Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Racism in the UK? Hancock in the Dock, Gen Z on Capitalism, TRIC Award

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

On tonight's episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, Piers delves into whether the UK does in fact have a racism problem. Also Piers assesses Matt Hancock's appearance at the Covid Inquiry. Piers asks are Gen Z actually right about capitalism as well as showing off his new TRIC Award for Best Interview (Cristiano Ronaldo). 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

I'm Piers Morgan. I'm censored tonight. A damning report says that cricket is racist. So Winston Churchill has been branded a white supremacist. Britain's most shocking race murder is back in the headlines. Does this all mean that Britain is a racist country? Or do we have a problem with celebrating real progress? So Trevor Phillips joins me live. Paul said tonight, Hancock in the dock, the UK's pandemic health chief, takes to the stand of the COVID inquiry. But will the victims of the government's mistakes ever get the justice they want? We'll debate that. Thus, mortgages exploding, inflation soaring, kids living with their parents till they're grey or bald. Is it any wonder young people hate capitalism?

Well, have they got it all wrong? We'll debate that too. From the news building in London, this is Pearce Morgan Unsensored. Good evening for London. Welcome to Pierce Morgan Unsensit. Is Britain a racist country? If you watch the news or read social media, there's a lot of evidence that suggests it might be. The racist murderer Stephen Lawrence is back in the headlines. London's Met Police has been branded institutionally racist.

An exhibition of Sir Paul's Cathedral, branded Sir Winston Churchill, one of our great national heroes, a white supremacist. And a shocking new report today declared that cricket that most English of indulgences is elitist, misogynist and institutionally racist. An independent commission found that racist is entrenched in the sport,

and that players at all levels of the game face discrimination because of their class and their skin color. If you're not white, male and wealthy, it seems you're not welcome in that great English game. Now, for the many people who love cricket, myself included, it's literally my favorite

sport in the world. I'll be in residence at Lourdes this week for the Ashes. This report makes unsettling reading. But it's also not really the sport that I recognize or many of the people that I've played cricket with recognize. From fans and mustands to players on the pitch, most of the people I've ever encountered in cricket

are not racist or sexist, but indisputedly this report affirms that this is going on. Attitudes have changed, as the times have changed, and that's indisputable too. I think that's how a lot of people feel when they see headlines like this. There are problems in our society,

yes, but there has been massive progress, too. Last week, we marked the 75th anniversary of an event that changed the country. 492 people stepped off the empire windrush from the Caribbean into the gloomy gray swells of Britain. They were the pioneers, the first in a wave of new arrivals, over a period of decades, who became the Windrush generation. Britain invited people from across the former empire to fill labor shortages and rebuild our battered economy after the war. And they did just that. They became factory workers, drivers, plumbers, builders, cleaners, nurses and the brand new NHS.

They changed the face of this country. They changed it for the better. But it wasn't all a fairy tale, along with the bad food and worse weather, these people faced a very hostile reception from many. They were ostracized, bullied and abused. They faced keep Britain white signs, Enoch Powell's, rivers of blood speech. There were race-eight riots by the teddy boys in Nottingham and London. It was a racist country for many of those who came over in the Windrush generation.

But three quarters of a century later in Britain, well, frankly, is unrecognizable to those times. I don't think most people in this country now care about skin color. They care about equality and tolerance. One in six Britons has a parent born abroad now. There are more black and ethnic minority people in top government jobs here than the whole of the European Union put together. We've opened our doors to massive numbers of Ukrainian refugees. The First Minister of Scotland is Muslim.

Half of the England football team is black. It's not even a topic of conversation. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is a proudly practicing Hindu from East African and Punjabi descent. And when he got the top job, that fact was really barely a footnote. It didn't stop the usual suspects queuing up with pre-written hot takes like this.

There's a part of me that feels a little bad for England's racists. No, because remember, remember, they voted for Brexit specifically to keep Britain white. And that vote started a sense, seven-year chain of dominoes that has now led directly to an Indian prime minister. Yeah, that was complete nonsense by Trevor Noah, who actually left his show quite recently.

No flowers need to be sent. Nobody cared or does care that Rishi Sunnak isn't white. It was mentioned at all to celebrate the fact we had our first non-white prime minister. But people didn't make a big deal of that either. The exact same can be said of our old friends, Harry and Megan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They've done more than anyone to spin an alternative reality in which Megan was hounded out of a vile racist country by a cruel racist royal family. But they didn't produce any evidence for that. I still haven't.

And the reality to me is that we eulogized the newly biracial monarchy as a fresh face of 21st century Britain. I wrote newspaper columns about it myself. What a breath of fresh air this was. Nobody will argue there isn't racism in Britain today, and there isn't a lot of work still to do, but the fact that Britain is one of the most diverse, welcoming and tolerant countries in the world is something to be proud of. The public fury with the Conservative government over the wrongful deportation of some of the Windrush generation is to me more proof of that. It may be fashionable to say Britain is racist, but in my view, it is fundamentally wrong.

