Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Ukraine, Gun Crime, and Meghan Markle
Episode Date: August 24, 2022Standing in for Piers, Jeremy Kyle gives an update on the murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel and asks Peter Bleksley how we can stop this from happening again. Jeremy's joined by Kira Rudyk and Tobias Ellw...ood to mark 6 months of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and the panel take on Meghan Markle. After Just Stop Oil clog up the motorway again, Jeremy asks them, is this really the best approach? 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
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Tonight on Pierce Morgan Uncensored with me, Jeremy Kyle.
Police are closing the net on the gunman who shot dead a nine-year-old girl.
The question is, a Britain city is tangled in Ganglang terror.
After just six months of war, just how do we end the pain in Ukraine?
And climate lunatics stick themselves to petrol pumps.
Well, one of these protesters about to come unstuck because he'll join me live in the studio.
Good evening and a big welcome to Pierce Morgan Uncensored.
I'm Jeremy Kyle.
Now nine-year-old Olivia Pratt Corbell
was supposed to go back to school next week.
Her teacher said she's a ray of sunshine,
a lively soul, extremely popular with all of her classmates.
But the truth is that Olivia's never going back to school.
She was shot dead in her own home in Liverpool on Monday night
in front of her own mother,
and somebody in Liverpool knows who did it.
Tonight, the police are hunting the killer,
response with one of the most sickening and senseless murders
this country has ever seen.
The front page of today's Liverpool,
for me says it all.
If you're keeping quiet because you'd rather surrender
the city to thugs, whose side are you on?
They're right.
We all know which side we're on and which side
every decent person in Liverpool and this country is on.
Olivia's devastated family today described the killer as scum
and said this picture of their beloved girl
will haunt whoever did this forever.
Now shockingly, it's exactly 15 years
since that great city lost another innocent child to gun crime.
crime. Priest Jones was murdered aged 11, caught up in ganglang violence he shouldn't even have known
the meaning of. Community leaders on Mersey's sides say Liverpool is a changed city now, united by tragedy.
The city and our country of yes, made progress. But another child is dead tonight, dead at the hands
of another ganglang criminals gun. And if that progress and that unity is to mean anything at all,
the people surely of Liverpool must find this animal that did this and bring him.
to justice. I'm delighted to be joined first up tonight by former Scotland yard
detective Peter Blexley and security and terrorism expert will get us. But first, we're
joined by the auxiliary bishop of Liverpool. Tom Williams, Bishop Williams, welcome to the show.
You tell a few people, and you've said today that the Liverpool Echo Front page is wrong.
They want to sell papers. What do you mean by that? Well, I think I saw the interview with the
Chief Constable at the beginning on the first day of this,
and she came out with that phrase directed directly to the perpetrators.
The echo headline was talking to the whole city,
and I think in some ways it divided the city and saying you're either for or against.
I think the city is 100% against these criminals.
I think the, and the comparison with the child that died 15 years ago,
the city is different since then
and that was a watershed
but I know in our schools
the school that the child goes to
within their class
there would be possibly
four or five children
from different cultures
different backgrounds
the schools are more integrated
the people are more integrated
if you look at our hospitals
you can see where most people come from
they don't come from Liverpool
they come from all areas around the world
Bishop Williams
walk down the street
Fischer's James.
I absolutely understand where you're coming from,
but the problem I have is this.
And religion, I think, should know this.
There's a difference here between right and wrong.
There's a difference between good and evil.
I know all about the forgiveness, right?
But the truth of the matter is,
by writing that page,
the Liverpool Echo are simply saying to a criminal underworld
or a criminal fraternity, do the right thing.
And I'm sure there are plenty of schools
and there are plenty of opportunities
over the last 15 years since that poor by Reese died
that advances have been made.
But I repeat what I said at the beginning,
a child is dead.
And what I think the Liverpool echo is absolutely right on.
It is saying, look inside yourself, look at your consciousness.
The problem is that cities and organisations,
governments as well don't like to admit there's a problem.
Of course you're saying Liverpool's fine.
But it isn't with respect, Bishop Williams,
because a nine-year-old child was gunned down on Monday.
and I think what they're saying is let's deal with it.
I think their newspaper headline is responsible and correct, don't you?
Well, I do, yes, I think because it's directed to the criminals.
I think that it was misleading in the sense that it's a trauma for everybody
and everybody makes the right decision.
When you think about the people of that community in particular,
the real problems of every day life are finding food on their table.
food banks and the real everyday problems of paying for heat and then this
absolute trauma takes place everybody everybody would be dead against that and I
think it's one of the most awful things anyone's ever heard of absolutely
Peter Blexley we've spoken many times before you I know have spent time in
Liverpool whenever we do a story that this people will say over we're
over-egging it a nine-year-old girl shot in her own home
What's the reality?
The reality is there are a number of people in Liverpool,
like in most of our major cities,
who are beyond contempt,
who operate on a completely different plane
to anybody with any shred of decency,
and they will take firearms out onto the streets
in order to settle their scores
because they operate in an illegal world.
