Piers Morgan Admonishes Himself

The current health emergency has produced a breeding ground not just for the Covid-19 virus, but an equally virulent plague: the armchair pundit. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of these are relatively harmless, as they bore the crap out of no-one more important than the poor souls within earshot. But some have access to the broadcast megaphone and much larger social media followings. And that makes it much worse.

Because media pundits know all about everything, even when they don’t. Which is why so many of them have popped up on the airwaves of late, letting the world know just what they think of the Coronavirus pandemic. Which is not unadjacent to Sweet Jack.

That brings us to former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, who also knows all about everything, which means he does not need to let any of the unfortunate souls invited on to ITV Good Morning Britain get a word in edgeways. On Friday he sneered “Yesterday: Lord Sugar: ‘Stop scaremongering you tosser & listen to UK government experts about large gatherings!’ Govt experts: ‘No need to stop large gatherings.’ Today: Lord Sugar cancels his 3000-strong conference on ‘health and safety’ grounds. Who’s the tosser now, M’Lord?” Five and a half hours later and he had expertly U-Turned.

“Do you think the ‘science’ changed overnight? Or do you think public opinion has changed the government’s decision-making? We’re the only country with significant Coronavirus exposure not undergoing social distancing”. Hello Piers! That means banning large gatherings. But he did know that, U-Turn or not, it was serious.

“Many people on here still seem to have no grasp of how serious this is & how bad it is going to get, very soon. Mock, abuse, sneer all you like - but you won’t be in 2-3 weeks when all hell breaks loose. This is not ‘scare-mongering’, it’s a fact. Britain needs to wake up. Fast”. We’re all going to die! How will his ratings recover?

“Apple closing ALL stores outside China, incl Britain, for 2 weeks. CEO Tim Cook says: 'The most effective way to minimize risk of the virus’s transmission is to reduce density and maximize social distance.’ So, again, why is British govt policy the complete opposite?” And the editor of the Lancet agreed with him. “'A grave error’. Damning verdict on UK Govt's [Coronavirus] strategy by Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, the world's most prestigious medical science journal. Is he 'scare-mongering' too?”

He also knew all about stockpiling. “The British government is privately briefing to select journalists - an outage in itself during a time of national crisis - that elderly people may need to be quarantined at home for 4 months, but also publicly lambasting people for stock-piling provisions. Why wouldn’t they?” Which means they didn’t brief Himself.

And it’s in the realm of the bleeding obvious that a lot of the stockpiling has been OTT. But at least he had an admission to make: “unfortunately social media is so tribal now that people have an implacable black/white approach to everything & refuse to allow their own (often ill-informed & lemming-like) opinion to then be challenged & tested. Seen it over Trump & Brexit, now COVID-19”. We have indeed seen it. From him.

Which also means Piers Morgan has no self-awareness. But you knew that already.

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