 I don't know about you but I am so so excited about tonight's show and that's because last night I stayed up to watch Oprah's interview with Meghan and Harry and I watched probably the most damaging hour of royal history since the trial of King Charles or more recently the moment Prince Andrew told Emily Make this he can't have been grinding on a minor because he's physically incapable of breaking a sweat. This interview was so so damning the claims were huge and they were of a gravity that the royal family and Britain's establishment are not just going to be able to brush off. The other reason I'm incredibly excited is because I could not have prayed for a more insightful guest on this particular topic than Ash Sarkar, Navarra's nearly crowned royal correspondent. How are you doing? Your past 24 hours has been very exciting as well. Well, I mean, I was so hyped for this interview that I didn't sleep beforehand. I watched it live, wrote an article and haven't slept since so I'm absolutely fucking delirious. Let's go, libel, bingo, who wants to play? It's not us, it's Meghan Markle we've made the claims, we're not going to be making claims on this on this show. We're going to be relaying the claims because there are enough of them for us not to have to add any ourselves. So our lawyers can take a break this evening. We will also be talking towards the end of the show about International Women's Day, what it means, where it came from and what we can say about it today will be referring to another article by Ash Sarkar who has been incredibly busy today. So respect for joining us on tonight's show as well. Of course, if you are watching this show for the first time, do make sure you hit the subscribe button. We go live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7pm. Now we're going to start the show by talking you through the key parts of the interview. It was two hours long, although about an hour of it was adverts. It's going to be shown again on ITV at 9pm tonight. Obviously it hasn't been officially aired in Britain yet but I think enough people probably illegally streamed it last night or found out about it one way or the other. Unfortunately, we're not going to show you the clips. That's because we're pretty sure that if we put them up before ITV put out the stream, our own stream could get taken down. But don't worry, we do have the quotes for you. So you are going to be taken on a ride through all the most important moments of this headline interview. So let's go straight into those key claims. Now a lot of the interview revolved around the Royals not offering the couples. Harry and Meghan or their children, or their one child at the moment, enough protection, so enough security and not treating them as other Royals had been treated. Let's go to a quote. This is from Meghan Markle. She said, this is of Archie. They didn't want him to be a prince or princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol and said that he wasn't going to receive security. So much in this interview about this, they basically felt like we haven't been offered the protection we need as a couple who are under enormous scrutiny and get all sorts of threats and lots of suspicion that this was because of an issue of race. And this takes us into probably the most explosive claim that was made in the interview and the one that is going to do most to damage the legitimacy of the Royal family, not least in the United States where this interview was filmed. And that's the claim made by Meghan and Harry that the association or the reason he didn't get a title was potentially because of his skin color. Meghan told Oprah, in those months when I was pregnant, we have in tandem the conversation of you won't be given security, not going to be given a title, and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born. Harry backed up that claim unsurprisingly, I'm sure they told each other what they were going to say in their respective interviews, but Harry said, that conversation I'm never going to share, but at the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked. That was right at the beginning when she wasn't going to get security. When members of my family were suggesting that she carries on acting because there's not enough money to pay for her and all this sort of stuff. So he's confirming that account that the how dark was I think the phrase they used how dark their child would be was a discussion had by people in the Royal family. Oprah has since spoken to CBS this morning and she's confirmed that she was told it was neither the Queen nor Prince Philip, which I mean, I think as most people wondering, well, it has to be Charles or William that obviously we don't know complete speculation, but I suppose you can make your own inferences. Let's go on to this as well, because Harry also does speak very explicitly about racism and why the reason they left the household, the Royal household to stand back from being full time Royals or working Royals was because of racism. Let's go to this quote from Prince Harry, he says, for the family, they very much have this mentality of this is just how it is. This is how it's meant to be. You can't change it. We've all been through it. What was different for me was the race element because now it wasn't just about her. It was about what she represented. Ash, there's so much more to talk about in this interview. We'll move on to the sort of issues about mental health in a moment. First of all, I want your your take on this. I mean, what can the Royals say in their defense when these are the allegations being made other than you're a liar? Well, here's the thing is that all of us, I think, were surprised by Megan and Harry's level of candor is very rare for Royals to give interviews, which are that candid and open and revealing. The last one you had of this kind was 1995. The Princess Diana Martin Bashir interview. And similarly, that was a kind of exit interview. So