Well, joining me now as broadcast as Sir Trevor Phillips, who's re-released updated his book, Windrush, 75 years. of modern Britain. Also in the studio, Talk TV's Paula Rohn, Adrian and Richard Tice. Right, there's a lot to unpack here, Sir Trevor.

You are probably the most qualified man in the country to unpack it with me. So let me just start with that simple question. Is Britain a racist country? Well, as much as it pains me to agree with you about anything, peers, I think actually

I reach the same conclusion as you do. When you ask a question, is Britain a racist country, the first thing is to ask, compared to what? Compared to the days when my parents came here with their then nine children, I was the 10th born here,

and when my father said that he would have to walk the streets at night looking for somewhere to sleep, or when we lived in two rooms, no chance of black people getting council houses then because council tenants wouldn't have us on the estates, so we lived in Rachman's slums. In our family's case, two rooms, black family upstairs, black family downstairs.

That's why I was sent back to the Caribbean, because you can't get 12 people into two rooms very conveniently. Or compared to when I had my first girlfriend at university, and in order to meet her mother, we had to meet in selfridges because her mother couldn't tell her father that his daughter was dating somebody black. So I think when people say, you know, it's terrible racist, just talk to your parents or to talk to your grandparents.

Now, that doesn't mean we're perfect, But if you survey people now and the think tank British future did this couple of weeks ago, 80% of people in ethnic minorities will tell you that compared to anywhere on the continent, and by the way, compared to the United States, this is a better place to live if you are not white than anywhere else in the development. When I walk up and down my local high street maybe a couple of times a day, it just seems unbelievably multicultural London. I mean, I don't venture North a lot when I do.

It doesn't feel a lot different actually when I go to Manchester or places like that. It just feels like we live in an incredibly tolerant multicultural environment now. I think there are racists in Britain, no question, as there are in every country. But my God, we've come a long way, I think, from that environment your parents had to come to.

Yeah, I mean, let's study on a bit. I mean, the fact that there are many racists in this country, that doesn't make us a racist nation. But that doesn't mean that we don't have problems. We don't have a situation where people who look like me know that when they go for a job, people will smile at them and be very lovely to them. And as soon as they walk out the door, say,

well, not going to have that one because they won't fit. There are all sorts of reasons now. Let me give an example. I remember watching players like Luther Blissitt, one of the first black footballers, then John Barnes and others. I remember the monkey chants from the terraces. I remember the bananas being thrown on,

not how they remember it. They were on the receiving end, but I remember watching it. And you would never see that in an English professional game now. I mean, it's unheard of. You hear about it in Spain still and countries like that, but not here. And I was really struck by, for example,

the taking the knee, the George Voic thing. It was divisive and controversial for many people. But I've got to say, at Arsenal, for example, very multicultural crowd. A lot of black players, Vakaya, Saka and others, it was always, they did it for the whole time

that it went on for that whole season. It was immaculately heard by the home and away crowds. I never heard a single boo. Now, I don't think that would have happened even 20 years ago. I think that is true. And, you know, an Arsenal is a sort of

very polite, nice club. I mean, not a winning club, but a very nice club. If you went to Chelsea, which has been in my club for more than half a century, when I was a student, I stopped going because of the racism. Yeah, because they were throwing darts. And I was like the bull's-eye in the dartboard. So I stopped going for a long time.

But today, you wouldn't get any of that in Chelsea. Well, you've had the occasional, but when it happens, it becomes a big story. Exactly. It's nothing like the old days when he had the headhunters and all that business. Today, our heroes are Didier Dragba. Conte. I mean, this is a whole... The country itself has changed.

And by the way, those people that you saw coming down the gangplank from Windrush, they were the people who changed things. They... Okay, so let's move to something like... And I totally agree with you, by the way. Let's move to cricket. Now, you have a vested interest, I think, in the recruitment process for the chair of this inquiry,

which has come out with a pretty damning... 317 page report, holding up a mirror to cricket, which has concluded there's structural and institutional racism existing within the game. Women are treated as subordinate to men at all levels of the sport. There's elitism and class-based discrimination in cricket. Now, and says black cricket has been failed, and ECB must develop a plan to revive it. I don't think people in the game would disagree with that assessment. Some are horrified. I mean, it's quite surprised and shocked.