And so you can't settle a dispute by going to court, for example,
and having a judgment handed down.
You can't get solicitors to exchange letters.
What they do is they arm themselves.
They're untrained, by and large, and they're thugs.
They are the scum of the earth, and they take firearms out onto the streets,
and poor Olivia, rest her soul, is the victim of that.
We'll get a security expert.
People will watch this and they'll go, it's 2022.
How on earth is it so easy in our society to get a gun?
You've brought one in.
We have to point out this is a fake gun,
but you've got a lot to say about this.
an awful lot to say. I mean, I think people are probably from what they've seen on TV and dramas and movies.
The reality is that people probably recognize that firearms can still be accessed,
regardless of the fact that the legislation changed after Dunblane's massacre,
that obviously firearms were restricted in terms of certain licenses.
However, we've seen a huge influx of weapons coming in from Romania, from the Balkan states,
even from the United States.
But how the criminals operate is on different levels.
You have the very major organised crime groups
that will be using the sort of military level of armaments,
glocks, barretas, those kind of weapons.
But then when you scale it down to the local scumbags
and the drug dealers,
they'll be getting something very similar to this.
So this is a fake gun,
but the point of this is to prove, actually,
how easy it is to get this?
It's frighteningly easy.
Very, very easy indeed.
So this, for example, is a gas-operated CO2-operated pistol.
Now, you can buy one of these.
for about 150 euros in Calais.
From a shop, very simply, you can bring it back
with a very, very minor amount of work on a lathe and engineering.
This can become what we call a far and forget.
So that is a weapon where the criminal, the scumbag,
could use this for maybe five to six to seven rounds
before it would actually just collapse.
But that's sufficient.
That could kill somebody.
With a nine millimeter round?
Absolutely.
And most 9mm rounds now on the black market, about £5 per round.
So it's not an awful lot of money.
Peter, what are we supposed to do?
If you can go to Calais and get that, no wonder these gang members are running a mark.
What are we supposed to do?
Last night we talked about weapons.
We talked about knives.
There was some footage today of machetes in Leeds, people going...
What are we supposed to do to make our streets safe?
If for anything, the memory...
On the screen now is, you know, youths with machetes in Leeds,
just attacking people just in broad daylight.
How do we protect kids like Olivia?
We could be here for the entire show
talking about what the police need to do
to regain some kind of control on the streets.
But what we need to do immediately
is if we know something, if we've heard something,
we need to contact Merseyside Police
or crime stoppers anonymously, 0800,
triple-5, triple one.
And yesterday, I contacted Merseyside Police
because I've spent a lot of time in the last three and a half years
because I'm hunting a criminal from Merseyside
who's wanted for two murders.
So I've immersed myself in the underworld to an extent of people from Liverpool.
And one of my sources contacted me yesterday
and they said they are fairly sure
that much of the recent spate of violence in Liverpool
is being orchestrated by a man who is in prison.
Now, interestingly today,
the man who was arrested,
the intended target of the attack who was shot and went to hospital,
he is being recalled to prison.
So that might add some credence to what I was told.
Regardless, the police will listen to gossip, rumour, titlettle, anything you hear.
Please, come on, do the right thing and contact them.
Was the paper irresponsible gentleman briefly to the Liverpool echo?
I thought their front page was spot on.
The bishop says that it was divisive.
What's your response to that, both of you?
Not in the slightest.
there is no grey areas here.
What side are you on?
Are you on the side of the scumbags?
Or are you a right, righteous, upstanding person
who wants to see Olivia's murderer captured?
But I think the problem is,
regardless of the fact,
and the morals and the ethics
that people should feel obligated
to report that information through.
We know with organised crime,
Peter will know this,
these individuals will not tell on each other,
you know, snitching.
You don't believe that anybody will be shot this guy.
I personally don't.
The abhorrence of this attack wouldn't even matter.
I'm not trying to paint a picture that criminals have,
but there is an unwritten rule.
Am I not right in saying that criminals,
when anything happens to a kid,
is there not any morality at all, are you saying?
Well, of all the time I've spent in Liverpool,
a lot of the time I heard this mantra
that people are born and raised into believing
you don't grasp, you don't talk to the police.
There are certain things that go beyond the pale.
Absolutely.
Shooting dead of a nine-year-old child is exactly such an example.
Can I bring Bishop Williams back in?
We've talked about the front page,
and I understand, Bishop, what you're saying.
There's a fear that if a newspaper does that,
does it then give the message it's not safe
for the kids to go on the street.
There's a lot going on.
But for me, it's absolutely spot on here.
The people of Liverpool should be doing everything they can
to bring...
And the family, by the way,
describe this man as scum today.
What's your response to that?
I agree.
Yes, I agree.
I'm not saying that the echo was wrong.
I was saying that it was
they were quoting
what the chief constable said
to talk to the families
of the criminals
and the people knew
relating to what's happened
what I was saying was that
is that it was addressed to everyone
it was out of context
the context was addressed directly
to the criminals families
and I agree with that completely
and the ones who know them
somebody knows
and I agree with exactly
everything you've said
about that. Thank you very much indeed.
