Piers Morgan’s willingness to play the court jester this week provided a distraction for the House of Windsor.
Until then, Buckingham Palace faced serious allegations of racism, coercion and emotional abuse.
As much as I would like to see the monarchy phased out, I feel the royals are also victims here. They were born into an institution which has controlled them all their lives.
This speaks to a wider problem. British institutions are outdated. Without reform, they will keep producing what they were designed to produce – inequality.
If you want to know whose interests are protected by an institution, threaten to reform it and observe who lines up to defend it.
Only then does it become clear most UK institutions exist to preserve the interests of a privileged minority.
Piers Morgan is just the latest useful idiot who helps divert our attentions from that.
This is the real issue
The silent majority are making a racket again. Two minutes after rubbishing a woman’s experience of suicidal thoughts on national television, Piers Morgan was plunged into his own mental health crisis.
Rightly chastised by a co-worker for his ignorant comments, Morgan did what all bullies do when someone stands up to them – he played the victim.
In Morgan’s estimation, Meghan Markle is a liar, a manipulator and a covert narcissist – defects which would make the top line of any psychological evaluation of Piers.
Famed for his skills of discernment, Morgan has been photographed with upstanding figures like Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew. Evidently, his judge of character is beyond question, and his claim the Duchess of Sussex was lying must be taken seriously.
After resigning following 40,000 complaints to Ofcom, Morgan attempted to deflect from his chauvinism by making it an issue about free-speech – debasing a serious debate in the process.
But if you examine his body language as he is taken to task, his demeanour is not consistent with righteous fury, but that of a vulnerable, hypersensitive man, deeply wounded.
The defeated posture. The misty-eyed glare. The visible excruciation at bearing witness to an uncomfortable truth about himself.
Morgan did not walk out in some high-minded protest – he fled the GMB studio in a desperate bid for emotional refuge. It had nothing to do with his “principles”. It wasn’t about “free speech”.
I can think of no man on this mean-spirited island who feels more empowered to speak as freely as Morgan does.
His problem is he can only bear the sound of his own voice. He doesn’t take incoming calls. He has reduced female co-hosts to televisual window dressing, and female viewers to tears, with his beta-male mantrums, hot-takes and nursery-level debating skills.
Morgan mistakes his emotional immaturity for the issue of censorship. He believes the discomfort he experiences when challenged is proof of a nefarious plot to destroy liberal democracy.
He mirrors the snowflakes he derides, but unlike the idealistic, predominantly young people he sees fit to troll, Morgan is a 55-year-old man.
This melodramatic descent into self-delusion is, of course, a licence to print money for thin-skinned media pundits like him, who cut their professional teeth when public figures didn’t have to pass the conch.
It’s the juvenile emotional attitudes these men have acquired in response to being contradicted by those they regard as inferior which lies at the root of their wobblies – their refusal to consider the possibility they may occasionally be wrong, that there may be more socially responsible and charitable ways of expressing provocative viewpoints.
Rather than confront the truth about their emotional natures, they remain in their trenches, issuing toxic rallying cries, with one eye on engagement metrics, before falling upward to the next lucrative, high-profile opportunity.
Piers Morgan is Britain’s mankiest reflective surface. A smoking mirror in which a fearful and insecure nation vainly admires its decomposition.
Where a demented collective can experience the narcissistic lust of being present at its own funeral.
The agonal gasp of a poisoned, radioactive culture where humility is weakness, kindness is punishable and knowing what you are talking about bores people to tears.
Morgan’s routine requires no great skill and even less intellect. Void of integrity, he simply mutates witlessly, supplying a market’s vindictive demand.
He possesses no craft and is aligned with no cause. He has a politician’s nose for public opinion, an Instagram influencer’s yearning for validation and the emotional sophistication of an unnurtured school child.
Only in Britain could these qualities earn you £1500 an hour.
Men: Look at yourselves first
For men who feel they should say or do something in response to the murder of Sarah Everard, I have some suggestions.
Speak to women in your life. Listen. Read female writers. Donate to charities that advocate for women. Teach your sons what you weren’t taught. Look yourself in the mirror. Recall the entitlement. The objectification. The “banter”.
Consider pornography you stumbled on but now actively seek out. Re-examine your sex conduct. Create new ideals for intimacy to which you can aspire. Resist the notion this doesn’t apply to us and the impulse to become defensive.
Instead of saying #notallmen, say nothing and sleep on it. Challenging male violence involves challenging ourselves as men – not just other men. It involves listening to women.
Taking instruction from better men than us. It may involve difficult conversations with current or former partners. A leap of faith that confronting who we are or were, may result in more than shame or condemnation.
We may #notall be “monsters”, but all “monsters” were once guys just like us.
How can women tell the difference? Honest men know they aren’t perfect. Women don’t want perfect men – they just want to feel safe.
Paying attention to women’s perspectives doesn’t have to be super serious. In Scotland, we have wonderful female comedians.
While we shouldn’t expect them to riff exclusively on female experiences, you’ll learn a lot from comics like Fern Brady, Ashley Storrie and Karen Dunbar.