On some of it, and I'll come to the racial part in a moment with you. But on the part, for example, about elitism, I remember when I was 12, I got picked for the England prep schools cricket squad. I was a fast bowler, loved Dennis Lilly. And I was very good for my age. But I was playing cricket three hours a day. I was being trained at my prep school by former Hampshire cricketer. And I had the benefit of that privilege and elitist experience, if you like. And then I went to local comprehensive where they literally played cricket once a week for two hours,

if they could find any of the meager equipment that they had for all the children, and if a teacher could be bothered to do it, which often wasn't the case. So I went from playing three hours a day to nothing. And it seems to me we could be the world beaters all the time at cricket in this country. If state schools had anything like the commitment, which would have to come, I guess, from government funding to things like cricket, which they just don't. I mean, they don't.

So the chances of breaking through past the more privileged elite, private school system as a cricketer, they're pretty low. Yeah, and I think the basic point here is, I mean, I grew up, I was born here, but I grew up in the Caribbean, where cricket is, you know, it's, there's the air, and there's water, and then there's cricket. And they flow, they all flow through the village. You have, we play crickets in the streets here,

they play, you know, they'll have nets. At the moment, we don't have any of that in this country, and it's not a surprise then that people will, If they're any good, if they're athletic, they'll do basketball, girls will play netball, boys will play football. I think that this is a terrible thing, to be honest, because I think cricket is a fantastic sport for teaching you disciplines, for teaching you teamwork and so on.

And if I may say so, Cindy Butch, who chaired this inquiry, I was delighted that she took on the role because we were asked to find somebody to do it. And she's done a fantastic job. The thing about what she has said, people need to remember cricket is more than a game and okay

it's, you know, I'm a Western Indian It's a religion It's a religion Cricket is more than a game but it also tells you something about the society The greatest book about sport ever written Beyond a Boundary

by Trinidad and intellectual CLR James essentially showed that what happens in the world is paralleled on the field so for example 60 years ago in this country we used to have a thing called

Gentleman versus Players before you were born professionals of the amateurs Yeah, exactly. The gentlemen were... At their own gates. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The gentlemen were posh guys who only played for expenses,

went through that one gate to the pavilion. The players were professionals. They went through the other gate, and they worked for a salary. The last game between gentlemen and players. The general were captured by Lord Ted Dexter. The players were captained by Fred Truman's son of a minor. When they got rid of gentlemen versus players,

that was announcing that Britain had left that kind of class divide. to some extent behind it. And I think what Cindy's report is doing is something equally profound saying Britain needs to leave behind the hidden class divisions plus the divisions,

particularly between men and women in sport. All fascinating stuff. Paula, is Britain a racist country? There are parts of Britain that remain of the view that people who look like me shouldn't be here. There are parts of Britain

who are prepared to challenge that view and that is why we can have the McPherson report. That is why we have the reports that we do today that have come out about cricket. That is why we can challenge the Metropolitan Police,

the London Fire Brigade, etc., etc. So we have unfortunately lots of individuals who can give you their experience. we unfortunately have institutions that have been identified as still holding ladies. Well, the Met Police was a glaring example. And it's hard to think of a more damaging thing than to have your main police force in the country condemned as institutionally racist.

I mean, Richard, this is part of the problem. There are certainly still institutions where you can just feel that the setup is geared towards being accused of, in many cases, quite rightly, institutional racism of a degree. And you highlight the Met Police, and we all know some absolute horror stories within that institution. You touched on the Fire Brigade. These are public sector institutions. I think there's far more progress. And overall, I don't think we are a racist country.

I think we should celebrate the incredible progress we've made. But there are pockets of it. What troubles me most is those pockets are in the public sector. Just coming back to the cricket peers, there are things actually, again, that I don't think the report does justice to. My son plays in an Oxford League. There are many teams there where they're either 100% Asian ethnicity within the team or the vast majority of it. Again, I don't think that is celebrated enough and appreciated enough. So we're making great progress.

There's always more to do. But for heaven's day, let's look at the positives, not just beat ourselves out. What did you feel about St. Paul's Cathedral having this thing on their website for what turned out to be a long time labeling Winston Churchill a white supremacist? I just think that's, it's appalling. He's one of the greatest heroes. He saved this country from the ultimate, most hideous white supremacy. Adolf Hitler, for heaven's sake. And we should be celebrating and thanking that.

And for sure he made mistakes. We all do. But we are so much better than we were. Were those mistakes racist mistakes, Richard? I wasn't around at the time. I didn't know the context of the time. You know what the history books tell us. Were those mistakes racist mistakes?

In today's world, we would say definitely, in the context of then, who knows? knows what it was. We weren't around. And so it's important, isn't it, for us to address that? Well, A.M. Wilson wrote a very, I thought A.M. Wilson got a great piece of the mail when he said that you have to take all these people like Churchill, Gandhi, Mandela, in the totality of what they achieved. What is, what is Hitler's greatest achievement? It was defeating Hitler the ultimate white supremacist. So, I mean, Trevor, it's complicated. But obviously, some of the things that Churchill said over the years were racially tinged. There's no question of that. which was of its time. I mean, those kind of comments were not unusual. But I don't think it was a white supremacist.