What I'm saying is that there's a lot of good people there.
Absolutely. There are a lot of good people in Liverpool. We make that point.
And I don't think that paper in any way was implying there wasn't. I think what he was saying,
the echo, and I salute it was, look, it's not a case. We can't, we can't dress this up.
Somewhere in Liverpool is a man who's killed a nine-year-old. And society in its entirety in
Liverpool should do whatever it can, from whatever sector, to bring that scumbag, as you quite rightly said,
justice. Final word from you two. Thank you, Bishop Williams. Peter, is this situation
last night we talked guns, you saw machetes there in Leeds? It's just going to get worse and worse.
What needs to be done very briefly? The police need to patrol the streets. There need to be
greater police presence, greater community cohesion, greater neighbourhood policing as a priority.
And Will, I mean, that, the reality. We need to do something about the ability for people to
just bring weapons into the country. There are just a variety of different routes where they're being
brought in. I mean, for one example, a lot of the illegal smuggling of people coming over,
rarely do those ribs come over with just people. It will have contraband. And within that
contraband will be things like weapons. So these weapons will filter through. People can still get
them. You can even look at antiquated guns like Webleys, which, although the ammunition isn't
necessarily available these days, you can buy one at a market for maybe £3,000, but it's not
that difficult to make the munitions for it. I have to say, you'd
watch, thank you both very much, Adi,
you'd watch this and you'd think, I don't know,
what is happening to this country. There's a cost
of living crisis, there's knife crime on the
streets, and a nine-year-old
murdered. Welcome back, my
friends. Now, it's 31 years to the day
that Ukraine declared independence from the
Soviet Union. It's also six months
to the day that Russia invaded
in a bloody but so far failed attempt
to take that independence away.
With crisis and costs everywhere we turn
at home, you'd be forgiven for writing
off Ukraine's suffering as a quarrel
in a faraway land. Somebody else's struggle. After all, we're all worried about food prices,
fuel prices, energy shortages. But remember, they're all the same thing. They're all tied to
Ukraine's fight for survival. And the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom are also fighting
for the fundamental principles of our free world. That's why Boris Johnson returned to Kiev today,
restating Britain's unwavering support. If we're paying in our energy bills for the evils
of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood.
And that's why we know we must stay the course.
But despite the billions in aid and support from around the world,
there is absolutely no end to insight to Ukraine's misery.
And in a nutshell, this is why Russia is illegally occupying swathes of Ukrainian territory,
killing thousands of Ukrainians in the process.
If Ukraine gives up this land in any kind of peace deal, Putin will simply regroup and then come back for more.
President Zelenskyy told this show exactly why that can never happen.
We are not prepared to exchange or trade the territory of the independent state of Ukraine.
We have no right for this.
First of all, we are the government because this land belongs to Ukrainian people.
And sad news this evening, this just in.
more civilians killed in Ukraine, President Zelensky says 15 people have died and another 50 have been injured in a Russian rock strike, a rocket strike on a train station.
So with no pause in the misery and no imaginable end to the war, tonight we're asking how long is this going to go on?
Joining me now and I'm delighted to have a Kira Ruddick, a Ukrainian member of parliament, and Tobias Elwood Chair of the Defence Select Committee in the United Kingdom.
Kira, I'll start with you.
I've said this for many months.
One of the things that concerns me
is that this conflict, which is so horrendous,
the best way to put this, I'm not sure,
but becomes it's happening.
And we get on with our lives and we forget
and we must never forget these atrocities.
What, six months in on the day of independence,
what is the feeling in the Ukraine from your own people?
We are happy that we are alive.
And we know that,
being alive and still fighting is actually a sign that everybody was wrong about us.
You remember six months ago, most of the intelligences of the world were saying that we don't
stand a chance and we will fail in like a week or two. And it's six months and we are still standing
and we are fighting and we're here to tell that we are not giving up on our territories and we are
here to say that we will be fighting till we win. We know that
it's incredibly dangerous that it will become new normal for the world what's happening in ukraine
right now and this is why we are calling for everyone to help us to make this push to give us more
weapons to give us more support because you see how effective and efficient we are with it and
when we are not facing russians empty-handed we are able to make their progress we are able to
win our territories back so this is our aim this is our goal and this is where we are at
The six months of war and 31 years of independence.
Today, of course, Boris Johnson came on Independence Day announcing 54 million pounds in aid.
If I can bring in Tobias, Elwood, Tobias, welcome to the show.
Probably a tricky question, but one I know you'll be prepared to answer.
I think that anybody in the world that would look at what's going on in Ukraine knows it's not just Ukraine's war,
it's the world's war.
But when you consider back home, the daily strife, the cost of living crisis,
people are unable to pay their bills,
unable to do very obvious things, and many families are going to the wall.
Do you worry, do politicians worry that people will go,
it's in a faraway land?
I'm struggling.