when she knew that a divorce from Charles was on the cards, she was worried about that being some kind of gagging order. And so she smuggled in the panorama team in order to to get everything off her chest and to seize control of the narrative. Similar thing going on here. So Harry and Megan, I think, made quite a smart choice. They did the tell all interview with Oprah Winfrey, who really is the queen of American broadcast media. And it's a way of signaling to not just the royal family, but the British establishment and the establishment media that we are out of your orbits. We are no longer in your jurisdiction. And of course, because of who Oprah is and what she represents in terms of, you know, the African American elite, those who have been able to get to the very top of their fields, despite having been held back and inhibited by the forces of racism, it means that you're going to have a discerning and a sensitive ear when it comes to talking about the issues of racism. Now, unfortunately for the royal family, they're not going to be able to rebut this because they've got two things which aren't in their favour. One is they've got a hella racist media here in the UK. So if what you want to do is some kind of sophisticated unpicking of these claims to do with racism and to kind of very sensitively neuter their impact, well, you've got this pack of attack dogs at your beck and call, who are absolutely just going to reinforce Megan's point that throughout her time, having married into the royal family, she was being treated differently on the basis of her race. And the other problem is, of course, royals never really rebut anything putting their name to it. They've got a very, very sophisticated briefing operation that comes out of the palace, which is very rare to get a point by point. So you're not necessarily going to have the kind of boss fight where the queen comes out and sort of says like, and as for item tool, this was a lie. So in terms of the economy of images, Buckingham Palace can only really rely on what people already think and feel about senior royals. They're not going to be able to have a really good rebuttal operation. In fact, their best hope was what they've done already, which is support and bolster quite tarnishing and smearing claims about Megan in particular, about her being aggressive, her being a bully, her being unreasonable and hope that what that does is play into racist perceptions about how in particular, women who are black are, you know, they're seen to be bullies. They're held to these really horrible stereotypes and hoping that those narratives chime with something in the public and close off whatever kind of sympathetic reception she might have had. Nick Hook in the comments is saying what we're all thinking of a five pound super chat. I come for the politics and to support independent media. I stay for the Ash Sarkar royal analysis. I have to say I've learned my understanding of the political implications of the royal families and the beef within the characters has just expanded exponentially since listening to you and your analysis on this last Monday. It was a real revelation. You're talking about how Harry and Megan had left one ruling class for another because one ruling class was racist and one was more multiracial. I'm sure the American ruling class is also racist, but it's also much less racist than our one. So all of this one, when people are saying, oh, they've just gone there because they can live a rich and privileged life. Yes, they could also live that here. They've chosen one less racist, rich and privileged life. Instead of a more racist, rich and privileged life. It doesn't mean that we can relate to them as the working class, but that's where we're at. I want to go through the mental health issues or, I suppose, more accurately, the abdication of responsibility by the royal family when it came to Megan Markle's mental health issues. So I think this was the other key damaging claim that just makes them look incredibly heartless, unprofessional, uncaring is that Megan explained that she was suffering from suicidal thoughts when she was part of the royal household. They were provoked by the stresses and strains and loneliness of becoming a royal. She said basically, you know, she was she was cut out of her her existing life and not offered any support in, you know, in that new location, in that new context. So let's go to her quote. She says, I just didn't want to be alive anymore. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. And I remember how he, how he, which is Harry, just cradled me. She then describes what happened when she went for help. She says, I went to the institution and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. And I was told that I couldn't, that it wouldn't be good for the institution. I remember this conversation like it was yesterday, because they said, my heart goes out to you because I see how bad it is. But there's nothing we can do to protect you because you're not a paid employee of the institution. She goes on to say, this wasn't a choice. This was emails and begging for help, saying very specifically, I am concerned for my mental health. And it's, you know, it's important to say here, this wasn't just Meghan Markle saying I offered them for help. And they said, I'll get it, go get it elsewhere, you know, because you're not employed by us, you're wealthy. You can go get your own private mental health support. This was basically them saying, no, do not get support. That will look bad for the institution. So deal with this yourself, essentially. Which given she's claiming, you know, she's explaining to them, she was feeling suicidal, that is, you know, the height of callous irresponsibility. She hasn't got quite as much attention as the racism, because, you know, obviously it's not quite as politically explosive. But in terms of the character of the people we're talking about, this is, no, this it was quite