Well, I think these phrases are hurled around as phrases of abuse. Let's be clear. I mean, Churchill, for example, you mentioned Gandhi. Churchill, I think, described Gandhi as half-naked Indian fakir, a kind of pejorative, dismissive term. But that was the nature of the English aristocracy at the time. And that was, without question. a racist point of view.

But the important point is that it was normal. And that's... See, I feel really uncomfortable, Paula, when we try and transport the morality of the day back to previous generations, and this brings me to... Well, all I was going to say, Piers, is actually what it should tell us is, it was like that then. Goodness me.

Now it's unacceptable. Now it's unacceptable. And we should really be thinking constantly, how have we moved this far? But on that point, though, Paula, This issue of reparations, for example, people today paying for the sins of their ancestors, you may have owned slaves. There was an extraordinary Reuters report today.

Quite hilarious in some ways. Do you know who the only American, they charted every American president's links to slave ownership? Do you know the only one who had no direct links to slave ownership? Donald Trump. The only one. Even Barack Obama, through his white side of the family, they could chart it back to slave ownership. Trump is the only one, apparently. He came after slavery, his line.

And we've discussed reparations before, and you know my view. I'm very uncomfortable about the fact that the British government felt it appropriate that they should pay back the slave owners and only finished compensating them in 2015. And yet, when we talk about reparations to those still affected by colonialism, we are told to shut down that conversation. And that comes back to what we're discussing about Winston Churchill. If people understood that Winston Churchill did say things that were inappropriate, that Winston Churchill did say things or held views that were racist,

it's fine to encapsulate them at a point of history. I've got no problem with that. But what we don't do is say, no, we're not discussing this, and no, we're not hearing it anymore. You don't take a place like Sir Paul's Cathedral, which literally was an emblem of the blitz, for goodness sake, right, where Churchill stood up and basically single-handedly motivated this country to defeat a bunch of white.

premises from taking us over. Can I just say on that point? I do apologize for interrupting. There are a lot of people in this country who think that black people arrived on the wind rush. That was us stepping into this world. That's not true. We were here

long before that. Yes, I realised that. You realised that, but a lot of people don't. And it's the same in regards to the history of that. Let me ask Trevor, an interesting question. In an interview with the mail that you gave, you made the point that you were very disappointed that Megan and Harry had this amazing opportunity

as the first biracial couple in our monarchy to really be a force for change and good, and they blew it. Yeah. By the way, I'm not going to let you get away with the whole Trump thing. Still not voting for him, right? By the way, I've never told anyone to vote for Donald Trump, right? I'm not American, I wouldn't impinge on their thing. It just was quite funny. He read this report, and he was the only one.

I've got a lot of American, four sisters who live in New York, and they've got a view about Trump. But anyway, on the Megan Markle thing, look, I think people mistake who Megan Markle is. She herself said that until she became this princess, she never regarded herself particularly as black. And that's understandable. She grew up in Los Angeles,

in the most wealthy black enclave, anywhere in the United States, Parkview Windsor Hills in Los Angeles. She went to a private Roman Catholic school. And in a sense, race was never really part of her background. And actually, you knew, anybody who comes from a black family, knew that this was not her territory. When she made this supposedly incendiary claim

about somebody asking about what Archie skin color will be. Well, actually, every black family. Of course. The minute that you know there's somebody coming, that's what you're speculating about. For white people, it's what colour of eyes. Particularly in a family, if one parent is white and one parent is black, as in her parents, for example.

But the point I really want to make about Megan Markle is that she had to learn to be black on the job, as it were. And I think she made a bit of a mess of it. She didn't take advice. And that's, in some sense, is why I think they've squandered the opportunity to demonstrate something important about this country. Just very quick, we have the largest unique, uniquely mixed race population anywhere in the developed world that has come about through romance rather than coercion. And they could have been standard bearers.

I totally agree. Paul are you grimacing? I'm grimmissing because obviously I love Sir Trevor, but we're going to disagree on that point. You yourself have just said she did a bad job of learning how to be black. Why did this woman, this person, have to learn how to be black? She had to learn how to be black because she had to confront racists. was the first time that she was having to confront races. And we know that she was having to confront races. My point is that she didn't know anything about the issue about...

By the way, I don't believe she did confront racist. And we know that she had to confront racist because Neil Bastu, the ex-charity... There's no evidence. There's no evidence. There's no evidence. There's no evidence for a racist in the royal family. That's not what I said. That's not what I said.

