IMAGE: Piers Morgan | Author & Source: Dominick D | CC BY-SA 2.0
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A few months ago, I would have never even thought of writing an article in defence of Piers Morgan, a host on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. His brotherly admiration of Donald Trump, the U.S. President, his defence of the Brexit referendum result and his association with Rupert Murdock kept me miles away from his Twitter account. Ugh.
Hearing his name uttered in my presence would cause an allergic reaction within me. I would be sick and would feel like throwing up. I would always refrain from watching Good Morning Britain on the days Piers Morgan was hosting it. Not kidding, at all.
However, times have changed. Now, I pray that he hosts ITV’s morning show every day of the week from Monday to Sunday. Just as Brexit shifted the tectonic plates of British politics and shattered old party politics, the coronavirus pandemic means that people who previously used to disgust me are now something of a hero to me. Even journalists for The Guardian newspaper have been praising Piers Morgan, which means that he may finally come off Santa’s naughty list.
Piers Morgan has now become the sort of hero, at least to me, who stands up to powerful people like Lord Sugar, the whole of the Conservative Party and even to his old friend Donald Trump for his colossal mismanagement of the American response to this grave pandemic.
These are unprecedented times which require unprecedented responses and one them should be to bring him on TV seven days a week so he can kick the backside of the government to make them do important stuff like arrange adequate levels of ‘PPE’, make sure that the government meets its target of ‘100,000 tests a day’ and restricts overseas travel from coming into the country (as most other countries are already doing).
Of course, there are many other journalists who are also doing an astronomical amount of hard work to hold the government accountable but their reach is not match-able to that of Piers Morgan – the impact of other journalists is nowhere near enough. One measurement of Piers Morgan’s huge impact is that ‘nearly 2000 people have now complained to’ Ofcom for his way of ‘grilling ministers’.
These complainers and whiners are completely off target. They do not understand the basic principles of journalism. Journalists with gigantic platforms, with millions of followers on social media and a celebrity vibe associated with them should always be a voice for the voiceless, a representative of the most vulnerable in society and should always remain critical of the government. Journalists should be the modern day Robin Hoods of our society, but within legal bounds of course.
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That’s exactly what Piers Morgan has been doing all along: standing up for the weak and the vulnerable; speaking up on behalf of thousands of coronavirus patients who are at home self-isolating and those who are unfortunately in critical conditions in hospital; and, he has also been speaking up for people who have lost loved ones and recognising the valuable contribution immigrants are making by working in essential sectors such as the NHS. All of this is entirely justified and his criticism is evidence based.
Piers Morgan wouldn’t have to take this tough approach, but he must to do so because these are tough times coupled with gross government incompetence. Imagine if the UK was testing as many people per day as Germany and South Korea are testing, imagine if our government had imposed lockdowns much earlier like New Zealand did, image if the Department of Health and Social Care was publishing the figures of deaths occurring outside of hospitals as well, imagine if we had started preparing much earlier because of the multiple warnings from Italy – then there would have been absolutely no need for Piers Morgan to engage in the sort of grilling of government minister that some vocal people seem to have a problem with.
In other words, the present situation and the inadequate government response means that he has to hold the government to account the way he does – whether the Conservative party and their ardent supporters like it or not.
What really matters is what the public thinks – and, the public and Piers Morgan are very much on the same page, especially when questioning government ministers on PPE. According to YouGov’s latest polling published yesterday, “65% of Britons say the Government have done a bad job supplying personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS”. This statistic suggests that Piers Morgan is acting as a representative and a standard bearer of public opinion on an issue that’s a matter of life and death.
If government ministers can’t answer simply questions regarding PPE and other important matters then he – and other journalists and presenters – should be allowed to interrupt them. This is a global crisis which requires clear-cut, unambiguous and crystal clear answers. Politicians should confine their PR campaigns, their mastery of public speaking and their annoying ability of not answering simple questions to a time when thousands of people are not dying every week.
Instead of bashing Piers Morgan for asking vital and much needed question, all efforts should be directed to extracting real, meaning and informative answers from government ministers. The 2,000 people or so who spent their time complaining to Ofcom should have instead used their time to write to their local Member of Parliaments to ask some serious questions like what’s the exact figure of Covid-19 fatalities, when will the NHS have enough PPE equipment or will the government actually reach their promise to test 100,000 people every day by the end of this month. That would be a much better use of their time, something that the whole nation would be grateful for.
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Muhammed Raza Hussain is an award-winning writer: the Extra-Mile winner of the News Quest Young Reporter Scheme 2014 and the recipient of the ‘Talent for Writing’ certificate by Young Writers. He was also awarded the ‘Prize for Outstanding achievement is Sociology‘. Twitter: @M_RAZA5 | Instagram: @M.Raza.H_