I'm not saying that's right, but do you have concerns that, I don't know,
war fatigue could set in mentally for people?
Yes, that's absolutely right.
Right. I first met Kiri Rudik exactly six months and four days ago in Kiev just prior to the invasion.
Nobody believed that Russia was going to invade. The Ukrainians believed it. I believed it.
But everybody was in denial. And they thought, well, this is a far-off place. What's it got to do with us?
They're not a member of NATO. Let's lead them to their own devices.
We now recognize that this is just about Ukraine. This is something far bigger going on.
This is Russia re-exerting itself of Putin wanting to do.
to reinforce his Slavic vision and influence
in the eastern part of Europe.
If we don't put this fire out in Ukraine,
it will spread elsewhere.
And there is a direct link between what is happening here
with that cost of living crisis,
which I'm pleased you made the connection with.
You know, oil and gas prices have gone up here,
as have food, in part, because of what's going on in Ukraine.
We need to lean into this.
I'm pleased our Prime Minister is there,
committing more money.
But every day the Ukrainian spend about 40,
million pounds on ammunition, 40 million pounds a day. So this isn't going to last very long
at all. We need greater political resolve to look Putin in the eye and say, we've had enough
of this. We're going to stand up to you. Completely agree. If I can go back to Kira,
what would your message be? Of course, it's very interesting for me because I'm sat here doing
a program in the United Kingdom and the cost of living crisis is central to so many people's
lives. And yet, you're right, we look at what's going on in your country and it pales into
insignificance, absolutely. But what would you say a Ukrainian who's trained to have a gun, who's a
member of parliament, who's fighting literally personally to protect your country? What would your
message be to people watching this in the United Kingdom who think we can't afford our own lives?
Why should we be giving money away? What would you say to them, Kira?
First of all, I would say thank you for your support.
And thank you, Tobias, because you were the first one of Western politicians who did believe in what we were saying.
We will never forget this.
But coming back to the people, look, we are comparing the situation that we are having right now with the energy crisis and cost of living,
with some ideal situation and hoping that things could be as they were at the point.
passed, but they cannot. Putin started ramping up prices way before the war in Ukraine started. It was
like November or even October. And I do not think that if Ukraine loses, Putin will come back to
dropping them and will become a lovely person who will forget about his dream of conquering the
world. Does anybody even think that he will change his behavior if Ukraine fails? So we should
compare the situation that we have right now when there is indeed a ramp up in prices,
there is indeed a very complicated situation to the situation that would be much worse.
And that would be if you claim loses because then the energy bills would be 10 times
higher. Then the price of the food will be 10 times higher.
And then the migration crisis that we're seeing right now would be absolutely different.
It will be on tremendous level.
On your show, you were talking about guns.
We right now gave up up to 7 million of guns,
that only the ones that I know in Ukraine.
What would happen if all those people will have to move to Europe?
What will happen with the general strategy?
So when somebody says that they don't have a plan
on how to resolve situation to help Ukraine win,
I have a question, how are you going to,
to live if we lose.
Absolutely.
That's an absolutely unpleasant future.
I completely agree.
And I think that international support for Ukraine must continue
and we must be steadfast in our support.
And one of the reasons we wanted to do this on Independence Day
was to make Tobias the point to people that it is not going away.
It does affect us all.
It might, as we said, be in a faraway land,
but it will impact on so many parts of our life.
Can I just finish Tobias by saying,
We know Boris Johnson was there today on Independence Day, 54 million.
We know that Boris Johnson will cease being the British Prime Minister in a couple of weeks.
He has built very close ties with Zelensky, and in fact, some of his,
even his critics said that the job that he's done for this country in Ukraine
has been one of the highlights of his premiership.
Do you believe that that closeness, that concentration on helping Ukraine,
will continue under the new Prime Minister?
And will you be pushing for that, Tobias?
Absolutely. There is a bond that's developed between our two nations, which is second to none.
We've stepped forward more than other countries have in NATO, I have to say, straight from the start in supporting our friends in Ukraine.
But more needs to be done. This is where you need international leadership. I'm afraid, I have to say, that we're not seeing it from Britain, from Germany, from France, or from the United States.
Yes, we're giving operational equipment, but we need strategic analysis and direction of travel.
that shows that we have a policy direction to stand up to Russia.
We had a speech last week but from Putin,
who made it very clear that the global baton of leadership
must now be handed away from the West to a non-West nation.
He was implying Russia and indeed China.
That is the era of insecurity, a new decade of insecurity that we now face.
This is 1937 all over again, and we need to wake up.
Couldn't agree with you more.
Kira, thank you so much indeed.
Ukraine, Tobias Elwood, both on the talk. And actually, to me, there's a similarity between that
situation in Ukraine and our first story, right and wrong, good and evil. It's particularly obvious
to anybody with the brain cell that Putin will not stop and has to be prevented from taking over
that independent sovereign nation because it will impact on all of our lives. Next on uncensored,
goodness me. Princess Pinocchio's latest podcast bombshell. She says Baby Archie's nurse,
caught fire during their recent tour of South Africa.