To advance the cause of tolerance within this country and to show us as leaders... No, we didn't. We let her down and we didn't protect her. opportunity and she completely broke. There are people in prison now because of the threats they made to her life. And peers, I know you were sensitive to people who have made threats to people's lives. You will understand that mental strain that was on her in terms of that. And you know that because you will have read the report from Neil Bassi.

Tell me the name of one person that she confronted. She didn't even hear this remark about Archie. It was reported to her by her husband. I'm referencing what the ex-chief of police, terrorist. police, Neil Bassu, who was interviewed, and he informed the viewer that she had received a number

of threats to her life. A lot of us do have that. You have that, I imagine. I have had a few. Sorry. Paul right. You've already said, Paula. And they had been arrested for that and charged and found guilty and I'm serving sentenced. So in terms of that,

in terms of that, she confronted racism. No, she didn't. She confronted threats, which we all get in public life. To do with the government of the skin. I've got to leave her there. Listen, we'll come back. It's an important subject. Thank you for all your perspectives. I appreciate it. Trevor, great to see you again, and good luck with the book. Windrush, 75 years of modern Britain, a cracking read. Unsensitive next. Hancock and Medaat, the former Health Secretary tells the COVID inquiry that the UK's plans to protect care homes and the pandemic was terrible. Well, no bleep Sherlock after the break.

Welcome back to Pittsburgh on our sense. Today was disgraced former Health Secretary Matt Hancock's turn to face the public inquiry into how the government had. the COVID pandemic. Hancock said that UK's preparations were too focused on the consequences of a disaster rather than how to stop it. Over the course of three hours, the man in charge of public health throughout COVID said the plans put in place to protect care homes were terrible. Yet, of course, previously said that he put a protective ring of steel around them. I'm joined now by care home manager and owner of Crabtree, car homes in West Yorkshire, David Crabtree, and by Talk TV's international editor and the journalist behind the lockdown files, Isabel Oshott. Isabel, sum up today?

Well, today was Matt Hancock's effort to set the record straight and to try to convince everybody that he's sorry for what happened. We saw a performance there of somebody who knew he had to go through the motions of telling people that he's sorry for each and every one of the deaths. I don't say that he didn't mean that from the heart, but I don't think that will satisfy everybody who has an axe to grind about how he managed the pandemic. he had decided before going in that he wanted to make one key argument,

and he kept returning to it throughout today's evidence, even when it wasn't relevant to the irritation, actually, of the barrister. And his key argument was this, that everything went wrong was primarily due to the government having ruled out lockdowns as a strategy before the pandemic happened. So his argument is that pandemic planning should have focused on the use of lockdowns, rather than avoiding lockdowns. A lot of people will say it's a precise opposite

that should have happened. Well, let's take a look at what Hancock said about how sorry he is. He's been apologising for almost everything for the last year. I'm profoundly sorry for each death that has occurred. And I also understand why, for some, it will be hard to take that apology from me. I understand that.

I get it. but it is honest and heartfelt. And I'm not very good at talking about my emotions and how I feel. But that is honest and true. He's just a phony, Hank up. Absolute phony. Honestly, I just think he's an actor

when he puts on this stuff. We saw it when he went in the jungle. We've seen it ever since. The fake tears he shed to me on GMB about vaccines. And let's get to talk. to care homes for a moment. This is a guy, of course, who repeatedly boasted about the protective ring of steel

that he had put around care homes. This is what he said about care homes today. We didn't even have the data, and this is the work that was ongoing before the pandemic, which is why this statement here from the Guardian, reported from the Guardian, is inaccurate. There was work ongoing to try to find out

even the basics of the provision of social care. instance, how many care homes are operating right now in the UK? That was a fact that we did not know. Well, let me come to David Crabtree. David, we've spoken many times since the start of the pandemic, during it and after. Hancock had always said he put a protective ring of steel around the care homes. He also, at the start of the pandemic, boasted how well prepared the country was for this kind of pandemic. Neither of those things were true. And today, he basically, admitted. He hadn't got a clue about what was going on with our care homes and it was terrible. What's your reaction to that? I'm hopeful that this is the last time that we see this individual

in public other than on a pantomime playing the villain at Christmas. He's such a self-serving, lying inadequate sociopath. He should be sponsored by Kleenex tissues. Every time he appears, in public, the brain then goes back to those awful, awful times where not just the elderly, this was dedicated social care staff unprotected,

which he then said we had a ring of protection around. The man's deluded, he believes what he's saying, therefore he can create this emotion within himself, but it's a lie. And I just wish now that this is an end to it. The poor families who lost, we lost care staff, we lost social care staff,

we lost dedicated NHS staff. The man was not fit for purpose. He was the primary man who were supposed to look at the contingency plans. And he believed some rumour that we were the best in Europe. Who told him this? I have no idea who we told it, but shouldn't he have checked? Shouldn't the captain of the ship have checked before we all sank? Yeah, I completely agree.

