable, anonymous civil servants are able to challenge a democratically elected and appointed politician running a department because they find them a little bit too tough. Yes, I mean, I think there are, I think there are eight formal complaints of bullying against

in which Dominic Rob denies. It's now under investigation by a KC. What struck me was, I mean, you shouldn't laugh because bullying, proper bullying is very, very serious. And if you've ever experienced it, it's completely horrible. But some of the leaking, the endless leaking, some of the complaints are just farcical. I mean, it has become farcical. The hard stares. I think there's a clip, isn't there?

Angela Rainer accused him of throwing a tomato or something. Well, I think he opened his lunchtime salad and, oh no, look. Let's see if we can listen to that clip. Now the Prime Minister defends his deputy whose behaviour has been described as abrasive, controlling and demeaning. With junior staff, Mr Speaker, too scared to even enter his office. And that's without mentioning the flying tomatoes, the Deputy Prime Minister knows his behaviour is unacceptable. So what's he still doing here? Mr. Mr. Speaker, I'm here and happy to address any specific point she wishes to make.

Well, that never happened, she says, from a sedentary position. And I will thoroughly rebut and refute any of the claims that be made. I'm now regretting that we didn't bring some tomatoes in to chuck at you to, although with your matching white jackets. They were cherry tomatoes, allegedly, and he didn't throw them. He dropped them into a paper bag. He'd be dangerous with you two with your white jackets on, wouldn't it be? Look, Paula, you're probably a bit more sympathetic, you know,

to those who are supposedly the victims of this tough behaviour. I think we have to be careful. Of course we do, because there are formal complaints that have been raised against Dominic Raab. What I don't understand is that when you are a manager and you are aware that allegations are being made against you, because I noticed that Rishi Sunak is pointing out that he was never aware of any informal, never aware of any formal allegations being made only since recently. This jumping around about informal, formal, come on. We've all worked in an office. If somebody's saying something about you, you know about it.

And what I'm concerned about is, as a manager, if you are hearing people say something, challenge it, deal with it and he didn't. Well, we can always rely on Paula to see the softest. The right side. Next, tonight, millions are risking prosecution by buying cannabis illegally to ease medical symptoms. So should politicians look at relaxing the law on using weed for medicinal purposes? That debate is coming up next. And welcome back to Pierce Morgan Uncensored.

Well, should we take another look at relaxing the law on cannabis for medicinal use? It's currently a Class B drug, which means you risk five years in prison, or an unlimited fine if you're caught in possession of it. And yet, since November 2018, specialist NHS doctors have actually been allowed to prescribe cannabis for conditions like severe epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. and the UK also has 23 private medical cannabis clinics, which can actually prescribe it for a far wider set of conditions. It comes either as an oil in a capsule or even it can be vaped.

But new figures suggest that last year, nearly 2 million people got hold of cannabis illegally to alleviate pain and medical symptoms. So, just the law need a rethink? Or would it create a two-tier system whether rich could access medicinal cannabis and the less well-off couldn't. Well, joining us now in the studio is Professor Mike Barnes,

chair of the Cannabis Industry Council and a former consultant neurologist and former Conservative Cabinet Minister Anne Whittaker. Well, Richard, this is one of your favourite topics, so I'm going to let you lead on this one. I think it's so important that we try and get this right. I think, Mike, there are some 71 countries

that in various ways have legalised. cannabis to a degree. I think we are, if not, we think we're the largest grower and exporter of cannabis for medicinal purposes and yet it's really tough to be able to use it if you're suffering pain and symptoms here in the UK. Yes, it's an anomaly isn't it that we're the largest exporter of cannabis in the world yet all that is growing in this country is exported and all the supply in this country is imported which is a crazy situation. It's very difficult to get All bar four prescriptions are private.

There's now about 25,000 people who've been prescribed privately in the UK, which is progress. When, as you say, you compare that to nearly two million who take it every day for medical purposes. We're not talking about recreational use here. Then that's a tiny number. And from a health perspective, two million people getting it illicitly. Two million in Britain? Yes. Wow.