Oh my goodness.
In the nursery caught on fire.
Everyone's in tears.
Everyone's shaken.
And what do we have to do?
Go out and do another official engagement.
But does the story check out?
I'm joined by someone who was actually on that tour
and disagrees.
Back in three.
Right, welcome back.
So hold on to your seats, my friends.
Megan Markle's in the headlines
for stretching the truth again.
Also, tonight on the show, the post
Pope is Catholic and bears do defecate in the woods
from where it's pumped directly onto Britain's beaches.
Ba-boom.
Yes, Meg's added again.
She's regaled the listener to her new podcast
with the terrifying story of how San Archie narrowly escaped
to fire in his bedroom on a royal tour of South Africa.
Oh my gosh.
The heater in the nursery caught on fire.
Everyone's in tears. Everyone's shaken.
And what do we have to do?
Go out and do another official engagement.
Despite being shaken and in tears,
she and Harry bravely, and I mean bravely, resumed their duties.
But it turns out that Archie wasn't even in the room when it happened,
and Royal sources today told the press
that they don't even recall any fire at all,
merely an overheating heater.
You try saying that.
Now, this isn't the first time Megan's face claims
that a truth isn't necessarily the truth.
Our investigative units and a top team of data journalists
have produced this forensic visualization of Megan's fibs.
She famously told Oprah she married Prince Harry intimately
and in secret days,
before their televised bash in Windsor.
The Archbishop Canterbury said,
Oh, no, she didn't.
Megan claims the royal family took away her passport,
leaving her a princess trapped in a tower.
But investigation by her own, the son,
found she took at least 13 foreign holidays
during the period in which she was apparently grounded.
Megan also claimed a member of the Royal Household
expressed concerns about the...
I can't do this.
The colour of her unborn child's skin while she was pregnant.
But she's never been able to say who it was.
And she says she barely knew anything.
about the royal family, the nose can't get any bigger,
before she met Harry. Friends have said she was a royal fanatic
who visited BP as a child and wanted to be Diana 2.0.
There you go, my friends. Lies, damn lies
and the dustage of Sussex. Or as the Queen herself put it,
recollections may vary.
Joining me now is Robert Jobson Royal, editor at the evening standard
in tonight's panel, Esther Craig here, I can't wait,
former Labour advisor, my good friend Richard Power Saeed.
Welcome, people.
Hello.
Let's start with you, Robert.
Yeah.
Why is this woman such a divisive character?
Why does she generate the column inches, the comments?
I mean, she seems to annoy slash excel in people's brains so much.
Why?
I mean, I think that the Oprah Winfrey interview didn't help.
I mean, that was pretty awful as we went through the Pinocchio stories there.
But look, I think it's, I was talking about the guys earlier.
If we all landed in L.A. tomorrow, I think there would be a difference in the way things, to be fair to her, the way we address issues.
But as I say, I was in South Africa on that case.
The Foreign Office of Issues a Statement saying that all our residences meet the requirements, health and safety requirements.
Tried contacted all the three people that were the AIDS there today and none of them would answer any questions.
because unlike this program, I think that the palace has somewhat censored when it comes to Megamarkal.
They're a bit scared of her.
They're a bit scared of what they should say about her as well, because the reactions.
But I was there.
I don't recall any fire engines.
I mean, we didn't get the story.
Obviously, we were all pretty rubbish at her job, but there were no stories.
And the whole of the South African press didn't cover this incident.
There were no fire engines called to the residents.
You know, we have to ask questions about that.
But she's saying that, you know, it was the smoke was in the room.
I tell you what my issue is, Richard, just to bring you in a sec,
because I know what my mate is could be said.
I was asking the crew earlier, and one of the cameramen said,
I sort of feel she gets bad press,
but my argument would be she comes across as lacking in genuiness.
Why wasn't this said at the time?
It all seems to be this orchestrated campaign
to gain popularity, which I sort of want to tell her,
she's never going to regain.
You've taken your 118 million.
Be quiet.
I mean, it seems to me that you could say something quite similar
of quite a lot of different members of the royal family.
Yep.
Look, I think she's not got very many, very interesting things to say.
I feel quite sorry for her
because I think she's been obsessively,
kind of slightly creepily obsessed over by the British media.
Do you think she thought,
do you think she came from California,
that different lifestyle and thought,
I'm going to change the world,
I'm going to modernise the monarchy,
I'm going to save Harry from the misery that he's going through,
I'm going to be this beacon of light.
Very quickly, people went,
well, I'm not buying what you're saying, love.
I mean, if she thought that,
then she was incredibly naive.
But she might quite reasonably have thought,
but, you know, there's one prince
who's going to become head of state
who thinks it's fine to undermine our democracy
and sort of, you know,
what was he doing?
Taking enormous donations
from somebody who his chief aide
then make sure this Saudi billionaire
gets citizenship and a knighthood from the queen.