Let me bring, I mean, you know him very well. You wrote this book with him. I just think he's a phony, Hancock. And I think he's delusional. And I think he's desperately trying to wriggle off the hook, which, frankly, it seems more and more certain he is firmly implanted on. There was an extraordinary moment during the evidence today

where Matt Hancock admitted that he and his department didn't even know how many care homes there are in England. You would have thought that this was basic. but he admitted that the whole setup is so dysfunctional. There is so little coordination. Although his title is secretary or was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, he had the top responsibility for it, but actually didn't have a clue what was going on.

There was a pretty grim, quite literally, a bit of footage when he left the inquiry and the grim reaper, literally, someone dressed as a grim reaper appeared on the other side of the street. Watch this. I mean, pretty devastating. imagery for Hancock and frankly I think he deserves it I think his handling of this pandemic was absolutely disastrous but the thing is that that Matt Hancock absolutely believes that he did nothing wrong I mean one of the hardest things when I was working with him was to

get him to admit that there was some failures because you can't have a book which just says I'm a hero and everything was brilliant and he really struggled to come up with examples of areas where we got things wrong well he can't because he's delusional David you want to come in there Yeah, it isn't that we got things wrong. It was new and it happened across the world. We were watching France and Italy, and elderly people in care homes, die two months before it came across the water. What compounds it and what makes me still angry is that he lied,

despite the facts, this is why your comment and my comment, that is delusional. A delusion is a false belief that cannot be altered by reason or factual evidence. to the contrary. And he still does, he said he gets it. He doesn't get it. No. He doesn't get it.

I completely agree. He was so arrogant, you know, in his pronouncements. There's a ring of steel. We've never been better prepared. None of it was true. And we now know from his own mouth in this inquiry, he knew it wasn't true. He hadn't got a clue about care homes or how safe they were,

what sort of ring of steel there was, a protective shield, whatever the phrase was that he used. Look, there's going to be a lot more coming in. He signed off on the discharge of Eldon into care homes, which everybody, every scientist had told him, don't push people into care homes. It's a breeding ground. He did, and that caused masses of deaths, 20, 30,000 people dying care homes.

Isabel, finally, you've had access to a lot of WhatsApp exchanges. There is a series of WhatsApps involving Matt Hancock, I think from March, April, early in the pandemic, which have just never materialised. Where are those? And it's really disappointing that he wasn't challenged, on that during the exchanges today. I still want to know what's happened to those messages

because the missing messages, missing as far as I'm concerned, because they were not shared with me, are from March 2020, which is the key time for this particular module of the COVID inquiry, which is all about how prepared were we? We need to see those messages.

Yes, we do. Isabel and David, thank you very much. Thank you both for joining me. I appreciate it. On censored, on the next with Economy and Disarray, Fraser Nelson, the case for capitalism and why we've never had it so good. That debate next.

Welcome back to Pittsburgh and our sense. The economy's in the gutter. Mortgage is exploding, inflation soaring, the generation of young people unable to leave their parents' basements. Small wonder, perhaps, and many major studies suggest that millennials and Gen Z want to ditch capitalism altogether. Can we blame them? So has capitalism failed them? Or actually, as one of my guests is about to argue, is it our best hope? To make the case for capitalism, is Fraser Nelson, the esteemed editor of them? the spectator. And David Santina, sitting next to me, will doubtless be foaming at the mouth ready to rebut what Fraser is about to say. So, Fraser, off you go, a defence of capitalism.

Well, it's better than any alternative you can measure. That's quite simple. It has been easily the biggest force for goods in the world over the last couple of decades, especially. We've seen global poverty rates absolutely collapse. We've seen health, wealth, education, levels of child mortality, the level of world poverty has never come down faster, so we're living in a golden age of poverty reduction. Sure, the last couple of years are, I've been pretty difficult. Nobody's saying they haven't. The free market economy, the free enterprise system means things will go up and down. But the overall trend is absolutely transformative. Since China started to get more sort of capitalistic in its business dealings, its poverty has gone through the floor.

The same is true with India. We've now got decades worth of hard facts which prove just how if you want to tackle poverty, if you want to promote fairness globally, then capitalism is the way to go. OK, everyone can see you nodding away furiously. No, you weren't. Well, I mean, the stats speak for themselves done. Everything Fraser just said is demonstrably true. Well, I think in broad strokes, yes, but I'll just take a little bit of issue with

what Fraser had to say there about poverty. Because I mean, actually the truth is we currently have 14 million people in the country who are living below the breadline or at least living hand to mouth every month. And that is actually pretty similar to what we saw in the 1970s. Now, I'm not going to sit here and argue that we should suddenly go full Venezuela. But I do think there is an argument for reconstructing the welfare state, which has been left threadbare by, you know, what, 20 years. Where has your socialist dream actually worked?