shocking to listen to, wasn't it? Well, again, this is something that the Royal Family have form on. There were, of course, the, you know, distant cousins of the Queen who were born with developmental disabilities, who were literally struck from the record. The Royal Family pretended that these two women were dead. I think one of them only died, you know, either 10 years ago or 20 years ago, but fairly recently, when it comes to Diana, who we are going to keep referencing again and again, because it's the last time he had somebody make a break from the Royal Family in this way, her own struggles with mental health, in particular depression, self-harm and bulimia were not only sort of unsupported by the firm, as, you know, they refer to the institution around the senior Royals, but were actively weaponized against her when her and Charles were separating. It was said of her that she was unstable, that perhaps she needed to go into a home. And as they were divorcing, she would find that being used as an excuse to stop her from doing the things that she wanted to do, in particular things like travel and go on official visits. So it became a pretext to really inhibit and clip her autonomy. Now, it doesn't seem that with Meghan Markle was being weaponized in that kind of way. One of the really interesting details that I picked up from this interview was when she said, look, you've got to understand that I couldn't just go walk out and check myself in somewhere and get the kind of care that I needed. You know, when I joined the Royal Household, I had my passport taken from me, my driver's license taken from me and even my keys. So I think that obviously these are intensely privileged people, but there are also some specifics about the kind of circumstances that they were that they were living in, which were really fucked up. I mean, can you imagine when you want to enter into a committed relationship with somebody to start a life with them and maybe a family that your new in-laws are like, OK, passport, driver's license, you physically aren't going to leave this house unless you get our express permission and say so, you know, that you're going, why haven't I left the house more than twice in four months? And they're going, well, you know, I think the public scene quite enough of you. I think that would drive most people towards some kind of mental breaking point that's really not good for you. And you add to that the high pressure of media scrutiny, the negative briefings that were coming out against her, this really cold and loveless environment and then being completely isolated from your support network. It's not surprising to me that she's talking about this time as being really, really difficult, but it was made more difficult by the institution of the monarchy and how they treat people who are part of and I don't use this word correctly. It's not a family like you have a family or I have a family. It's a cartel. It's brutal and it works only to sustain itself through the most inhumane ways. And I mean, there was in the interview sort of like Megan sometimes made and how he did as well, make this distinction between the institution and the actual family. So there have been some sort of royal outriders who are trying to say, look, this is maybe just about the staff. You know, if they don't want to outright go and say Meghan Markle is just a bully and an attention seeker, they'll say, look, this is a this is a problem within the staff that needs to be reformed. But obviously they have to protect the Queen, Charles and William because you can't just say, oh, well, if William is not good to be the next king, we'll get someone else. Because that's that's not how it works. You know, they have to protect those guys at all costs, which means that the way Charles was talked about in this interview was also very problematic for the royal family, because Harry spoke about him as if he was, I mean, basically a bad father, not the kind of guy you really want to have as a symbol of your nation. So what Prince Harry said about Charles, he said, I feel really let down because he's been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like and Archie's his grandson. But at the same time, I will always love him, but there's a lot of hurt that's happened and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship. But they only know what they know or what they're told. So at the same time, it's making him seem, you know, very cold. He's saying he's been through something like this. This is what happened to Diana. He should have the emotional intelligence to work out what's going on and offer the support which she didn't have, you know, so it's making him seem very heartless. And then he's almost making it seem as if, but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume he's an idiot. Essentially, they only know what they know or what they're told, right? You wouldn't have to be a particularly curious person to work out what was going on there. I mean, he also said, you know, at some point, Prince Charles stopped picking up the phone to him, which again doesn't cast him in an amazing light. I want to go to one comment and I'm sorry to disappoint you because Joseph Ferrari says with a fiver again, I was hoping that if you can't show the clips that you and Ash would act them out, we maybe should have got some of the dialogue. We would have needed a third person, though we wouldn't need an Oprah. Ash, I want to go to you on this this this Charles issue. There was also another. We don't have the quotes for you here, but you know, if you watch it at nine or if you've watched it already, there was a very interesting point where they said the moment it all turned was when they went on a tour in Australia and Meghan kind of outshone the rest of the royal family. And he said, that's when everyone turned against her. And Oprah explicitly said, well, that's like in the crown when Charles and Diana went to Australia. And