Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Strikes, Strife and the Royal Air Farce
Episode Date: August 22, 2022Standing in for Piers, Jeremy Kyle will be looking at a broken Britain after a long summer of strikes and asks: how do we fix it? Jeremy questions why our royal forces are fighting culture wars. Also ...on tonight's episode, 25 years later there is another documentary being released investigating Diana's death, Jeremy asks if it's time to let the 'People's Princess' rest in peace. Watch Piers Morgan Uncensored at 8pm on TalkTV on Sky 526, Virgin Media 627, Freeview 237 and Freesat 217. Listen on DAB+ and app. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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Right, tonight on Pierce Morgan, I'm censored with me, Jeremy Kyle.
Strikes, strife and sewage.
Now an NHS crisis looms.
Britain does feel broken.
We'll debate how to fix it.
A royal air farce, as the RAF sidelines white men,
why are our armed forces fighting culture wars?
And 25 years on, yet another Diana documentary
investigates her tragic death.
The question, is it time to let the people's princess rest in peace?
There's so many coincidences, so many odd things that just don't add up.
85% of the ordinary people of this country believe Diana was murder with my son.
Good evening, my friends, and a big, big welcome to Piers Morgan Unsensored.
I am still, Jeremy Kyle.
So today we discover train drivers, teachers, nurses, dot workers, postal workers,
and now, would you believe it, criminal barristers.
Striking, apparently, is the new working in blighted blighty,
as a weird nation asks,
if the British government can't be bothered to work, why should we?
Apparently, by the way, even the scriptwriters have walked out here.
It says, insert next line and add simple joke.
No.
At least we do know our striking workers aren't lazing at the beach
because today, apparently,
22 shorelines are now closed because of raw sewage
as water companies take gross incontinence.
Sorry, I meant incompetence all too, literally.
It's a joke.
The government has denied this is simply the latest attempt
to deter migrants crossing the channel,
although frankly, it might be more effective.
Now, if you are brave enough to take a dip in the dung, do you get that?
There's absolutely no guarantee that anyone will be able to nurse you through the stomach aches
because NHS bosses say our hospitals are now facing a massive crisis too.
The government's planning a campaign saying, don't go to A&E.
If only they'd taken their own advice.
Apparently, GPs in England could even be asked to prescribe discounts on heating bills this winter,
which is all well and good, but you'd have to wait until next summer for an opportunity.
And as if that wasn't enough, draw breath.
Today, economists warn that the UK inflation rate could actually hit 19% in January.
I had a joke about inflation, but I'm not going to do it.
Because, yes, between the strikes and the sewage, the soaring inflation and the wage stagnation,
the lack of energy and the lack of government, it really does, my friends, feel like
Broken Britain is happening.
So we're asking tonight, who is going to fix it?
Now, joining me now is Dr. Emeka Okaroka and Naomi Isitt, who's son,
18-year-old Jamie, tragically died after an ambulance took over 17 minutes to arrive.
Dr. Amika, to start with, thank you for joining us.
Cheers.
So many people talk about the NHS, and they say it's a money pit, money gets thrown in.
It's there for us, but it's not there.
Why is it so overwhelmed and how bad is it truthfully?
Honestly, I think it's mainly multifactorial.
There's so many things going on with the NHS that a lot of people don't realize.
I think you get like these, you know, sensationalist type titles of people waiting 17 hours to see you like a doctor and whatnot.
But there's a lot of context you need to take into it.
So I think the NHS is obviously working at its limit.
And it has been for a number of years.
I think it's kind of bubbling to the brim now where we're seeing it manifest and patients are coming forward.
And these stories are getting more and more frequent.
And that's why everyone's wondering what's going on in the NHS.
Obviously, as a frontline worker, I'm seeing a lot of the backlog coming in from COVID.
Obviously, COVID was a big thing that hit the NHS.
We tried to adapt as well as we could.
But you need to know a lot of the elective stuff
that we would have done during COVID
that we had to push back for the emergency stuff.
A lot of that stuff is being seen kind of now
and it's all coming to like a brim.
I get that and I also get, and I want to say right here and now,
nurses, doctors and everybody that works in hospitals
do an amazing job and we as a nation expect them to be there,
the health service.
But I will take you up on one point.
There was an appalling picture in the mirror the other week
of the gentleman in Cornwall
who waited seven.
for an ambulance, that his family put a tarpauling over him.
They couldn't move him from outside.
Now, if you said to that family with the greatest of respect,
look, this is sensationalised headlines.
It's not.
He waited 17 hours.
We're not criticising the people who are suffering.
What we're saying is this is not working.
The NHS, front of the mail today, we've got a breakthrough for cancer.
Further down, you can't get through on 111,1,
you can't get an ambulance, you can't get to see a GP.
You would understand the people of Great Britain.
and not criticizing you in your profession,
but they're saying, what the hell's going on?
And I understand because everyone expects the NHS
to be available at the point of care, which we are,
and everyone expects a perfect health system.
In actuality, it can't be.
Your colleagues are leaving in droves.
Exactly.
So one, you have the issue where you have the workforce.