I mean, that is extraordinary. Where do those figures come from? There was a you gov poll. Right. It was about 1.4 million pre-COVID. It's grown up. It's actually 1.8 million post-COVID. It does also show probably an impact of COVID or an impact of the publicity

surrounding the legality of cannabis now. People realise they can't get it. So what do they do? They go to the illicit market to get it instead. I mean, I was going to ask you about how, what are the kind of figures involved economically? I mean, I was guessing that actually they weren't huge. You're talking about the import, export, ludicrous situation.

Yeah. What's this market worth for medicinal purposes? Well, the patients who have to be private spend about an average of £500 a month, $6,000 a month. That's an awful lot of money. That excludes whatever, 90% plus the population, which is disgraceful, really. Considering it is legal, the NHS can prescribe it.

We don't need to change the law. So it's odd. And they're vaping at all generally oils? Most of the prescriptions are for oil and vape about 50-50. So what would you like? to see happen then? I'd like to see it come on the NHS. And make that happen, I think we need to do two main things. One is to allow GPs to prescribe, to initiate prescription at the moment they can't. It's hospital doctors only, which I think is silly and wrong. And secondly,

the guidelines are rather restrictive, nice produced guidelines, we're rather anti-canabists. Let's bring in Anne Whittaker onto this debate. And good evening. Thanks for being with us on this. Look, if people are suffering pain and cannabis is a way of relieving that suffering, there's nothing wrong with that, is there, Anne? There's quite a lot of drugs, if you well know, that you can't get simply because you want them. They have to be prescribed. They have to be prescribed after Catholic examination, etc., etc. And at the moment, cannabis is one of those drugs.

There was a time when it wasn't prescribed at all. But it can now be prescribed. And, I mean, an obvious example, you can't just go and get morphine. You know, it's got to be prescribed. And there's no good reason I can see why you shouldn't be able just to go and get cannabis. And one of the things that worries me about it is, you know, we're accepting this figure of 2 million, which has been extracted from a pole. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if people were using it recreationally.

But saying that they were using it for medicinal purposes, there's got to be some control. I mean, I have never been in favour as well, you know, Richard, of legalising cannabis because I think it will drive all the profits of the drug barons into the hard drugs because we know a certain percentage go through the gateway into hard drugs. So I've never been in favour of its legalisation. I have always said if the government's medical advisers told them that it should be prescribed for medicinal purposes, that was something completely different.

And that indeed has happened. I mean, Anne makes a good point there, doesn't she, Professor, that I don't really believe this two million figure that are really using it for medicinal purposes? Isn't this just a kind of cover for, you know, trying to have a bit of a... No, I don't think so. If you look at other countries where it has become much more readily available, the rough indication is about 2 to 3% of the population.

That's worldwide, looking at the countries that have collected those statistics. You move that to the UK, and it's 1.5 to 2 million. Now, clearly, as I said, there's a bit of an overlap, obviously. There are some people who have pain, and they enjoy the relaxation that are recreational high. So their pain might just be a little headache or something. Well, I think you're underestimating. I think there's a lot of genuine people.

Let's call it a little less than 2 million, if you like, got through that overlap area, but there's at least 1.5 million people have worldwide experience that really do suffer chronic long-term conditions who would be helped by cannabis. And what is the risk, Mike, of people getting addicted to these prescriptions

in the way that people can get addicted to many other drugs that are prescribed? I mean, that's clearly a big concern that people like Anne may have. It's virtually not a concern if it's prescribed properly, medically. Because a doctor who knows what they're doing will exclude some people who've got risk factors. The obvious one is psychosis or schizophrenia or some heart conditions. You take those out. They're not safe to be prescribed, generally speaking.

But they prescribe it safely. They prescribe it modestly. We're not talking about the levels you get in recreational canoists by any means. Right. Okay. And without confusing things, the THC is the component that gets people high. That has medical value. So it wouldn't really work for...

