October 15, 2020 - 11:58am
Podcast version:
Piers Morgan has made a career out of robust, forceful and — at times — abrasive interviews. Since the start of the pandemic, he has found himself an unlikely hero of the ‘pro-lockdowners’ (even being labelled by one columnist as ‘the hero Gotham didn’t know it wanted, but possibly needed’) for this confrontational style, the full force of which was felt by government ministers earlier this year.
He has, however, been criticised for the hostile nature of his interviews. No minister has appeared on his show for over 100 days, which has led many to question its efficacy of a style that cannot even attract guests. The Good Morning Britain host makes no apology for this, arguing that government officials deserve to be scrutinised — if they can’t deal with a heated interview, how can they be expected to cope in a global pandemic? Morgan expresses deep misgivings over No10’s handling of the Covid outbreak and even goes so far to suggest that, having voted for the Boris Johnson in the last election, he would now vote for Keir Starmer.
But he also admits that he has gone too far in the past. Morgan “totally embraces” his own culpability in inflaming passions on either side of the debate, describing himself as a “work in progress”.
We certainly saw a different, softer side to Piers in this interview. Whether his desire to be a “force for good in the world” will result in a wholesale change in his interviews remains to be seen, but it would be fair to say that stranger things have sprouted out of this pandemic. Enjoy.
Buy Piers’s latest book ‘Wake Up’ here.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe“The worse thing to impact the human race in the last 100 years!” There’s no hope if people like him continue to push false and damaging narratives like this!
Exactly
He’s a bit late, and anyway he’s not hated by everyone. I heard there’s a bloke in Weston Super Mare who thinks he’s alright. But he might have died of covid. I don’t think his abrasive style is the problem. His astonishing pig ignorance and his seeming inability to back anything he opines up with something resembling facts and evidence is. A sad man.
Is that Piers, I faked photos of our soldiers to put them further in harm’s way, anti-vaxxer extraordinaire as I argue against herd immunity and put more people further in harm’s way?
I presume the softer side is because he’s making less money at the minute?
“Piers Morgan, I don’t want to be hated anymore.”. WELL THEN STOP BEING SO HATE FULL! Also stop being wrong about almost everything.
And stop talking over people.
I have just tried to watch the clash between Morgan and Mike Graham on Talk Radio this morning. I switched off after a minute or so. Morgan, as ever, is simply obnoxious, and whilst I like Mike Graham he is a bit of a wally. They just talk over each other about stuff that nobody outside the media bubble cares about.
Morgan was complaining that govt ministers will not go on his wretchedly mindless TV show (or on Newsnight etc). Well, I have no brief for our ministers, who are useless beyond all belief, but I can’t blame them for not wanting to be barked at by revolting presenters whose shows would insult the intellect of a cushion.
I switched off too
It’s breakfast porn – does Susannah Reid have any talent beyond wearing tight clothes to enhance her curves?
And the rest is just click-bait to get everyone riled up
This is a difficult watch as I consider Morgan to be one of the journalistic evils of my lifetime. His career from the sacking from the News of the World when Murdoch said “the boy went too far” to the awful Mirror episode with the army to the Levinson report when his evidence is a masterpiece of smugness and self importance where it was described as “unconvincing”. Who can forget his hounding of Ian Hislop with a photographer and a reporter following him around 24hrs a day and just because he called him Piers Moron. He remains to act as if he is above just about everything I’m afraid. His stock in trade is obnoxiousness and vileness as long as he can hammer his view at the expense of anyone and everyone. He complains no ministers will go on his pitifully awful morning show. Well I wonder why? No business leader with regard for his team would put any of his team up for that. Not even the pretence of a fair crack of the whip. I remain curious as to why the sycophants on GMTV actually choose to work with someone with his track record.
His comparison of Sweden and NZ is ridiculous. His approach to the covid episode is facile and based on his opinion and not grounded in fact. Enough….there is only so much I can take.
My nerves were shot too trying to watch this ,Piers was wrong on so many occasions. I feel he did contribute to the first unnessary lockdown which did no good no lives were saved by it the opposite is the case (one just has to compare the data).
I can`t bare to hear people really distroying the young. The damage they are doing to them is criminal. The young in general do not get sick with this TG. Asymptonatic is not sick and they rarely pass it on according to proper scientist and theWHO 16 june 2020, the form a natural barrier and protect the vulnerable. Even elderly people who are used to young children around will have a hardy immune system and thus be protected. If they just stop testing stop the scaremongering and we´ll take care of the people who get sick we know better now how to treat it .