So of myself, as a look at a doctor,
I try and fill in all the spots where there aren't doctors there,
especially some of the spots where last-minute dropouts
and things of that nature.
And it's difficult because a lot of...
the time I'm working, half the time we don't even have the capacity of staff that we should have.
What would a doctor on the front line say is needed to combat the problem? Is it government? Is it
money? Is it reorganization? Because that big, that big argument for years, is it, it's
it has billions thrown in it. Why is it not more effective without criticizing you guys?
Honestly, it's just not as efficient as we want it to be. It's multifactorial, so it's
basically a combination of all of it. I think money obviously would help in so many situations.
So social services and trying to get people out of hospital
as in into social services to clear up beds
so we can admit people.
And ambulances wouldn't have to wait in A&E
about three hours just to try and get a patient in the door.
I'll tell you a story.
And they're on the road picking people up.
A lot of people saying about ambulances,
and I'll give you a story very briefly to show years and years ago
about with the ambulance service.
And the most shocking story was this woman.
It was in Birmingham.
She got heavily drunk at a Christmas party.
They had to send an ambulance to her, right?
She basically threw up in the back of the ambulance.
ambulance. They took her to hospital. Legally, she had to stay for eight hours. She abused the staff.
They took 45 minutes to clean that ambulance out before they could get out on the road, right?
I'd fine her. I'd charge her, whatever it costs to get that ambulance out. Are people going
to A&E for the wrong reasons? Is that making it difficult? Are they calling ambulances for the wrong
reasons? Because a lot of people will say the genuine people are missing out. That's what I want to know,
really. The thing is, you don't want to get into that, like, area of dissuading people to actually call
and call 1-1-1 and come in when they need to because we want people to be seen if they
need to be seen. And we'd always stick with we'd rather be safe than sorry. I don't want anyone
sitting there with a heart attack or a silent myocardial infarction saying, oh, it might just be
in digestion. I don't want to bother the NHS because that's not what we're asking. But we are
asking people to be sensible in situations where they think they can actually avoid putting themselves
in risky situations where they wouldn't have to see doctors. And let's be honest,
1-1-1 needs upgrading, doesn't it? Because I'm utterly convinced, and if people don't like
this, sorry, that it's a great, great concept, but it's now manned by people who are in a call
centre who are just reading a tick list, because I have an absolute story of my own about my son,
and the person said, is he breathing? Of course he's breathing. He's crying his eyes out in front of me.
I just, it's difficult. Do me a favour, and I really appreciate it. Let's cross to Cornwall.
Naomi Issa is a mother whose son tragically died of a heart attack after an ambulance delay of
more than 17 minutes. Naomi, thank you so much indeed for joining me. Explain your story.
No problem.
Well, Jamie was just turned 18 when he actually, it wasn't a heart attack, he actually suffered a cardiac arrest during the night of New Year's Eve.
He was at a friend's house watching fireworks, no warning at all, and he sat down on the ground, said he felt funny, and they realised he wasn't breathing and had no pulse.
His friend called an ambulance, called 999, and they waited.
and I've heard the audio
and they were screaming on the phone
where's the ambulance? Why is it taking so long?
The police turned up with no defibrillator.
He was screaming, where's the ambulance?
Why is it taking so long?
The ambulance crew that turned up were amazing.
The casualty doctors were amazing.
The nurses were amazing.
Intensive care nurses were amazing.
But the ambulance just did not reach him in time
and we lost Jamie on the 5th of January
due to oxygen starvation to his brain caused by his cardiac arrest.
Naomi, first up, our condolences from everybody here.
Two questions for you.
And again, to the medical profession,
and I so respect what you just said,
because they are doing their absolute best.
If the ambulance had arrived faster,
do you believe that your son would still be alive today?
Yes.
If the ambulance had arrived in the target time
set out by the ambulance service themselves of seven,
and a half minutes Jamie would have had a 56% more chance of survival
even at 10 minutes he still had a chance of survival at 17 and a half minutes
that poor ambulance crew on the way to our boy knew they weren't going to save
his life they knew it was too late who do you blame for this I think it's very
easy to to look at the medical profession look at the government is a
combination of everything because to me the reason we wanted to speak to you
and and the doctor this morning it this evening is is actually
Britain does seem broken we don't seem to be able to get an ambulance
We don't seem to be able to see a GP, and stories like yours really resonate.
Who do you blame?
Well, this is the problem.
The blame seems to be moved from one person to the next.
We were told by the ambulances that they can't offload patients.
There was 32 ambulances in the area where Jamie collapsed on New Year's Eve.
17 of them were queuing outside A&E departments.
The A&E department say they can't get people onto wards.
The wards say they can't get people out into social care.
So the blame just moves around.
But somebody has to sit up and take notice.
He was an 18-year-old boy, and he needed help, and he waited and waited until no help was ever going to be enough.
And, you know, we keep going back to, is it money?
Do we need more ambulance crews?
Do we need more doctors and nurses?
But I think it's across the board that, you know, we've never blamed an ambulance crew.
We've never blamed a doctor or a nurse, and we never would.