The NHS. Because obviously Venezuela, it completely ruined the country. But I would point you towards our fantastic healthcare system, which is a socialist, you know, socialist in principle. And I would also argue that, you know, social health. was very good for many people. I mean, I'm sure you're a big fan of Right to Buy. I'm sure Fraser is as well.

It was a fantastic program, innately socialist. What is your actual problem with capitalism? I don't have a problem with capitalism as a concept. I think British capitalism, which is what we're seeing right now, and, you know, the strain that we have, the focus that we have on paying out dividends to shareholders and hoping that somehow this kind of trickles down and feeds people at the bottom,

that's a system that is demonstrably not working right now. That's what we need to look at. Fraser, are there two issues here? One that generally speaking, going back 100 years, you can argue, as you've done successfully in this piece, that capitalism has been demonstrably successful in many parts of the world. But the right now, this country is in a bad place,

and partly that could be put down to some of the capitalist policies. Well, it depends what you mean by capitalist policies. I mean, capitalism in many ways, it's just a funny word that people give to the basic notion of freedom. If you look at North and South Korea, no prizes for getting which of those two countries is doing best. And, you know, in the 50s, it was North Korea that was doing best. But that's on a global basis. Of course, if you have freedom, politicians will use that freedom to make wrong decisions.

In which case, if you print money, if you borrow your way out of every single problem, then eventually there will be a price to pay for that. We're seeing that now in terms of inflation. We're seeing that now in terms of dysfunctional the welfare state. But I think when it comes to the welfare state, by the way, it's hard to blame capitalism on that. That is the government, which is coming out with pretty bad policies, keeping 5 million people and out-of-work benefits

and using mass migration to try to fill the many gaps in the employment market there. So when I talk about capitalism, you're basically talking about private property, about free trade, about exchange, about basically economic liberalism. Now, that is a system that can be done well or can be done badly, as a system is better than any of,

other that's ever been invented. I struggle to think of many people thinking, actually here, Venezuela or any other of these socialist countries, is doing much better than we are now. We've got our problems, but fewer of them than the socialist and communist countries. Right. Ava? I think it might be more helpful probably to look closer to home. I mean, if we look at Denmark, if you look at Germany,

we're actually the poor man of Northern Europe. And if you actually look at some of the research put out by the Labour Party not so long ago, we are actually on track to be poorer per capita than Poland. By 2030, I mean, that is absolutely insane. If you look at countries like Denmark, if you look at Norway, they've got higher tax than us, they've got a better welfare system, and the people that are healthier, they are happier, and they are actually more prosperous. So hammering down on people and this sort of...

But what does it have to do with capitalism as a concept? Well, okay, if we look at the sort of capitalism that we're experiencing at the moment, inequality is widened, okay? So there's a shrinking middle class. There is actually no middle. So you've now got the super rich, and you've got the rest of us, who are now actually classified as super poor. There needs to be some kind of scaffolding

that pulls these people further into the middle so that more people can achieve under capitalism. Have we got Fraser in this country right now a poor performing capitalism? In other words, the concepts, I completely concur with you about the concept, is it being executed badly by a long-running conservative series of governments?

I'm afraid so. The Conservatives, every time they're getting to, they think they will steal labour policies, they tend not to work very well. As a result, you're seeing a trend in Europe right now where voters are turning to the right, from Greece to Finland. In Britain, you're likely to get the Labour government of the next election. That's because the policies people are angry about, the overextending of the environmental regulations, the highest taxes for 77 years, the huge government spending out of all proportion to its usefulness,

they have all been brought about by a conservative government. So sure, we can compare ourselves against Poland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, all of them capitalist countries. The questions of capitalism done well or done badly. And I'm afraid to say that this big government conservatism, which tends not to trust people with their own money and tinker around to pretty bad results, is showing right now as a case study in capitalism not done particularly well. If you print money, if you print most of the 400 billion you're used for the furlough during the lockdowns, you've closed down an economy, you're messing with people's. lives. You're messing with the free market. And there will be a big price to pay as we're currently discovering. Eva, can we end this debate with you agreeing with Fraser? I can agree on two premises,

but not on the conclusion. I think the taxes are too high, but I would say that in countries where the taxes are higher than we have here, people are happier. And it's better spent. I think the problem is the stewardship of the economy, not the system that we're living under. A final question, Fraser, for you. Given I've got you here, who's going to be buying a spectator? Maybe you, peers. I don't know. It depends. There's going to be a long and illustrious list of people. The greatest magazine in the world is currently up for auction. And I imagine it's going to be a very busy summer

with lots of people wanting to avail themselves of the opportunity of a lifetime if they can afford it. Well, you're the Manchester United of magazines, aren't you? Quite right. There should be a frenzied bidding process. But good luck with that, Fraser. You've done a great job at the spectator. Great to have you on the programme. Appreciate it. Ava. Love it to see you.