Sorry to interrupt. Let you finish, but if it's low level, would it work for people who are depressed, you know, mood? It does. It does. Okay. About a third of the prescriptions are for those with anxiety, particularly. Right. But other related conditions such as depression, PTSD.

But does it then not affect their ability to actually get on with doing a job? No, it doesn't, if it's prescribed properly. Right. There are cannabis varieties that can sedate people. They want to help them sleep. But there's others that alert them. So they can go about their day perfectly normally. And if you accept that carefully prescribed,

the Canby benefits, where are you on the sort of the balance between private clinics, where there seem to be only 23 at the moment, which clearly is a drop in the ocean, and the NHS. Is this something the NHS should be doing? Well, of course, the NHS is already, as we heard in your introduction,

can already prescribe. I need a lot of convincing, frankly, that doctors who are very heavily pressured at the moment are going to be able to prescribe each individual very carefully. We already know. It's no big secret. We already know that they over-prescribe antibiotics because of patient pressure.

We know that. We know the dangers of endless repeat prescriptions. We know all of that. The idea that this is somehow going to be different, It isn't. And so I think we need to be mighty, mighty careful. I'm glad that the NHS and prescribe where it's necessary, but it must be very heavily controlled. And it is at the moment, and it won't be if we just open it up to GPs.

And how worried would you be, Anne, about people on medical prescriptions getting addicted to it? Well, cannabis can be addictive. We know that. I would be far more worried about, you know, the gateway to the harder drugs, which are very seriously addicted. So that's a concern, but it's not my major concern. My major concern is control over the prescribing,

which I just don't believe would exist. Search your own cabinets for antibiotics. You know, that's what happens. Why not just go for the whole relaxation completely? I mean, what about recreational use? Perhaps you're more relaxed about that too? No, I think that's a different agenda. It's a perfectly valid socio-political debate,

But I don't want to talk about that because that would, I think, detract from getting the medical prescription right. We need to get the medical prescription right. I think if you open it up to everybody, people will go down to their local shop, pharmacy, get the cannabis without that supervision, without knowing what to take

and how to take it. So I think it's really important to get some medical control over the system. So I would rather get the medical thing right and then we can have a separate national debate on recreational use. I mean, that's what you want to do is just a free-for-all, isn't it? No, no. I think we're not. I think we've got to look at it really carefully.

I think there's a huge hypocrisy about exporting, being a huge exporter for medicinal purposes and not properly being able to use it ourselves. I am interested in Anne's point that it's going to be hard for doctors to get the prescriptions right. But I think we ought to be able to do that. And I really worry that at the moment, basically, if you're really suffering pain and if it works for you, but that's only if you're rich and wealthy and you can afford to go to one of those to free cards. You also want it to be free-for-all for recreational use. I think we've got to have a proper grown-up national debate about it

and look at it, but you shouldn't rush things. But the first bit is where it's relieving pain and clearly helping, then why prevent people? Why make it so difficult? And I think in the NHS it really is clearly very hard. It's very difficult. When Anne said it was prescribed an NHS, that's four prescriptions, Anne. You know, four.

I mean, I find it weird that you're so kind of passionate about this issue because you've never even tried it, have you? No, I haven't, but I mean, you don't have to try something to, you don't have to try something, you always have a view. I think you do actually. I mean, you want your own experiences that you want to reveal? Well, you know I have. I mean, I've tried it.

I tried it in Seattle, which, where it's legal, by the way. And I had a really bad experience. I had far too much. It did not go well. I had a, you know, one of these jelly things and I thought, I'll have half and nothing happens at all. So I thought I'd have a bit more and then a bit more and then boy, boom, you know, this was not good. And that has actually affected my view on this. I think it's very, very difficult to control. But I think if you hadn't properly prescribed, you wouldn't have had that experience.

No, I don't think I want. I'm not going to try that again. You were a bit too bullish, I think. I think I probably was. Well, look, thank you very much. Professor for coming in and thank you Anne. And that is it from us. Peers is going to be back from his live from New York City, next week from Monday and whatever you're up to, make sure it's uncensored. Good night. Good night.