Piers Morgan’s Real Time Burn

[Update at end of post]

Former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, now having some time off from co-presenting Good Morning Britain three days a week, took time out yesterday evening to guest on Real Time With Bill Maher. It is not an understatement to say that his campaign to claim that Combover Crybaby Donald Trump was not such a bad guy, honestly, and we should all take a chill pill, progressed not necessarily to his advantage.

Maher ended the show by asking if those who had claimed Hillary Clinton was merely the lesser of two evils would like to apologise. Morgan would have none of it. Maher was not inclined to agree with him. Hill would have a cabinet appointment like Betsy de Vos? She would have instigated a Muslim Ban? Morgan claimed there was no Muslim Ban. Fellow panellist Jim Jefferies told him where he could shove that claim.

And Jefferies, an Australian who believes in straight talking, put Morgan straight as to his true motivation: “You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate”. Also, Morgan’s entire shtick is the promotion of Himself Personally Now. The Daily Beast itemised the litany of seriously dodgy claims he made on the show while defending Trump. But the real fun came when he started picking Twitter fights afterwards.

Of all those who passed severely adverse comment on Morgan’s Real Time appearance, the one he could not resist going after was author and campaigner Jo Rowling. His own iron law of Twitter supremacy meant she had to be faced down; after all, she had four million more followers than he had. There could be none of his usual sneering dismissal of lesser challengers by waving his huge following at them.

So as Ms Rowling observed “Yes, watching Piers Morgan being told to fuck off on live TV is *exactly* as satisfying as I'd always imagined”, battle was joined. “This is why I've never read a single word of Harry Potter” sneered The Great Man. But this was, like his claim Trump hadn’t instigated a Muslim Ban, not borne out by the facts.

One, Morgan had called Trump’s actions a “Muslim Ban” when Tweeting out his Mail Online column on the controversy. And two, he had quoted the whole lexicon of Harry Potter terminology in a Mail Online column on disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Still Morgan came back: “Would you like me to explain why all your political views keep being defeated at the ballot box?” Ms Rowling pointed out that the sixth Harry Potter book had won the British Book of the Year Awards, ahead of a nominee called, er, Piers Morgan. She appended the hashtag #stillhurts to her Tweet.

By now, Morgan was getting a teensy bit flaky, whining “'I write about Hogwarts, Squibs and Muggles, so anyone who doesn't agree with my politics can F**K OFF!' - @jk_rowling”, which she was not saying, but minor point, eh? Ms Rowling left him trailing in her wake with the expert parting shot “If only you'd read Harry Potter, you'd know the downside of sucking up to the biggest bully in school is getting burned alive”.

Once again, Piers Morgan doth protest too much. He got well and truly burned twice - once by Bill Maher and Jim Jefferies, and then by Jo Rowling. End of story.

[UPDATE 1905 hours: for those not familiar with Piers Morgan's "my Twitter following is bigger than yours" behaviour, he pulled that very stunt with Jim Jefferies.

"Mate, I have over 5 million more followers than you. You're just a small time comic who screams 'F**K OFF' when he's losing arguments" he sneered. Yes, he really does wave his Twitter following like a substitute phallus.

As his pal Trump would say - SAD!]