I mean, it's really,
really rank. That's what one of them's doing. The other one's friends with paedophiles and frankly is probably not telling the truth about it. She might quite reasonably have thought that she wasn't going to be the most unpopular member.
She came before that unless she had a crystal balls.
We can't. Yeah, listen, you have a right to opinion. That's what talk is all about, isn't it? I mean, maybe she has a point. Is it not the way, Esther, that she does this? To me, it's so, I don't even know the right word is even the name of that goddamn.
Potentious.
Yes. Just not. Lacket.
in anything genuine. I just don't buy it.
But I think that was her biggest frustration being part of the royal family.
She couldn't curate her image for the public.
That's the problem she had.
Because I think when you, she said she didn't grow up in tabloid culture, fine.
But there is a way you can manipulate media in the US to try and sort of portray a certain image.
But when you're part of the firm, your first sort of duty is your duty to the firm and to the country.
It's not about curating the perfect image of yourself.
I completely agree that, you know, there are members of the royal family that are less palatable.
I've always advocated that Prince Andrew should be kept in the catacombs of Paris.
That doesn't change anything.
That doesn't change the fact that Megan Marco is completely unlikable.
And the thing is that she can only milk two years in the royal family for so long.
What else does she have to say?
What else?
What else is there to her, you know, torturous life as part of the royal family?
There's nothing else.
My point is this.
And I absolutely support.
My old man worked for the royal family for 41 years.
And he always said, and you talk about the part of the firm,
he always said that anybody passed the Queen Mother and the Queen has systematically used the press for their own ends
whenever they've wanted it. He included Charles, Dana, and all of the rest of them.
And he doesn't think that mystique will ever return.
So maybe we're being unfair to Megan Markle,
and maybe Richard has a point that actually if they looked at themselves,
not William and Kate, I think, but they're all as bad,
are a lot of them as bad as each other?
Why does she get, if we balance it?
Richard's got his viewpoint. I think he's coming from a different angle.
I think the Royal Family do a terrific job for this country.
So do I.
And I think that when you see what the Prince of Wales has done
in terms of his, you know, the amount of, well,
and the queen and the amount of,
work they do on behalf of the government.
I think that's the point we seem to forget
is that the foreign offices ask them
to do this. What upsets a lot of people,
I think, is that Megan was around for
two minutes, really. Not long enough.
She didn't give it long enough. I think she could have done a
terrific job in the Commonwealth. She would have given
diversity a real plus.
I think that there's a lot of things that she could have done
and it just gave up on it. And I just don't
this lady's story, she was forced to go
out on this job. I very much doubt anyone
would have been able to force her, let
alone her own husband to make a go on this job
if she was that distraught about her son.
No, no, no. I mean, if there was a fire in my house tonight,
I wouldn't be doing this show.
I'd have been at home making it out to my kids.
Exactly, but what was it?
It wasn't a fire, by the way.
It's quite interesting what Esther says
about likability. I absolutely
take your point. I go back to the old man and he says that
when the queen dies, and we've had this discussion
before, he doesn't believe the royal
family or the monarchy will ever be the same again.
Now, a lot of people would disagree with that, but the queen
I think will never, we will never
appreciate, well, an amazing woman until she's
no more. But are they as bad as each other? Is it her likability? Is it the way she goes about stuff?
That's what it is? I don't think that the royal family's success until this moment has been based upon
likeability. Like that is not... No, I think it's hard work and graft by the queen.
Right, exactly. And you know what? I was saying that, you know, I think Megan Markle's
podcast sounds quite boring. You know what? The Queen is quite boring in a pretty impressive way, right?
70 years of her life she doesn't know. See, I disagree with that. I don't think the Queen's boring at all. When she, what she does and what she did, when we really
needed her during the pandemic.
When Boris Johnson had COVID, when the Prince of Wales gone down with it,
she came in with that statement, which created a sense of calm.
When the politicians couldn't have done that,
when you had Boris gibbering away and his two experts about what we should be doing,
what we shouldn't be doing, shown as various graphs from school about COVID,
it was the Queen's words.
And Prince Charles is not going to be able to do that kind of thing.
Well, I disagree with you too.
I think that the Prince of Wales will be able to draw.
people together. I think that what Jeremy's saying is right. But he is a
terrifically hard-working man. Somebody, I think, yes, you'll believe it. Okay,
has anything illegal been done with this donation from charity? No. Otherwise, he'd be
under investigation by the police. So that isn't the case. Do you think the police would
be investigating Prince of Wales? Of course they do. Of course they work. They investigated Prince
Andrew. Esther, what we're going to say? I was going to say that I think one thing that has
we all respect about the Queen is her sense of duty.
And aside from the whole likeability argument,
which we can go back and forth of,
it's the fact that Meghan Markle never showed a sense of duty,
and that was the biggest issue.
I think, you know, and I don't necessarily blame her,
because celebrity culture in the US is very different, right?
There's no real sort of, there's no equivalent
of the royal family in the US.
You become a celebrity, you get rich,
you donate money, and you are God, right?
In the UK, it's completely different.
You know, there's a real...