I would qualify my statement about being a journalistic evil by saying that I would only use the term for someone that has knowingly caused harm without any sign of remorse or contrition. It seems to me he has done this more than once and is only interested in promoting and furthering himself. I remain staggered that anyone hires him. It should only be a matter of time before he is dismissed again.
I suppose that, if your media stock-in-trade is to take a contradictory or disputatious view with your interviewees, and then to lard that with sheer unpleasantness, you may rightly expect to be disliked, or even hated. As one who recalls his career in the Yellow Press, and the dubious things then in which he was engaged, I have absolutely no sympathy with or for him, and my eyes are dry of even crocodile tears.
“I hope to reach a place where Piers Morgan doesn’t exist at all.”
~ Caroline Blackburn
The beginning of this interview enraged me so much that I had to switch off. Has this man of the media followed absolutely zero emerging science? His opinions are spectacularly uninformed. I sadly have become someone who doesn’t want to listen to someone else’s point of view. Thanks Piers.
It’s typical of the correct situation…. he who shouts loudest gets heard and, he and the other ‘presenters’ on GMB are very clearly left leaning and have no intention of listening to any other viewpoint. He blows with the breeze and, seems in a permanent state of absolutist rage…but, as he says ‘I’m no expert’…. yes Pierce that’s correct, you aren’t’
There’s a very simple answer for Piers. If you don’t want to be hated, then stop behaving like a pillock. That should achieve it for you – but it’ll take a few years, which will allow you to develop another desirable quality – that of patience..
Sorry Freddie………..I suggest like many I turned this off after 13 minutes. He isn’t a covid expert by orders of magnitude. He’s unfortunately something much worse.
Can’t stand the fellow myself but…
you must understand that outside of UnHerd’s bubble of informed sophistication there is a vast audience who are very keen on opinionated bluster. They see Piers Morgan as forthright fellow not afraid to speak his mind. That has entertainment value. Contrast his performance with the licence payer funded dullness of BBC Breakfast TV. However, if in the vice-like grip of your informed sophistication you chucked out your Telly then you won’t be able to make this comparison.
Anyway, now that Morgan has decided to come out against “woke” it will be interesting to see what (if any) influence his views may have.
Here we go – case, tests, cases? Casedemic. 100 years? Try 2 years ago. Italian health service the best? – they have the highest in hospital infection rate in europe.
He got the bit about treatments. Not sure if Morgan really mens HQC and Vit C, vit D etc. Plus fresh air plus nutrition.
In March we also had months of data from the East.
Sweden. Sweden. Sweden. Take out care home cockups and now compare!
It’s autumn – of course death rates are going up. Look at hard data from past years.
Sixe of population? Hmmmm……. go back to the telly, Morgan.
Yes Italian hospitals are not good .They also have a massive vaccine regime everyone over 65 has to get vaccinated against flu etc even the health care workers, that contributed to their high death rate. In Bergamo 35000 people had been vaccinated against menningitis and as a result had a disasterous responce when the next infection arrived.
As for New Zealand they will have to lock down for ever. Sweden are the only ones that have managed this well.They have acknowldeged their mistakes with care homes and resolved it .Also Hydroxchloroquine is not good for people with high pigment or who would normaly have had to deal with maleria because they have an enzyme that would trigger a negative reaction when given the drug.
That the hospitals are busy it´s normal happens evey year.
A man with even less credibility than Tony Blair.
Ah, there is a book to be sold! Wondered why he is doing the mea culpa two step. Nope, not getting my money.
The news, Newsnight or CH4 and even shows like Morgan’s it’s clear that UK news outlets are increasingly becoming like their counterparts in the US, and partisan news shows are going to be the future, when they stand outside Downing street and shout ridiculous questions knowing full well they will not get an answer, a recent one was “are you going to apologise to the families of people who have died from covid” then it becomes clear that there is no rational discourse to be had with such so called Journalism, and Piers Morgan is a prime example of their ilk, I wouldn’t blame any minister for refusing to appear in front of such people when their intentions are not to hold government to account but rather to seek a gotcha moment to feed their partisan Twitter followers.
There is no evidence whatsoever that “responsible” mask-wearing people are less likely to get hospitalised or infected that the “irresponsible” ones. Even, if the “irresponsible” ones got more infected, they soon would become immune.