All of the people that treated Jamie were the most amazing.
angels to us, but they just couldn't reach him in time. And, you know, we feel just as sorry for them
as we do for ourselves as a family, because they can't do any more than they're doing, but
somebody's got to step in. Money has to be put into our NHS to make these services more
available. And emergency healthcare, in our town of rugby, that ambulance had to travel 15 miles
to reach our boy. That's how long he waited. Why are they not ambulances nearby? Why are they
not more health care provisions nearby
to help him when he needed them.
Naomi, thank you for just a second.
I'd like to bring in Ed Burkett
as the head of energy at the Onward Think Tank for a reason.
I mean, we're talking to, Emeka there,
we're talking about to a person who lost a son.
And the situation is that it's going to get worse
as the winter goes on.
And you were telling my research,
is you think there's a 50-50% chance
they could be blackouts this winter.
What will that mean for the NHS?
What will that mean for Broken Britain, Ed?
Well, I think you're absolutely right.
There are going to be serious challenges with our energy supply this winter.
I think the scenario where we have large-scale blackouts across the whole of the UK is extremely unlikely.
But there is a chance, a reasonable chance.
Maybe it's 50-50 that some customers somewhere at some point this winter will be disconnected
because the continent of Europe as a whole just does not have enough gas
and therefore does not have enough electricity in certain scenarios this winter.
And that's a problem across the whole of Europe.
So it's not just broken, brook.
As per your show tonight, this really is a continent-wide problem.
The TUC believes nationalising the energy companies would work.
What's your view on that, Ed, quickly?
I think the question is, what problem are you trying to solve?
The energy suppliers, which is what they're talking about nationalising,
are not making big profits.
So you wouldn't exactly make any money that you could use to discount people's bills
by nationalising energy suppliers.
The profits are all with the energy producers,
and that's where the government's put in place a windfall tax.
Absolutely.
Ameka, pretty dire right now.
You heard Naomi's story.
your heads. It's going to get worse, isn't it? More people are going to be turning to the
NHS if they can't heat their homes, they can't see a doctor. This crisis is going to get
worse, isn't it? It is. My condolences to Naomi, obviously, and her family, and it's really
unfortunate what happened to her son. And as an emergency doctor, we know that what we call
cerebral hypoxia, not getting enough oxygen to the brain and downtime, when you've had a cardiac
caressed, seconds matter, not even just minutes. And obviously, the seconds are what make
the difference. And that's why we need these ambulances available on the road to
in rural areas, in urban areas, everywhere.
Is it briefly? I haven't got much time.
Is it money? Is it reorganization?
What is it? What's the final line to the people watching this tonight?
How can we ensure that we can get ill people to hospital?
It's all of it. I think money, obviously, first of all,
but then you have to ask, where's this money going and what is it actually doing?
There's no point pumping money into the NHS
and saying, you're giving the NHS this money a billion,
but people still can't get ambulances.
People still can't get social care,
because then you haven't really defeated the aim.
You haven't really actually reached the...
I'll tell you something, I've done this a while,
and you're the most honest GP and doctor of ever had.
Thank you very much, indeed.
Ed Burkitt as well from onward,
and also Naomi, that tragic story.
Our condolences to you and your family.
Right, next on Uncensored.
A British supermarket chain faces criticism.
Not my friends for charging $8 quid for a tin of beans,
but for selling non-vegan fruit.
Heaven forbid.
We're going to discuss that and dive into all the days to day's debates.
We're going to bring Jess's journals forward
because I cannot wait for this next talk.
TV legend Mike Graham and former London mayor,
Ken Livingston, live in the studio. We're coming back in three.
Welcome back, my friends. Now another week, another horrific story of knife crime in the UK.
Boxing hero Tyson Fury's cousin Rico Burton was stabbed to death in Manchester over the weekend at the young age of 31.
The heavyweight champion is now calling for tougher sentences of a knife offenders,
and I'm delighted to tell you we're joining us live tomorrow night to discuss that story.
But sadly, that story is an increasingly common one as violent crime and knife attacks rise across the United Kingdom.
crime is being committed, fewer crimes are being investigated. It's just another boulder on the mountain
of emergencies facing Britain's next Prime Minister. It's also the first issue. I'm going to tackle
with tonight's panel. I'm delighted to welcome Talk TV legend Mike Graham. This should be real fun.
And former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, gentlemen, welcome. You're in a bad mood because you've been
waiting an hour and a half, is that right? Yes, it was very long. Get a grit man. Let's start on a serious
note with knife crime. You say, Ken, when I was London mayor, I wanted to lock up any young person.
who had a knife. I'm going to throw this out there.
I do not understand why we do not have stronger deterrence.
I would genuinely hand on heart.
If I found a youth with a knife twice, I will put him in prison for five years.
It worked for acid attacks.
Why are we not stronger?
Well, I think part of the problem is, I mean, if you look back,
we had quite a lot of knife crime.
It was getting worse.
And it's mainly young men carrying a knife.
And very often killing the woman that they're actually living with.
And it's got worse.
And I think the simple fact is that I grew up in the world
was virtually knife crime was a quarter of what it is today.
But we were part of community groups.
We had friends.
Now there's an awful lot of young men are lonely, not involved with others.
They get angry.