then it all broke down because they were jealous of Diana outshining Charles. And that was the episode that the Royals really hated because it made him look like an immature child. But basically Prince Harry is completely backing up the crown that portrays Charles as an immature, callous, jealous child. Ash, I want your your tape on this. He's it's not looking good for the next in line to the throne, is it? Well, it's not. And I think this kind of speaks to a structural problem for the monarchy, which is this collision between the values of feudalism and aristocracy and this idea of the innate superiority of this group of people who've all got a gene pool. So shallow, your feet could touch the bottom. And this way of thinking about people and conceiving of superiority has been put on a direct collision course with celebrity culture. Now, when the Queen first ascended to the throne in the early 1950s, celebrity culture was really in its infancy. You didn't have this kind of a hybrid of super famous influencer princess. It wasn't amplified by the 24 hour news cycle or the tabloid press. And you certainly didn't have social media. So the first kind of collision and conflict with that part of culture was of course with Diana, who was at first seen as a great asset to the royal family because she was young, she was aristocratic. And she seemed to have this ability to connect with people at a time where people thought of the monarchy as a really distant and outdated institution. Now, Diana came from as narrow and limited and unrepresentative a background, right? She wasn't middle class. She was solidly upper class. But there was something about her background. I think the fact that her parents split up and remarried and feeling a little bit isolated that made her not particularly invested in this rigidly hierarchical and ritualized way of living an aristocratic life. And she was able to perform that to the public very, very well. And because of that and coupled with the fact that you did have this development of a massive media industry, which blossomed around her, she became the most photographed woman in the world. It really sort of revived this almost fairytale idea of the monarchy. Like here is this beautiful, virginal, blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess. And it was seen to sort of breathe new life into a very, very outdated institution. And look what happened. Look what happened. One is that there was the kind of, you know, inner business of jealousy and issue taking away my shine. And it's not just talked about in the crown. It was also exposed in the Andrew Morton book, which famously came out in 1992, which the queen called her Anas Horribilis, her horrible year. This account of what happened in Australia and the really strained, nasty, tense marriage that they had between them first came to light. And the reason why it was a problem is because here you've got Charles going, wait, I'm the future king. I'm literally the future king. I'm going to be ahead of state. How can you outshine me? How can you connect with people better than me? You know, if you're somebody who's been raised in a really weird family, where you've got to bow to your own mother, where you can't have a relaxed dinner with your parents, when you're sent off at the tender age of 11 to one of the most brutal boarding schools in the country, Gordiston, it's gonna make you a bit weird. It's gonna make you a bit sensitive. And it'll probably make you feel that the only time you can be a person who's worth something, a person who's valid, is when you ascend to that position at the top of the family hierarchy, which also happens to be at the top of the nation's hierarchy, like, because your mom dies. And then here you've got this wife who is able to sort of speak in this register, which is completely alien to you because you don't know how to love, quite frankly. It's gonna mess you up. It's going to mess you up. And I think that those scars, those kind of, you know, deformed ability to attach to people have definitely remained. And here you've got Megan Markle, who is another outsider. And she's a treble outsider. She's non-aristocratic. She's American. She's mixed race. She's coming at this from a very different angle culturally. One of the things that she said in the interview is that I didn't realize that the Royal Family were like the Royal Family. I just thought they were like a really famous family. They didn't understand these kind of feudal ritualistic elements, which are reinforced around these people every single minute of the Live Long Day. And so it doesn't surprise me that her own star power, like, you know, the fact that she's gorgeous, right? She is just like objectively gorgeous. The fact that she had a career before and she was very self-possessing, put her on a collision course with other senior royals. And I think that there was a disdain for who she was appealing to. Because I don't think that's a coincidence that there are lots of young people, in particular people of color, who see Megan as a totem, not because they have a belief in the Royal Family or the fairy tale as such, but because she represents the heights to which you can ascend, but also never fully be accepted. So I think that she was sort of speaking to those kinds of people for whom the Royals also have a disdain. So I think that you can, yeah, you can trace a lot of this kind of existential crisis for senior Royals, both on a personal level, as well as the kind of level of their role, back to this collision between different ways of having a role in the public eye. Is it because you're descended from a long line of kings and essentially you're boasting about how limited your gene pool is, or is it because you're famous, you've got charisma and you've got star quality? It's weird, isn't it? Because there are a lot of similarities between the Megan situation and the Diana situation. And I do want to premise this as well by