Andy Richardson: Piers Morgan has captured national mood better than anyone
He’s a hate figure among lefties and liberals.
Piers Morgan is the populist TV presenter whose most memorable tirades have been about Gregg’s Vegan Sausage Rolls, M&S Percy Pig sweets and his decision to identify as a non-binary, two-spirit penguin. The professional provocateur is never more than two metres from his next controversy.
But a strange thing has happened during Covid-19. Such liberals as Gary Lineker and lefties as Dianne Abbott have sided with the new voice of the nation. Morgan has captured the national mood better than anyone by holding the feet of Government ministers to the fire over sometimes-shambolic work.
While daily Downing Street press conferences are an exercise in dissembling – if ministers don’t like a question, they bluster then cut off the journalist – Morgan has gone on the attack. Like a sniffer dog hunting Class A drugs, he has unearthed the truth. Morgan even criticised his old pal Donald Trump, explaining that the leader of the Free World had the wrong skillset to handle Covid-19.
The notches on Morgan’s journalist desk include Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick, and Care Minister Helen Whateley - who is still lying down in a darkened room recovering.
With Parliament no longer holding the Government to account, Morgan has become the Official Opposition. It’s important that someone is. While the Cabinet is seemingly split over lifting lockdown there are others who have learned from history. Rocket scientist Rob Szczerba reminded his 150,000 Twitter followers that Philadelphia prematurely ended its quarantine from Spanish flu in 1918. Some 200,000 people lined the streets in celebration but within days 4,500 people were dead.
While Morgan has captured the public mood, Ben Fogle has done the opposite. After his unpopular call for the nation to sing Happy Birthday to the Queen failed, he transferred his attentions to a sing-a-long for Captain Tom Moore. Fogle is now an adjective. To ‘BenFogle’ defines where a person misjudges the public mood. So when Mesut Ozil declined a 12.5 per cent paycut, he ‘did a BenFogle’. The next update to the Oxford English Dictionary is due in June – BenFogle may well feature.