This is why Pear's Morgan's in America at the moment.
To regain his god staff.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, you have to be able to read the room.
You have to have respect for the British public.
There are certain things you just don't do.
And I don't think she completely understood that.
I think it's really interesting because I can see all points.
I get what you're saying, Richard, actually, about if you look at, if you point in a mirror
at the rest of them, actually, there's a lot of them who aren't great.
I think you, though, Robert, have a really good point as well.
She was here two minutes.
People have done 70 years.
Yes, they'll have made mistakes, but it's about duty, isn't it?
Prince Philip.
I mean, look at Prince Philip.
It's amazing.
You know, incredible servant to the crown,
incredible servant to the Queen,
and it's a strengthened stay.
And I just think that that just was such a...
He must have been looking at this,
but towards the end of his life,
and thinking, what on earth is, what a shambles.
What's all the graph, you know,
what's all the graph people?
We don't have...
Go on.
This is a grown-up country.
We should have a grown-up political system.
Why do we have this...
Why do we have this fairy tale nonsense?
This is a constitutional monarchy
and a parliamentary democracy.
We're a grown-up country.
What democracy do you want?
The American democracy.
where you get Biden and Trump, what do you want?
President Boris Godfrey.
I mean, like, we could look over at Europe,
all these incredibly successful democracies.
MPs, if they wanted to get rid of the monarchy,
we have, by the way, got rid of the monarchy once before,
then the MPs and our system will sort that out.
And work out, my friends, as I draw to a close,
how much the American president cost the British,
over the American people,
and how much the monarchy brings into British coffers.
But we'll agree to disagree.
Megan Markle might be in your heart.
You might believe she's the greatest thing since slice bread,
Or you might believe, as Piers Morgan once said,
Princess Pinocchi only believes what she says herself.
Welcome back, my friends.
Now, barely a week passes without eco-fanatics
sticking their noses into our morning commute,
usually by sticking themselves to bits of our roads.
Today, protesters from just stop oil,
damaged fuel pumps and glued themselves
to a service station forecourt along the M25.
Surrey police tell us they've arrested at least 20 people.
Yesterday, the same group caused chaos at all depots
by staging sit-down protests.
Already this year, they've disrupted the BAFTA Awards.
That's not such a bad thing.
In the British Grand Prix,
as well as sticking themselves
to various priceless works of art.
Joining me now is Just Stop Oil protest
to Alex DeConning. I hope that's right.
And former top gear presenter, Steve Berry.
Alex, I don't want to have a go.
I want to get straight to the point.
I have an issue with this,
but I want to ask you a question.
What does Just Stop Oil mean, briefly?
Basically, the government
are trying to push through another 40 new fossil fuel facilities
and we're demanding that there should be no new oil licenses in the UK
because we have eight years in reserve,
which is more and enough time to have a fair transition to renewable energy
and to make sure the oil workers are re-skilled and treated properly.
Right, so here's what I'm going to say to you.
How old are you?
I'm 24. I don't want to sound like your dad,
but here's what I'm going to say to you.
If you were 57 young man, right?
Yeah. And you had a family and you had a mortgage
and you had to go to work and you had an energy crisis
was about to cripple you financially.
Would you be sitting in a road or would you be slightly hacked off
if these eco-zeolets or whatever you call them
were making it impossible for you to carry on with your job.
I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way I'm being honest.
Every time I get somebody from just stop oil,
they're barely out of nappies.
No disrespect.
Why? You don't have any experience of the real world.
It's a bunch of unwashed students
giving it large, you're stopping people from doing
going about their daily lives, man.
Unwashed. Okay.
First of all, we have many age ranges.
I've been arrested next to people who were 80.
But you say that with pride, I've been arrested. Why?
Because this is the kind of action that we need to take.
We are in a climate emergency.
Do you not realize how important the situation is?
Yes, I do, but you're not going to like what I'm going to say.
And you're going to say that.
I don't know what Steve says.
We're in a climate emergency.
There are people watching this who cannot pay their bills.
They cannot eat their houses.
They cannot feed their kids.
And do you know what I'm going to say to you leave that a minute and concentrate what's happening now?
No, I'm not saying to leave that a minute.
The cost of living crisis is very closely related to.
to the climate crisis. We could be fixing both at the same time.
No, we can be insulating homes, which saves almost half on people's energy bills.
I'd cut the green levy, I'd cut VAT on fuel, and I'd...
I'm not saying...
Energy bills are 2.5 billion pounds higher than they should be,
because green policies have been scrapped over the last decade.
Here's another thing.
We subsidized public transport, which we were talking about before we arrived on the show.
That would save people a fortune on transportation costs as well as...
I'm not disagreeing about the fact there are issues.
I'm talking about how you do it and now.
Bring in Steve briefly.
Really appreciate what you're saying.
Do we...
Would it be great to be that young and idealistic?
I was like that when I was his age.
Combat jacket, placard, ban the bomb,
down with this sort of thing,
vegetable rights and peace.
But it's not patronising.