saying, they're not my heroes. I'm sort of inherently suspicious of anyone who marries a prince. I don't think if that's who you've chosen to marry. Not me and that family for love, nor money. I swear to God. You're probably not a particularly humble person and you're probably quite attracted to riches and privileges, et cetera. It's not a career path that I have a great deal of respect for, but both of those two people presented huge opportunities to the royal family. In both cases, Diana was young, gorgeous. She could connect to a new generation of people who weren't particularly interested in the royal family. Megan was mixed race. That wedding was sort of like really well put together. When I watched that, I was like, man, Megan must have been handpicked by the royal staffers to sort of bring new multiracial, sort of UK, US relations together. And the whole thing, it was really portraying a vision of both the royal family in Britain, which was really attractive, I thought, and probably which could bring together, everyone in the country basically, everyone liked them at the time of that wedding. It wasn't, we don't have that many die-hard racists who were sort of like, I figure it's disgraceful that the prince has married someone who's mixed race. And to me, that just makes it seem like this was such an own goal. In both cases, they had this enormous opportunity and they massively, not only did they blow it, they behaved in such a sort of rabid, bizarre, obnoxious way that they've ended up really undermining their own legitimacy. And it sort of cuts across one of the angles that you hear in the interview and on the crown, which is of the royal family, not really as a family, but as sort of competent professionals, everything's about protecting the firm and they are business people, essentially. But if they are business, they're really bad at it. Even they're being driven by prejudices or they're business people who are just terrible at protecting the brand. I don't know which one of those it is. But you know what, you've hit the nail on the head because these people aren't business people. They've had no training. They're not talented. They're not particularly well-educated, right? They kind of flop from D's and E's and somehow get into Oxford anyway. That's who they are. They've got no special interest in culture or history or philosophy or the arts. They are extremely parochial, limited people. That's the really striking thing about the British aristocracy is how unshake it is. It's horsey. It smells a bit like wet dog that's got a sense of its own decay that it cannot fully escape. And here you have these two opportunities to escape it. One was with Diana and one was with Meghan Markle. And I think that they were so wedded to this idea of there's nobility in their own anachronism and sense of decay that they couldn't help but try and destroy these two women. And I think that's something which is also mimicked by the response of the British press because there is an extent to which the press and the tenor of broadcast media can shape the national mood towards something. They had the whole world thinking that Pippa Middleton had a good bum. Do you know what I mean? What is that if not manufacturing consent? But with both Meghan, I think to an extreme point with Meghan, but also Diana, again, it was here's this opportunity and you can't help but destroy it. I think it reflects something about Britain's own inability to let go of the trauma from the loss of empire. On the one hand, it can't really acknowledge that it had an empire. On the other hand, it thinks it was the best empire in the world and why did it end? Well, because of our own benevolence and not because we got our asses handed to us by the same people we thought of as racially inferior. That's the trauma of empire and we haven't really worked out how to develop a new kinds of Britishness. And so here comes Meghan Markle who isn't even saying don't have an unelected head of state, you fucking weirdos. She's saying, you know what? I'm gonna make you guys seem glamorous and outward looking, you know? Here is a royal wedding, which seems kind of fun. Serena Williams is here. Oh my God. And I think there was something in the British press which was like, you make us feel so inadequate. You make us feel so inadequate as a country and so inadequate in who we are and we have to destroy you because we can accept an idea of people being superior to us as long as they're white and a little bit inbred. But if you have the temerity to be independent, charismatic, gorgeous and a mixed race, you know, Molly, you're in danger girl. It's weird, isn't it? Cause also one of the big, we're gonna go onto the media in one set. We're gonna go like through in quite a lot of detail that the media meltdown that has, well, both in the preamble to this interview and then following it. But I suppose the last thing I wanna say on this is it is funny the way we're told, you know, the big defense of the royal family now that we don't get to claim that, you know, they have God's right to rule over us is that they bring in tourism, you know? And there are good symbols of Britishness to the rest of the world. Even if they're a bit anachronistic, they're kind of light hearted and people are like, oh, it's very British even if it's a bit silly. If you want to be a good tourist attraction, then if you've got most of the world thinking you're a bunch of racist pedos, you've failed at your job, right? If you have sort of key performance indicators and you're supposed to be tourist attractions, that's, you've failed. You've failed at what your only purpose that you're supposed to have anymore. And we've got 4,000 people watching. And let's go through some comments, that's great. I'm so glad that you're as interested in this as we are. Every, sometimes when we, you know, when we branch out of capital P politics and go into something like this, I'm a bit worried, is everyone