Well, they gravitate towards...
Communities, what matters.
Absolutely, but they gravitate toward gangs, don't they?
This is a national problem.
Are we strong enough?
No, we're not strong enough.
And part of the problem that we have now
is very much connected to the drugs business.
We've got now massive drugs gang in this country.
If you're growing up on a housing estate in Tottenham,
you know, you're not going to care that the guy next to you is working hard
and he's looking after his family.
What you are going to want is a very nice BMW that you can buy
as soon as you sign up to work with the drug gangs.
And you stab people as a matter of course because that's what they do.
And that's the problem.
If they solve the drug problem, you solve the knife problem.
The hot potato is stop and search, right?
Somebody said to me, it's wrong and it can be seen as racist.
But they've got 5,000 weapons off the streets of London last year.
When I became the mayor in 2000, we only had 25,000 police.
I got it up to 35, but the important thing,
I brought back street patrols, and that really had an impact.
Crime went down 25%.
If you have a copper coming around the corner every few minutes,
you're not going to get involved in the sort of crime that so many kids do.
And a big part of this is about drugs.
And I was born in 94.
I grew up in that postal world where, I mean, the only drugs were cigarettes, you know,
literally now the drug trade has become global
and it's appalling. We need to crack down on it a lot more.
So stop and search and also, come makes a point,
more police on the streets.
Because police are now social workers and mental health workers
than actually committing.
Well, the two people are doing the macarena, aren't they?
They're all dancing away going on.
Have you seen that video online?
This is brilliant.
Four policemen doing the macarena and having a party.
I saw that.
But that's the point.
That doesn't resonate with people.
Let's move on to a subject that I'm sure I can't wait to us.
Boris Johnson, got to feel sorry for him.
Ken, booted out by his own party,
three years, got Brexit done, what's his face?
Got Brexit done, made the big decisions, rolled out the vaccine,
come on. I think the Tory party and MPs
are already regretting, getting rid of him, man.
I mean, they look at Boris and I think
he's good at winning elections.
He beat me easily. I mean, he beat Jeremy Corbyn easily.
Well, that wasn't difficult.
That was the main reason they wanted him.
The thing is, most Tory MPs realised
he was pretty disastrous as Prime Minister.
He doesn't do the job.
If I look back, the eight years he was Mayor of London,
He only initiated one project.
76% of Tory members still want Boris Johnson, don't they?
That's absolutely rubbish, by the way, Ken,
because what he also instituted, much to my chagrin, actually,
was the Boris bike.
You know, we've now got thousands and thousands of bikes on the street
because of Boris Johnson.
No, no, I started that project.
When he defeated me, he then called them Boris Johnson.
Well, they were called Boris bikes.
You would say that, but, I mean, your own party kicked you out,
you know, and you're saying that he's not good for the Tory party.
I mean, last time I saw you,
you were talking about joining the Greens, for heaven's sake.
Yeah, but they didn't keep me out before I lost to Boris.
No, they kicked you out for different reasons, which we probably don't want to go into.
They kicked me up for the allegations I was anti-submitted.
Well, you are, aren't you?
No. I mean, literally, the first woman I asked to marry me was Jewish.
Right, okay. Did you mention Hitler to her?
Because you normally mentioned Hitler.
I mean, Hitler's the greatest evil in human history.
Yes.
He killed six million Jews.
My generation grew up recognizing that crime is supporting.
But no, I've had 40 years of life.
I'm not just been accused of being, anti-smedia, accused of being corrupt,
alcoholic, violent, tax-studding, homoical.
back in the days.
Everything.
Everything. Everything.
Everything.
Serious question.
One of the things that I want to know about is we part Boris
and we part the fact that, you know,
the Tory MPs might be construed and they go wrong.
What about the alternative?
What do you make of Kirstama?
Is he prime ministerial?
Oh, God, he is.
Kirstama will be our best prime minister
since Klemma Atley.
So better than Jeremy Corbyn would have been.
Absolutely.
Then why did you back Jeremy Corbyn?
Because the alternative was worse.
But, I mean, the thing about Kirstarmer,
He only came into Parliament seven years ago.
Before that, his career was prosecuting rapists and murders.
He's someone that does things and gets them right.
He's not very exciting.
He didn't prosecute any of the grooming gangs, though, did he?
He didn't prosecute those rapists,
and he didn't prosecute an awful lot of people that he should have prosecuted.
He means Saville, for example.
He didn't do anything about.
And he can't say that he was a great DPP,
but then actually go, oh, yeah, well, that wasn't my fault.
I wasn't in charge of that.
I think he's been absolutely brilliant all his life.
He came into politics to do things,
not to be a celebrity life.
So what's he famous for exactly?
What's he done exactly?
Because he can't even land a glove on Boris Johnson,
one of the prime ministers who was probably at his lowest ebb,
and he couldn't win a point against him in Parliament questions.
Well, hang on.
He's massively ahead of Boris Johnson in the opinion.
He should be on the point of a general election victory.
Should he not be out of sight, though, Ken, with respect, just briefly?
No.
You would think with all those own goals of Johnson and what's happened,
I would have thought that the Labour Party would be as far ahead as Blair would have been.
