Stirring the pot Morgan-style

For good or ill, the rather irritating former editor of the Daily Mirror and now all-round ‘shock jock’ celebrity/personality Piers Morgan is currently providing some of the best current affairs entertainment on his several times a week gig – usually partnering former BBC presenter Susannah Reid – on the ITV early morning (0600-0830 hours) show Good Morning Britain.

Being the kind that could start a fight with himself inside a telephone booth – and at whom most of us would like to throw the nearest sofa cushion (if something heavier and metallic was not to hand), Morgan at least has the knack of generating excruciating ‘putting ‘em on the spot’ moments in his interviews with studio and other guests on his programme.

In the past week I have seen him rant on about the department store John Lewis’s decision to remove ‘gender specific’ clothes racks for kids.

He then went head to head with transgender model Munroe Bergdorf, formerly L’Oreal’s ‘face of modern diversity’, who got sacked by L’Oreal for posting on Facebook that she didn’t “have the energy to talk about the racial violence of white people any more … Yes – all white people. Because most of you don’t even realise or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built upon the backs, blood and death of people of colour.”

Morgan told her “You’re playing the old trick of being the victim. Which is what you did when you were fired. Of course, you are going to get insulted; I don’t agree with the way they insulted you, but when you call every white person racist … when you call us a bunch of violence racists, of course we’re going to get annoyed.”

Bergdorf responded: “I feel like I’m up against a wall with you Piers.”

“No, you’re not,” Morgan continued: “What you’re up against is someone challenging you on your public statements which you’ve managed to turn into a massive great story of your poor victimhood. I’m telling you, while you’re sitting here, that I think you saying white people are all racially violent is deeply offensive, and then when you clarify that straight white guys are all racist, sexist and homophobes and racially violent – I, as a straight white guy, who is not remotely racist, get very offended by that.”

Two days ago Tory backbench MP – and now cult hero potential future Tory leader, according to some wise guys and mischief-makers – Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared on Good Morning Britain and, prompted by Morgan, admitted that, as a Roman Catholic, he personally was against same-sex marriage and against abortion in any form or circumstances.

Some might think that this was quite brave of him given the experience of former Lib-Dem leader Tim Farron who was put under pressure during this summer’s General Election campaign for his Christian views which were a tad out of step with the ‘right on’ PC-correct stance of his own party – to the point where after the Election he resigned, bemoaning the fact that being leader of his Party was incompatible in some people’s eyes with his religious beliefs.

One might call that somewhat ironic, considering that the Lib-Dems like to regard themselves as the most tolerant and ‘liberal’ (with a small ‘L’) of all the supposedly major parties.

Jacob Rees-Mogg also copped plenty of flak after his Good Morning Britain interview from the PC-brigade for his ‘abhorrent’ views.

See here for Holly Baxter’s article on the subject as spotted on the website of – THE INDEPENDENT

Or here, for Suzanne Moore’s piece on the website of – THE GUARDIAN

In actual fact – and I’m no Rees-Mogg fan … well save as a rather fun eccentric guest panellist, in the style of Boris Johnson, on Have I Got News For You – I though Moggy gave a pretty good account of himself.

In the first place, he did not make any attempt to deny that he held such reactionary views. When pressed by Morgan on the implications of what he was saying (e.g. “So you’d be against abortion even if you had a daughter who had been raped?”), he simply kept repeating that he believed the reaching of the Roman Catholic Church on such issues: “Life begins at the point of conception”.

As regards same-sex marriage, again, he repeated that marriage was a sacrament and that he followed the teaching of his Roman Catholic faith.

But he also said, firstly, that he accepted many people did not agree with his views on these issues; and, secondly, that he accepted that Parliament had the sole right to make the laws of England and Wales. As far as he was concerned, if Parliament was (or had) made laws that were contrary to his beliefs, he had no difficulty in accepting those as being the laws of the land, even if he did not agree with them.

That seemed a more palatable stance that that taken by Tim Farron when confronted on the campaign trail about his Christian views.

He kept trying to dodge the question, saying it was not relevant … when, of course, the hounds of Fleet Street knew all along that he did not agree in principle with, for example, same-sex marriage (because of his religious beliefs) … and therefore, if supporting gay marriage was Lib-Dem policy, it bloody well was relevant.

Which its why they kept raising it every time they saw him on the stump.

At least Mr Rees-Mogg didn’t duck the issue and met it head-on.

The fact that the ‘right’ PC-brigade don’t like his views is neither here nor there. Then there’s the near-fascist approach of some of them – if your views are totally opposed to theirs, by definition you should be kept off the airwaves and denied the opportunity to spout them in public … presumably just in case anyone listening to them might agree with you.