It was the interview Piers Morgan insisted they all wanted – a chance for one lucky person to sit down with him for a whole hour. Piers is the most important person in any room he enters; if you understand that you will get along with him just fine. His ego is in inverse proportion to his self worth. There is Piers World or there is nothing. That level of narcissism must get tiring after a while – the constant struggle to reconfigure reality, the terror of it all falling apart.
Not that Rishi Sunak looked particularly grateful to be granted an audience on TalkTV. Rather he seemed edgy and on guard. As if he would rather have been anywhere else but had been nudged into a game of high stakes macho bullshit politics. He had to prove he was man enough to last an hour with the UK Sun God. He said he would do it a year ago and he’s a man who does what he says. Except when he doesn’t, of course.
“How are you?” asked Morgan, welcoming Sunak into an ante-room in No 10. Piers looked fine. He always does. A mixture of too much Botox, perhaps, and a conscience that doesn’t trouble him nearly as much as it ought to. Rishi, put it mildly, looked shit. The last year has not been kind to him. He’s aged a lot and appears far older than his early 40s. If ever a man could do with a prolonged California detox, it’s Sunak.
Piers quickly reminded Rishi who was boss. They had last met on a flight to LA at Christmas. In first class, natch. But Piers had taken the front row seats. Again, natch. No one can out-Piers Piers. Not that he would like everyone to know that. But sometimes he just can’t help himself.
Anyway, time to try to put the interviewee at ease. By telling Sunak that he understands how difficult it can be to be prime minister. Hell, he, Piers, has basically been prime minister for the last 25 years. He knows Downing Street far better than Rishi. But not to worry. He’s one of the good guys. So he’ll make allowances for him. Maybe they could just do a bit of mutual arse-kissing? Piers quite likes that. He knows it’s wrong but deep down he needs to be loved.
On to some awkward blokey bants that made Sunak look more and more uncomfortable, out of his depth. Which, to be fair, was to his credit. You wouldn’t necessarily want to be at home on Planet Morgan. Who knew Gareth Southgate the best? Who knew Tony Blair the best? Who had watched more England cricket? No contest. But thanks for taking part.
Who had more charisma? Rishi or Keir Starmer? Sunak tried to change the subject. “Starmer doesn’t have a plan,” he said. Piers didn’t pick him up on this. Didn’t say that the Labour leader has been going on and on about his plan for the last year. Because deep down the interview was all about Piers. This was his show, his ratings. His questions were always going to be much more interesting than Rishi’s answers. They were just linking segments.
Talking of which: according to the YouTube statistics, there were about 5,000 people watching the early showing of the real prime minister interviewing the prime minister. Who was to know which was which? Neither had been elected. And of those who had tuned in, not everyone seemed to be following the conversation. Someone called Aaa typed: “Rishi is good looking enough to have secret affairs with British wives.” Thanks for that insight, Aaa.
Then on to the safety of people in the public eye. Another subject close to Morgan’s heart. “Keir Starmer is a terrorist sympathiser,” said Sunak during a segment on Israel and Gaza. Really? Piers just nodded that through. Didn’t make any attempt to challenge it.Then again, he also didn’t make much of the US losing interest in Ukraine. Probably best not to remind people no one had fawned over Donald Trump more than him in the early years of his presidency. That reality had been rewritten. We were in an alternative Piersphere.
For the last half hour, Rishi moved on to his five pledges, and Morgan was there to mark the homework. A grateful nation awaited. Inflation, that was a pass. Though Sunak had done nothing to make it happen. Debt, that was a half mark. Er … it’s actually gone up. But apparently it’s in Piers’s gift to award marks for bullshit. He’s an expert in that.
Morgan was equally indulgent about growth. Another half mark for the possibility we may be out of recession by 0.1% by next month. Apparently that’s what Sunak had always meant. That and hopefully growing the economy some time in the next year, though not so much that anyone would notice. This wasn’t turning into the most rigorous or demanding interview. All that mattered was that it was longer than anyone else’s.
Sunak had to concede that the health service was a big fail. His team may not thank him for that, though it’s hard to argue otherwise. Piers also knew it was a fail because his mother had to wait on a trolley after having a heart attack. Only things of which Morgan has had direct experience can actually be said to have happened. Everything else is just a fantasy.
Finally to the small boats. Morgan was inclined to give Rishi a tick. Even though he had said he would stop the boats, not stop a few of them. Language can mean whatever you want. But Piers did have a big problem, he said. He thought the Rwanda plan was rubbish. And when Piers has a problem, he offers a bet.
This could have been Morgan getting all Billy Big Bollocks about football with Gary Lineker on X after a couple of bottles of Château Margaux. Only it was with the prime minister over the lives of refugees. And Sunak was mad enough to accept. Because to both of them, £1,000 means nothing. Just loose change. And Rishi wanted to look tough with Piers. It was a low moment in TV interviewing. It was an even lower moment for British politics. Two men who literally gave a toss about nothing except their egos. A bonfire of the vanities.
Luckily, that was it. Sunak looked relieved when Morgan let him go. It had been a long hour. Then any hour with Piers invariably is. Someone called Julian wrote on the YouTube chat board: “Free Drugs.” I knew how he felt.