Do you genuinely believe that he'll be the next Prime Minister?
Well ahead in the polls.
If there's an election, I mean, next week, Labor will win.
Every time I speak to people like Keir Stama and I speak to the front bench, they say the following.
We are coming from our worst position ever because of Jeremy Corbyn.
And if we even ended on equal terms, that will be a result.
You supported Jeremy Corbyn.
Well, I mean, Jeremy, I mean, I'd known Jeremy for 50 years.
He was a really great friend, and that's why I supported him.
But I do have to say he wasn't any good at the job.
Now, he's a really nice guy.
When my wife met him, we were having a dinner together,
he said, the nicest man I've ever met in my life.
But he was no good at running the machine.
It's very interesting comment.
Tesco vegan fruit.
I don't even understand what this story is about.
You know this.
Yes, it's something to do with wax, right?
Apparently, you know when you put wax onto certain kinds of fruit and vegetables
to make them look nice and shiny?
Do you do that?
Well, they do it in the shops, right?
Because they don't want you to buy a lemon that looks manky.
They want you to have a nice lemon that looks all shiny.
And when they put some of this wax on,
it turns out that it's made from the husks of insects or something
and apparently vegans can't touch it.
Are you a vegan, Ken?
Well, I gave up red meat, about 12 years.
I gave up red meat, salt, sugar, butter fat.
Now, my heart profile is equivalent to someone 14 years younger.
How old are you?
I'm 77.
You look good for 77.
So you're not vegan, right?
Are you keen on vegans?
What'd you make sense?
Mike hasn't got any time.
I still enjoy calamari.
So you say clearly you still eat living things
What about the nukes? How the nukes do it?
I don't eat my nukes. They're in the pond.
Do you get that? My nutes.
My nutes. That's quite funny.
Right, listen, this is also one of my favourite stories of the day.
It is a bit tongue in cheek.
Conservative condoms, apparently.
What do we know about this?
Well, they probably leak a lot like the government, I presume.
Oh, wow.
Apparently there are, I haven't got any information.
Where's macabre with the names of all the morn?
Because apparently there's lots of different information about condoms.
There's a complete silence in my ear.
Yeah, there's nothing going on.
What it is is that they've apparently come into conference season.
We all know what, you know what, Labor Party Conference and Conservative conferences.
They're all at it, basically.
I mean, forget about the policies.
They stay up all night, all night parties.
People wake up in the morning.
Oh, there we are.
Right on the seafront.
There are.
There are.
Sure and stable, I think that says.
Strong and stable.
Have we got any others?
The most honourable member we've got.
That's quite funny.
Didn't you have to have voted to leave or remain?
Does it matter?
What's the story?
What do you think of...
Conservative condoms, Ken?
I think every conservative should be forced
always to wear a condom
so they don't produce any more bloody conservative.
There is one that says labor isn't working,
but this condom will.
Do you think there's a market there?
I just grew up in that postal world
where we're all told you've got to wear a condom
or you'll get some terrible disease.
When age came along,
I mean, broadly the surge in sales of condom then.
Because, you mean, your life was at risk.
Overall, guys, we've had a lot.
a bit of fun. We've also had the serious side to this. Just for 30 seconds, when you look at
Broken Britain today, when you look at a person waiting 17 hours for an ambulance, when you know
that you can't get a GP's appointment, you can't see a dentist. Forget Boris bashing. Where do we
go from here, Ken? Because it does seem that we're in dire straits. I have never seen my country in
such a mess that we're in now. And that means you've got to improve public spending, get more people
better educated, make sure we get more investment, creating good new jobs.
Our level of investment is pathetic compared to what you've got in Europe and matter the rest of the world.
Mike, for summer.
I disagree with Ken.
I lived in the 70s as well, and it was a hell of a lot worse than the 70s when Labor were in power.
And you had Lester Square running am up with rats.
You couldn't bury your own dead.
You know, everybody was on strike.
Right now, all we've got is a bunch of Marxists pretending they want more money when they're all paid 50 grand a year.
It's not a crisis.
They're not all paid 50 grand a year.
£23,000 is the average salary of those people striking in Felixstowe, right?
They work for Unite, they push boxes around, they're very well paid.
People like nurses should be better paid.
Completely agree.
Do you think...
I agree about nurses needing better paid.
Ken, what do you make of Labour MPs on picket lines briefly?
The Labour Party based on trade unionism?
Absolutely right.
But Starrman said you can't be in government if you can't pick a line.
I know, and I disagree with them about that.
I think Labour MPs...
I grew up in a Labour Party where Labour MPs were on picket lines
through all the strikes of the time.
And, you know, I went looking for a picket line to join when this started,
but there weren't any in my area.
There you go.
Listen, gentlemen, what can I say?
You might be polar opposites.
I've loved it.
Ken Livingstone, thank you very much, Steve, Mike Graham as well.
And coming next to an uncensored.
The RAF tonight criticised for sidelining white men.
We'll discuss that next with a former RAF sergeant.
That's coming after the break.
We're coming back.
Don't go anywhere.
Thank you very much, and be your friends.
Welcome back.
