Provocateur Piers shouldn’t be shackled
PIERS Morgan is a provocateur par excellence. While skewering the great and good, the brash TV host treads the very fine line between strident opinion and offensiveness.
While polite society and the painfully ‘woke’ might splutter indignantly, what’s not in doubt is he’s broadcasting box office. Or was, until Tuesday, when he was effectively fired as a Good Morning Britain presenter. His crime? Denouncing the Duchess of Sussex on-air by saying he ‘didn’t believe a word’ of her self-pitying interview with Oprah Winfrey.
During this prime-time performance, the one-time actress accused the Royal Family of racism and making her life so miserable she contemplated suicide.
After Morgan’s acerbic remarks, Meghan – who purportedly ignores the media – personally complained to ITV. He then fell (or was pushed) onto his sword.
Let the Mail be crystal clear: racism is abhorrent. This paper has been saying so since launching a campaign to bring justice for Stephen Lawrence a quarter of a century ago – and indeed long before that.
Equally, mental health issues should be treated seriously and sympathetically. If Meghan, as the newest member of the monarchy, was deprived of help during psychological turmoil, that was profoundly wrong. But while she is entitled to tell her ‘truth’ (and a number of her bombshells to Oprah were simply not accurate), aren’t other people entitled to theirs? If she and Harry seek to burnish their reputations by hurling poisonous barbs at the monarchy before a global audience, shouldn’t they expect criticism and scrutiny?
No one has to agree with Morgan’s every utterance. But it is vital we defend free speech – the bedrock of civilised society.
People must be permitted to express opinions and challenge orthodoxies without fear of losing their livelihood.
Increasingly, though, legitimate debate is being shackled by an intolerant mob of neo-censorians. Such curbs on acceptable discourse are dangerous. If certain subjects and ideas are inviolable, society can’t progress and is weakened.
With deplorable opportunism, Labour is exploiting the Royals row by demanding tough regulation on the ‘racist’ media.
This not only highlights the hypocrisy of Sir Keir Starmer, who previously worked to put an anti-Semite in No10, it would give free licence to sleazy celebrities, corrupt politicians and dishonest businessmen, whose transgressions are reined in by the threat of exposure.
If free speech, encompassing the right to offend, isn’t defended fiercely, we risk an unwitting slide into tyranny. Following his dismissal, Morgan took to social media to quote Sir Winston Churchill: ‘Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.’
That statement rings as true today as it did when he made it nearly 80 years ago.