What I'm saying, he's right.
He's entitled to his opinion.
But you are...
There seem to be two groups.
There's nice, well-presented, well-spoken,
middle-class young people like that.
And then there's people in their 50s and 60s.
who looked like they worked to the public sector retired early
and a board watching antiques, road trip and tipping point,
so they want something to do.
They're asking for stop oil.
Oil is stopping, but there's going to be...
It is stopping.
It is stopping. It is stopping.
But there's going to be a transitional period.
Look at the popularity of...
The transitional papers will start right now.
Look, it is. It is.
It was 40 degrees in London a few weeks ago.
40 degrees.
It was that in 1976, but you weren't around to experience it really.
Do you want to see the grass?
I can show me the grass later.
Can I say, can I just jump in?
Just genuinely, for one reason.
And I've said my piece and fair play to you've said yours.
Do you not think there's a more constructive way?
And I go back to it.
And I never get answered this than ruining...
What you do is you stick yourself to these things
and you make it impossible for people to go on with the lives.
Why are you not talking sense?
As you've actually spoken, hands in the air,
I've learned more from you in two minutes
than all of those dullards sticking themselves to whatever
and making our lives more difficult.
That's the point I'm making.
But sadly, we would not get on shows like these if it wasn't for stuff like this.
I'd have you on.
You don't have to stick yourself to anything.
I'm waiting for that hand.
Move that hand.
Oh, it's fine.
We're all right.
No, but I'm being serious.
But then please invite me back next time instead of having to resort to crazy stuff like this.
It's the wrong target.
Instead of inconveniencing hard-working people, if they try and get to work or school or wherever they've got to go,
why don't they glue themselves to the yachts of these super-rich guys that are making all this money?
What you say to that, why don't you do that?
Well, I'll tell you why?
they might have to go outside the UK.
And then they find the sort of policing
where they don't ask for your pronouns first.
They give you a crack with a stick,
which is virtually everywhere else inside of the UK.
Look what happened in Italy
when they tried pulling this sort of routine.
People, not the police, just got out of the cars
and dragged them out of the way.
I will never forget that woman, right,
in the range rover,
who couldn't get to the hospital with the guy.
I'm just asking you, Alex, I'm not,
you can't take stuff per...
Do you understand her frustration with you and your friends?
Of course I understand.
So why don't you do it?
differently. Why are you not getting the people on the show who have been disrupted
because train tracks have spontaneously combusted because heathrow runways have been melted
so flights couldn't take off and flash floods so people couldn't get to work in that way?
Why haven't you got people on the show who...
Because I've only got two minutes left and I've got you on.
No, but you're always focusing on this kind of disruption and not the other kinds of disruption
in the climate crisis.
Well, you say we're focusing on disruption, my friend.
That's because you and your supporters, that's what you do.
And the only way to stop us and also to stop the other kinds of disruption
from the climate crisis is for the government to stop issuing new fossil fuel.
So you won't stop doing what you're doing until the government does that.
Is that what you're saying?
Exactly. That's what I'm saying.
Faking for allays, why would we stop?
Final word, you always do it in the southeast of England.
Come to Salford.
Try it up there.
See how you get on lad.
You got arrested in Newcastle.
My favourite city.
You were left shaken after being forcibly dragged away.
Yes, and we were very surprised by the response.
I'm doing my PhD in Green Hydrogen production at Newcastle University.
And I just want to point out that there are so many solutions that I found
through this, that it was not being used.
We have these...
Well, I'll tell you what, come back on the show, right?
Come back on the show and spend time talking to me about that.
But I will never change...
And I mean that, genuinely, because fair play to you.
But my issue is, is that...
Is the disruption, the disrespect?
I'm not...
Listen, you might have a very good point.
But I think you have to understand
that people are really struggling.
And I think that right now, right now,
they don't look kindly.
I'm saying, if you want traction from your argument,
stop ruining people's...
I'm not trying to win the Exfactor here. It's not a popularity contest.
We are doing this because we need things to change.
Fair enough. History has shown that in order to get the kind of radical change that we need
at the time scale we have, this is the solution. Women did not get the vote by voting on it.
No, they threw themselves in front of a horse. Final word from you. Steve Berry.
Wrong target. Target these rich fat cats, not working people.
I really appreciate it. And that is an open offer, and I mean that. Man to man, we'll have the discussion.
to come back on this.
Absolutely. Thank you very much, Steve. Thank you. Alex, thank you. Just a quick word, by the way,
GCSE results tomorrow morning. My Aves getting hers. Fingers crossed to everybody who's giving.
There's a note. It's a worrying night, but you've done your best. And fingers crossed, you get the good result.
That is it from me tonight. We're back tomorrow at 8 o'clock. And don't forget, wherever you are and whatever you're doing,
Pierce Morgan made me promise as he sits at the south of France, judging by his Instagram, eating prawns.
Whatever you're up to, make sure it's uncensored. That's a big tick. Have yourself.
a great night. That's been me back tomorrow at 8. See ya, torah!