Do not forget, tomorrow night, Tyson, Fury,
on that sad news that his cousin stabbed and died over the weekend
talking knife crime tomorrow exclusive to this program.
We'll let you know more about that.
But next, the Royal Air Force is in the firing line for its politics again tonight.
First, its head of recruitment quit after refusing to follow orders to sideline white men.
Now it's been accused of artificially inflating its diversity stats.
You try saying that to hit government targets on female and ethnic minority recruits.
So the question is, does positive discrimination?
have any role to play in modernising British defence,
or should we, in fact, stick to fighting?
Because that's the whole point.
I'm joined now in the studio by Dr. Afzal Ashraf.
He was a senior officer in the UK Armed Forces,
and actually, interestingly,
was head of training management at the Royal Air Force,
and also down the line, former SAS Sergeant Chris Ryan.
Welcome to you both.
Dr. Afzell, I'll start with you.
Yours is an incredible story,
because you started by saying that you were discriminated against,
then went really the whole circle.
Tell us your view on this.
Well, I haven't talked about being discriminated against.
I came here to talk about the issue that's in the news.
That's what I was asked to do.
But when I was asked, yes, I was discriminated against.
I have documentary evidence.
But that's not something that bothers me.
I had a fantastic career in the Air Force.
It was just awesome.
And that's why I didn't take the matter further.
The point here is,
the issue has been around for over a quarter of a century.
25 years ago, I was invited to help with recruitment of ethnic minorities.
I didn't take the job up.
They're still struggling with a recruitment of ethnic minorities
simply because there is no way of retaining and developing the people we actually do recruit.
A huge amount of money, a huge amount of resources.
Some very good people have been recruited
to help recruit and improve recruitment.
And what we're seeing here is a desperate attempt to meet figures
rather than look at the strategy,
look at the policy, look at what the causes are,
and we've got 25 years of data plus.
So for me, teach me something here,
because you see you've got the RAF,
one of our most important facets,
and they want to increase all races, all,
all races, all creeds, all colours in.
But what you're saying is, is that it's actually gone too far.
Well, do you understand the need for that?
You talked about that, and I completely agree with that.
It's now at the point that we seem, unless I'm missing the point,
to be discriminating.
I don't even want to say about colour, right?
To me, are we missing out on the very best people for the job
and this blind sort of desire to, let's get, you know,
10 people here, 10 people there?
What about the best people, after?
That's what I worry about.
I think that the best people are recruited,
The selection processes ensure that.
The big problem here is that this whole issue is being politicised
simply because people are desperate to meet their own targets.
And the problem is that in order to meet those targets,
you need to make the career attractive to the people,
the group that you're trying to attract.
Before I bring Chris Ryan in,
is there discrimination now against...
white men?
There is.
And if they will, if the story is true, then there is.
Do you think the story is true?
I don't know.
I mean, the contradictory story, there's one aspect of story saying that that is what's happened
and the RAF seems to be denying that that is what happened.
The point is that if it happens or even if it's perceived to happen, not only is it
illegal, it is very dangerous.
And in all of this, there's sort of national security to consider.
Let's go to Chris Ryan, former SAS sergeant live in Plymouth.
Chris, welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored Without Him.
Chris, what do you make of this?
Are we getting to a point where, in our quest to tick every single box in the United Kingdom,
we're missing out on the best people and putting our, well, our national security at risk, fella?
Good evening, Jeremy.
Yes, you are.
But first of all, I'd like to say the group captain who resigned should be applauded
for her courage and doing the right thing.
Now, going back to recruitment,
you cannot force people to join our armed forces.
It's down to, you know,
the individual who has a desire to join that unit.
And if you're just picking people off the street
because they fit a certain demographic,
you are not going to get the best people for the job.
Interestingly, James Heepie, good friend of mine,
the armed forces ministers,
that they reiterated that the government has asked
for this improvement in diversity.
To you both, though, firstly, Afzal,
how do you achieve diversity
if you're favouring candidates over ability?
How does that work?
Well, it won't work if that's what you're doing.
Do you think that's happening now?
No, I'm not sure that that's what's happening.
You see, when I was asked to join,
the primary driver wasn't a diversity driver.
It was actually the fact that the Air Force was struggling to recruit us,
indeed the other forces were,
but the Air Force was particularly struggling to
recruit people in the technology field where they felt by opening up to an untapped area of
talent, they could increase the talent that they needed. So the problem isn't diversity for
diversity's sake. It is because there is a need to make, get the talent, the best talent
from all aspects of British society. I get that. And if I can bring Chris back in, of course,
we want the best talent from every part of the United Kingdom,
as Dr. Afsler says.
But to me, unless I'm missing the point,
unless this report doesn't seem to be true,
but there seems to be more coming out the whole time.
We are now missing out on some of the best talent
in our quest to tick boxes.
And you say about the group, Captain,
there is a frustration.
How do you see it?
Do you think I'm speaking truthfully there?
Or do you think this is being built up?
Do you think it really is an issue?
Well, Jeremy, you've got to remember.
Our armed forces were embedded in two campaigns for over 20 years.
This career path may not be what a young man or woman wants to do now.