This idea of blaming “the irresponsible young” for second waves is completely digusting scapegoating.
If Piers Morgan hopes to reach a place where nobody hates him, either he is dreaming of Utopia, or he needs to stop being Piers Morgan. The man is hopelessly egotistical, a sophist and a fop. And, I can say that with a clear conscience, because I don’t hate him. That would require an expenditure of mental energy. Now, contempt on the other hand…
I would add narcissist and at times sycophant when it suits him as with Trump.
“Piers Morgan: I don’t want to be hated anymore”
Hair shirt, Piers, for the rest of your days. But we’re gonna need proof. Pictures here on Unherd will be fine. Alternatively, there’s a monestery in Tibet, waiting just for you, complete with orange garb and mysterious celestial penance-y music. Phoo, Whit, Bong, Tweet. On second thoughts, scratch the Tweet.
I can only think of one thing that the loud and obnoxious Morgan has ever been right about. Namely, that Wenger should have left Arsenal circa 2010.
The Swedish policy was not to wreck their economy to fight the pandemic. It can’t be evaluated just by looking at deaths per capita compared to other countries. The Denmark, Norway and the UK all have had two-quarter recessions. From the 2019Q4 peak to the 2020Q2 trough Danish output fell by 8.8%, Norwegian by 6.6% and British by 13.7%. By the two-quarter rule of thumb, Sweden never had a recession. Its economy was flat in 2020Q1 and there was an 8.4% decline in 2020Q2. Trump, whose handling of the pandemic, Pierce finds so disastrous, also has much better economic numbers than the UK, if not the Scandinavian countries. From 2019Q4 to 2020Q2 America suffered a 10.2% decline.
Freddie, who is half Swedish, might well have challenged Piers on his contrasting Sweden with the other Scandinavian countries, as if they had harsh lockdowns, when both Denmark and Norway have had mild lockdowns compared to a lot of other jurisdictions. We are going backwards in Canada now, with Ontario restaurants once again forbidden to serve meals except for takeaways or on patios, even as the weather makes patio dining unattractive. (I nursed my first ever Stray Dog Brewing Company spiced autumn ale on a patio in Orléans this afternoon, hoping the overcast skies wouldn’t open up. I was lucky the rain held off until I was done, but I would still rather have been sitting inside.) The restaurants are open for inside dining in all of these Scandinavian countries.
Great points, except Freddie did challenge him every time he misspoke which was about all the time! Pierce would have left the interview if he was challenged even more!
“I am not an expert” but then he goes about how we have to fight “the invisible enemy” exactly the way he says. Just pure irrational, fear mongering.
New Zealand, is naturally isolated, it closed its borders way before they had any significant infections, the UK never had that luxury.
But he’d vote for Starmer – Mr Lockdown himself?
He’s just become a softer knob then!
” Buy Piers’s latest book ‘Wake Up’ here.”
I think one could skim-read to the last line of this piece, without missing the main message.
Most people support further restrictions but 80 per cent don’t isolate when they have to. Weird.
Not really. Just every hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. It is integral to the human condition.
Not really. At least one of those statements will be a lie.
No, it’s like Fraser said, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. You see, a majority of the population wants everyone else to be more restricted in order to make themselves safer,
it’s just that a majority of people calling for lock downs and restrictions don’t feel as if they would apply to someone as sensible and intelligent as themselves.
A more restrained Piers Morgan is a welcome sight. Some credit must be given to Freddie Sayers who always manages to bring out the arguments without being argumentative.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the clown actually knew how medical science, and basic biology works. There has not been a single measure that this God awful government has put in place, which is actually based on “science”. Not one single thing, and yet this bombastic clot wants the whole nation to be incarcerated by a shady medical mafia, and the clueless politicians who bow to them. If I was you Piers, I’d take some time off to go and evolve.
If Morgan belonged to a genuine profession which valued any sort of professional integrity he’s have been kicked out years ago.
Thanks for enabling me to reconfirm why I hate him – it only took 10 seconds when he started talking for me to have had enough of a reminder.
The good news, I hope, is that Unherd TV must surely have reached its brief nadir with this Piers Morgan interview. It’s the only one that’s made me take a powder. A waste of a great interviewer.
Hmm Piers rightfully criticised those anti democrats who tried over turning the Brexit vote. Then says he will vote for Starmer. His lack of awareness to joining the dots is apparent all throughout this interview.