You're staying with me for me for some. exciting breaking news about Pearce Morgan Unsensit. It's been a, well, let me rephrase the title of the show. They're now multiple award-winning, Peers Morgan Unsensitive. There's the clue. After the break, big news, big trophies. Welcome back. I've reassembled my stellar pack for a very important piece of news involving this program.

Here's Morgan Unsencers. So welcome back, Richard Tice, Paula Rone, Adrian, and Ava Santina. Well, the news is this, is that unlike my football team, which ended last season. Trophiless. Pittsburgh and a sense of it has gone on a trophy rampage ever since my world-exclusive interview with Cristiano Ronaldo,

the world's greatest ever footballer. And to my utter joy, I was presented with it, by Dan Walker, my former Breakfast television rival from BBC Breakfast, who was the man who on my last day presenting Good Morning Britain before I was so cruelly removed from the slot because of the wishes of 1M.

I managed to get the ratings of Good Morning Britain to beat Dan's BBC Breakfast Show for the first ever time. And then because I had to leave rather suddenly, he was never able to wrestle back the title. So the poor bloke then had to give me this award. I mean, talk about a series of self-inflicted blows for the poor guy.

Anyway, it was a great moment for us for the show. I texted Cristiano in the car home. And you can always tell where Cristiano's really happy with him. because he uses the word top. And he went, top, top, top. You're the man, top, top, top. He gave me six tops. Cristiano, you are top.

I've got six tops. This is for you, Cristiana, because you are the guy that won us these awards. Without that incredible interview, we wouldn't have had these awards. So thank you to Cristiano Ronaldo, a great man. Come back to my pack. How do you feel about being part of a multi-award-winning show?

I mean, you've got to feel good, right? I'm hoping to bring down the tone. It's teamwork. I mean, it's a team effort. It is. How many of you were involved in the Christiano interview? Although I don't know about you, but I'm hoping to get an invite next time. Yeah, maybe. To the event?

Any Christiano, yeah, we'll be there. Let's talk quickly about this issue. So R&LI Lifeboatmen have accused the charity of being fixated with a woke crusade amid a row about alpha male bad behavior. So it's been a full-scale cultural review at Hastings Lifeboat Station, East Sussex. quite near where I was brought up.

Reports is female crew generally are welcome. Only alpha males with a history at the station are welcome. All lifeboat staff in order to attend diversity and inclusivity training. There's evidence of racism by way of lack of opportunities for people of color, racist language, physically intimidating gestures towards women. So, Eva, here's my point about this. In the cricket report, interestingly, the female chair person, woman, whatever, she wanted to identify us all that,

I think rightly said, look, woke has been hijacked. We know that, I think actually driven by the woke side. But it's been hijacked as part of the culture wars, many of which are legitimate things. But at its essence, wokeery really, to be woke is to be alert to racial and social injustice. So when I read this, I thought, really depends what's been going on here. But on the face of it, I can't feel furious that they should at least investigate it. Yeah, and I think this is also a really tricky one for a lot of people, because many people on the right are furious with the R&LI for, say,

some of the migrants or refugees that have been found in the channel that has been really frustrating for a lot of people on the right of the spectrum. But look, I mean, one of the arguments that has been levied at them is that women apparently aren't suitable for the role, and that's just sort of based on assumption. Look, I'm like, if you're the best person for the role, colour, creed, gender, whatever, you should be up for the role.

But what you do need, Paula, is opportunity, equal opportunity. This is my argument about all of this. I don't like tokenism. Yes. I believe in meritocracy. Yes. Everyone's got to get the same crack of the way. Absolutely.

That's what this internal report seems to be about, saying that we're not going to tolerate this kind of behavior. It needs to be stamped out. What intrigues me is that the whistleblower who bought this report to the newspaper said the R&I are clearly wrong about this, and they are not focusing on what's important. Well, hang on a minute. That's exactly what they're doing. What's important is that actually the right people get to the boat the fastest and go and do the best job. And very often that happens to be men.

I'm not sure. I said very often. And also, with all due respect, why does it make the rest of the people? Why is it meant? Who gets to the boat fastest is the most important, who is the most capable of doing the job. And I'm not sure many donors to that charity want their money to spend on these sort of reports. In 10 years time, most of them will be trans women, so we'll be fine. Oh, don't you start.

It's a joke, a little joke. We end the show on a little high. We want to win another award. We do. We are going to win awards for jokes. Great to see you all. That's it from me. We're up to keep it uncensored.

Keep it award winning. Good night. T-mah.