Now, the regiment has always suffered, or the SAS has always suffered for low numbers,
and they've always been on demand.
And this whole thing is you can't force anybody onto selection.
You've got to, first of all, make the package attracteth.
These young men and women aren't paid very well, and they're expected to put their lives on the line.
From that side, it comes back down to you cannot force people into armed services.
Now, I served alongside a number of guys of colour, and I'm telling you now, they would be affronted if they thought they were given something and they didn't deserve it or they didn't work for it or they weren't capable of that position they held.
Now, once you start doing this with the figures, it is absolutely wrong and it just does not work.
What the government should do is make the package more attractive to bring young men and women into our military.
Based on what you've heard, Absa, and I completely get what you're saying.
One doesn't know whether this is genuine or not.
We live in a world where it seems to be about diversity targets, but on the ground.
Yours is a very interesting story.
We started by saying that you suffered discrimination.
You were honest about that, and yet you got your head down, you carried on.
You said I had the most awesome 25 years.
When you look at the military today, would you join again?
I would.
But I want to come back to what Chris has said.
I think he's made some very good points.
One is, if the story is true, this group captain deserves a great deal of praise
because no matter what the issue is, people should stand up for what they believe is right.
And I think this is something that she deserves a great deal of applause for.
The other thing that Chris has said, which really deserves to be taken on board
and that is that any person, color or whatever, deserves to know that they've achieved it on marriage.
And elite organizations, whether the Royal Air Force or the SAS, it is difficult to get in.
It is extremely tough to get in.
If I tell the stories of the people that didn't make it with me, you know,
through bone fractures, through epilepsy,
stress-related epilepsy.
So many people didn't make it, and I did.
And I wouldn't want to be a token.
And in those days, of course, there was none of that tokenism.
There was none of this diversity issue.
Do you think that very quickly, both of your final question,
do you think diversity is important, absolutely?
Do you think the drive for it has been done in the wrong way?
You both talk about how people of colour absolutely who have served
and quite rightly would feel affronted,
and I completely understand that.
But do you think there is any part of,
in this quest for diversity,
that they've taken the wrong path
and we are missing out on people?
They have taken the wrong path
in that they're looking at discrimination
and recruitment at the front end.
It doesn't really exist.
99% of people in the armed forces
are not prejudice.
It does exist at the very senior level
because you get a,
a pinnacle there where there is high competition.
I didn't experience any prejudice for the largest part of my career.
I noticed it when I looked at my filed and stuff and my performance at the top end.
And that is where it gets difficult.
If we had, like we have politicians, members of the House of Lords, leaders in business and elsewhere,
of colour or females in the armed forces, then we wouldn't have a problem.
And 25 years ago, we could have grown a lot of talent.
I'm not talking about myself, but there were several,
only a very small number of officers of colour,
who were extremely talented.
Why didn't they make it?
Why didn't we have air marshals, females, and of colour?
That's the question.
If they address that question, you will solve the recruitment question.
Astell, thank you very much.
Final word from you, Chris.
Your overall view of this summit up?
Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy,
Joining the military, whatever branch, it's an organic thing.
And you can't cook it, you can't change selection.
I'll give you one example.
In the late 80s, a commanding officer was under pressure to bring more men into the SES.
And they tweaked selection and made it easier.
And what that meant was there was a number of guys joined the SES who weren't capable of that position.
And sadly, some of them were killed.
As I've said, there's a process of joining on the military.
and it shouldn't be tweaked no matter who you are or where you've come from.
Completely agree. Chris Ryan, a former SA sergeant in Plymouth and Dr. Afsel Asher.
Thank you very much as you joining to join us.
And next on Uncensored, my friends, a new documentary tonight untangles conspiracies around Princess Diler's death.
There are still questions apparently to be answered after 25 years.
We'll speak to the former spokesperson for the Al-Fired family Michael Hork Cole along with Firebog for Tom Bao.
That's next on Uncensor. Don't go no. We're coming right back.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Now Princess Diana's tragic final hours
remain the subject to much speculation and scandal,
even 25 years on from a death.
Channel 4 is the latest to enter the fray
with a four-part documentary
investigating Diana death in Paris,
which examines two police investigations
into her passing.
I think this...
Have a look at this, actually.
Just start like this.
There's so many coincidences,
so many odd things that just don't matter.
85% of the ordinary people of the people
this country believe Diana with murder with my son.
Why would someone want to kill the Princess of the Wales?
It's very difficult to defeat a conspiracy theory.
So do these English inquiries shed important new light
on one of the royal family's darkest hours,
or is it finally time to let the people's princess rest in peace?
I'll be joined shortly by Fayetteberg for Tom Bow.
With me now is Royal Commentator and former spokesman for Mohammed Elfired.
Michael Cole.
Michael, thank you for joining us tonight.
What do you make of this new documentary?
I didn't watch it. I chose not to watch it.
I didn't contribute to it.
I declined the invitation.
I took those decisions because I didn't think it would elicit anything of any substance that was new.