Also I don’t think the virus has been party politicised as Piers is saying. Remainers and pro lockdown fanatics are mostly technocrats and woke virtue signallers. Parties such as Labour have been reformed to match these exact woke point of view.
Then on the other side you have the Leavers/anti lockdown groups who are generally populists and classic liberals – many of which don’t sit snugly in any party and have no allegiance in these culture wars. Hence Boris turning to populism last year to borrow their votes which he is now losing by the droves.
What an idiot – New Zealand is surrounded by water and has decided to turn itself into a basket case trying to close off to stop any infection. Sweden has managed the control and mitigation in a humane way. Don’t use NZ as an example of how to do virus control unless you want to believe treating a whole population like children and spending a fortune on border control is a reasonable position instead of correct mitigation and management by Sweden and the people taking responsible action within its country. NZ has done the worst thing possible. Why not compare with North Korea or some other country lock down behind a border control wall governed by draconian police state. thats not a good thing
oh yeah – and Why did Jeremy Clarkson punch Piers Morgan?
Because this upperclass t**t keeps thinking he can tell others how to live – its hard to listen to this interview with such an entitled creep like Piers thanks Freddie for your restraint but next time pick someone else
Freddie, you should know better about “sending people back to care homes”. The majority wanted to go home, its their home, it’s where their belongings are, their furniture, their trinkets, their pillows, their beds. How many times have we been away and said nice to be back to our beds.
You phrase like they are being sent to prison and everyone had CV19, no they didn’t because they are not prisons and people come and go and mix with people.
Also hospital have no ventilation, no UV lighting, the viral load just got thicker and thicker, as hospitals do not have opening windows to stop patients from jumping
The care homes should’ve treated returning patients like Flu, keep people away from others, its common sense
OMG now New Zealand! We know that the virus doesn’t like UV light and fresh air, New Zealand are in their winter temperatures and are not much lower than Sweden in Summer, NZ has more UV light and more land mass.
Sweden isn’t the warmest country and has about the same UV light a New Zealand. You have to take air quality and UV light into consideration. So please factor in those conditions.
NZ has total shutdown, and still they have virus in the community
We are a fatter nation! That has shown to be a major factor so all these comparison are not factoring in all this science
https://www.theguardian.com…
Piers believes Black people are more at risk! T utter rubbish and stupidity coming from Piers Morgan’s mouth, again taking not knowing the true facts
that’s utter rubbish, science has shown if you have Neanderthal-genes you are at more risk. However, Black AFRICANS do not have Neanderthal-genes. He’s got that wrong, he’s got to stop
Its bad with Asians because they do have Neanderthal-Genes.
I do not want to listen to Piers being so aggressive, no stay away from GMB
He’s still here , yes he’s selling a book! And Freddie you are not as aggressive as Piers.
Piers, i loved your “democracy” rant, I believe in democracy, however you are not experienced for this pandemic, you are not a scientist , you are not trained healthcare so cannot use the science
Constructive debate, you blocked Denise Walsh WHO DOES believe in the virus, this is you not getting your facts right yet again. She wanted a BALANCED reporting not MSM doom and gloom like you. I want balanced honest reporting and I get that from Dr John Campbell and Sepsis expert Dr Ron Daniels, experts in their field.
No hes not hated by everyone! I met An Irishman who loves him. Hang on that was Eoin Morgan he loved! Sorry Piers -yes you are hated by everyone
Stop talking over people then.
When talking about the pros and cons of the current suppression policies versus e.g. the focused protection proposal of the GBD, people like Piers fail to think hard about the current situation of the most at risk people in the population, dominantly the elderly. My parents are in their 80’s and I haven’t met with them in person since March. They are isolated, having goods delivered to their home, or occasionally using the special early hours at the supermarket dedicated to shoppers like them. My sister has visited a few times, but has maintained conservative social distancing. So, under something like the focused protection strategy exactly HOW would their lives be any different? Piers makes it sound like suddenly they would see their risk of death by covid increase by orders of magnitude. Nonsense. Their risk would be about the same, initially. Eventually, I would probably get infected and recover, along with my children, at which point we could rather safely visit again. And the same goes for the larger population. My parents’ risk would gradually decline and they would be able to enjoy a less isolated life than they currently do.
He is not relevant enough to waste any hate on
His audience is thick people and who cares what they think