This morning, a very famous TV household name who was on television,
even before I joined television in 1967, he said to me,
Nothing new, Michael. And I did read the comments by Christopher Stevens, the very distinguished
television reviewer in the Daily Mail today. And he described the program as trashy, cynical
documentary with sound bites strung together. So maybe I made a good decision. But the reason I
found it and find this all very very very sad is that it's it's distressing i knew all three people who were
killed that night i i knew diana for 12 years i went around the world with her she occasionally
phoned me she occasionally asked advice uh we weren't close friends she didn't ask me out to lunch
but we had a good professional relationship dody was always in and out of my office when he was
in London and I knew Henri Paul. Honoury Paul drove me around in Paris. I always got on with him
very well. So those were people I liked and admired and like Mohammed, who is still in mourning
after 25 years, I miss them. And I think it is a shame, if I can put it as lightly as possible,
when this old ground is raped over for very little purpose on four consecutive
nights on a terrestrial channel.
What is achieved?
You know, Jeremy, I would sit here and talk to you
from now until the anniversary next Wednesday
if it achieved anything, if it brought them back.
And of course, it won't do that.
So what are we doing here?
I'm all in favour of honest journalistic endeavour.
And I do believe that information will come out in time.
But is this the right way of doing it?
I think if I can jump in, I agree.
I think many people would quite rightly say it's distasteful.
Others would say that maybe there are still questions.
I'd like to cross now, if I can, to Fyadbogler for Tom Bauer, who joins us now.
Tom, what's your take on this new programme?
What's your view, sir?
Well, my view is simply this, that the whole controversy was actually created by Mohamed Fayed,
and I must say my old friend Michael Cole,
because the whole suggestion after the death that Princess Diana
had been murdered by Prince Philip and MI6 in some gigantic conspiracy in Paris,
was utterly outrageous by a shameless man called Mohamed Fayed and his acolytes and spokesman.
I was amongst the very, very first or not the very first person to arrive at the Ritz,
courtesy of Mohamed Fayed, shortly after Diana died.
And I spoke to all the hotel staff at the Ritz,
who had served her and Dode in the hours before they then bid them farewell from the Ritz.
them to their fateful deaths. And I can tell you that that dash by the car, Henri Poe, the drunken
driver speeding through Paris, was approved by Mohamed Fayed. The staff at the Ritz told me that
they heard the conversations between Daudi and his father approving that ridiculous escapade.
And the idea that anyone could have plotted to murder Diana, which is what Mohammed Fyad
perpetrated for 10 years afterwards, and why we have these programs.
now is absolutely outrageous. There was actually no way that anyone could have plotted an assassination
attempt if they even had the motive, which they didn't. And so it is a tawdry affair. What's awful
about the four-part series now is that regurgitates all of Mohammed Faye's rubbish.
And not only rubbish, but damaging rubbish. It defames so many good people, not least of all,
Diana, because he came up with a ridiculous idea. He had her last words, which was a total
fantasy. So what's really shocking about this series, and, you know, in the end, it's just
television, so who really cares, is that it took 10 years for a proper inquest, 10 years before
Diana's death was subject to a judicial inquiry, which was outrageous amount of time.
And when I had actually turned up in court with his lawyer, Michael Mansfield, they didn't
have a scintiller of evidence to present, which justified their long campaign that Diana had
being the victim with Doody of an assassination attempt.
Tom, um...
Tom, thank you.
And this programme just regurgitates all that.
I just want to bring Michael back in.
Not much time, Michael, your response to what Tom has said.
Briefly, sir, please.
Well, it wasn't Mohammed's fault that it was a 10-year delay
and there were four coroners appointed
until they got to the one who they thought would bring in...
Michael, Michael, did Mohammed Al-Fired...
Did Mohammed al-Fiad, in Tom's words,
peddle untruths and false heads about it?
And is the very reason that 25 years later, these programmes are still being made?
He is entitled to his opinion.
He believes that his son was killed.
And he was killed because the establishment did not want the mother of the future king
to be marrying a Muslim.
And that's what he believes, that he's entitled to his belief.
And on the anniversary, he'll go down to Dodie's tomb
and he will sit there for a couple of hours,
listening to recorded prayers from the Quran.
And then he'll go back and he'll have afternoon.
with his children. He is still in mourning. He's a man bereft. He lost not just his son, but a very good friend.
And the allegations that Tom is blithely throwing around, I could answer every single one of them, but we don't have time.
We don't. Tom Bauer, final word from you, please? Briefly, and I mean very briefly, sir, 20 seconds.
Well, all I can say is he's had 25 years to prove his conspiracy, and I think it was shameless and cowardly of him to accuse Prince Philip of orchestrating the murder.
of Diana and the rest of the people in that car.
It was shocking.
It was a drunken driver driving recklessly drunk
and sadly Princess Diana wasn't wearing a safe.
Tom Bauer, Michael Cole, thank you very much indeed.
I think you two prove.
I think the country in the world is probably still split.
Thank you so much for watching.
That's it for me.
Do not forget tomorrow night, live on this show,
Tyson Furrow joins me live.
Tyson Fierry talking about his cousin who was stabbing a lot more.
Don't miss it.
And just as Pierre says,
wherever you are,
Make sure you keep it uncensored.
Have a great night.
Tera!