gonna get angry in the comments? Cause we're not talking about, you know, material issues, but I think this has reached a point where this is politically very, very significant. In the Twitch chat, Pills and Frills and Bellyache says, 10 pound on Megan playing herself in the crown series or series 53, is there gonna be that many? Or maybe that should have been series five, I'm not sure. Michael Deary with a tenor is anyone else upset that a prince that is essentially exiled in California didn't make one fresh prince of Bel Air joke? By the way, Michael, just by a takeaway, what was that dinner? On the first point, that joke was actually made on the, you're obviously not following enough of the royal coverage, which is currently being pumped out on YouTube because Prince Harry did quite an entertaining interview with what's the man called Ash, what's the guy called? James Corden, where there was a whole sort of fresh Prince of Bel Air skit. The takeaway reference is because I made what I thought was a delicious meal yesterday of small frozen Yorkshire puddings stuffed with peas covered in ketchup and mayo, but I got canceled for it. And I've been told to get a takeaway. I did splash out on one today and I'm gonna try and go to the shop in the next couple of days, I'll find the time. And Nick Hook with a tenor, only kind of gossip I like because it's about institutions I love and distrust, the media and the Windsor cartel. Yeah, I hate Love Island, but has slightly less impact on our government and culture. I quite enjoy Love Island, but I take your point. This is definitely a lot more significant than that. And finally, the anonymous person. She's supposed to sound a bit like anonymous. I'm not sure, $5, an American viewer maybe. Ash has clearly proven herself as an expert on the royal family. Any chance she'll get to present her expertise on the BBC or Sky? I think you have today, haven't you? I have, and you know what? I've heard some really funny shit. So I did a interview about it and there was a royal expert because there is this whole like strata of the publishing industry and also newspaper reporters whose sole job it is to blow smoke up the arse of these royals who despise them, right? That's also the really funny thing. You spend your whole life in your career bending over backwards to say, hey, maybe it is plausible that Prince Andrew was incapable of sweating. And these people hate you. So I was on, I think this might have been Radio Ulster with this woman who was a royal expert. Now she had a accent which could improve your credit rating. Like it was cut glass, received pronunciation. And we were talking about the comments about Archie and what if he comes out too dark? And what was funny was that she was saying, well, we don't know. It could have been meant affectionately and a spirit of curiosity and inquisition. And I couldn't help myself. I started laughing and I was just like, I don't know if you've ever met brown people before but we know, we know the difference. We know the difference between when, my white stepdad is saying, oh, you look very tan. You've been out in the sun. Good comment. And if we're to have a baby, like how dark is that bug are gonna be? We know the difference. But it's this way in which you've got these people who, I don't know where they're kept the rest of the time. Like, you know, maybe in some royal vault only to be wheeled out on to tell you at the appropriate moments for royal death scandals and weddings to make these absurd excuses. And the other thing, which was sort of a common thread in these, you know, sort of royal outriders, I guess, was that they were saying, oh, there's inconsistencies in their interviews. Ha, there's factual inconsistencies. So maybe you've got two lengthy interviews with two separate people. Maybe there are inconsistencies. Who knows, maybe there are even exaggerations. There are emissions. You know, this is a piece of PR, of course it is. But are the royal family racist? Yes or no. And it was the dodging of that question and the way in which the space was created on the BBC to accommodate that amount of bullshit. I just find that process fascinating. Let's go through, because it's not just the royal outriders. It's also just the front pages of the newspapers who, you know, whenever the royals come up, devote themselves to defending their honour. We're going to go through some of the media responses and also actually the palace responses before this interview, because, I mean, they all had a meltdown. And when I saw the meltdown they were having, I was like, they've massively blown this out of proportion if they hadn't made it seem like such a big deal, we would have ignored it. Little did I know what was in the interview. Now it kind of makes sense that they had this meltdown beforehand, because they couldn't actually have made it any worse than it already is. I want to start with how the royals pushed back preemptively against the revelations that they expected or were worried were going to come out. And the most, is entertaining the right word? I don't know, the weirdest one was in the Sunday times where a royal source gave probably the worst defence of the palace's record on race you could possibly give and this is from a palace source. Let's go to this. There is particular resentment at suggestions that because of Meghan's African American heritage, racism may have been a factor in the attitudes of royal household staff. The diversity policy in the households is exemplary, one senior source insisted, because of the Queen's links with the Commonwealth and her desire to represent all Britons, they have bent over backwards to be inclusive. It is absolutely wrong to say the palace is institutionally racist. It really isn't, but the households have a way to go in making diversity visible. People from black and ethnic minorities in senior roles are few and far between. Now, the best tweet I saw in response to this was someone who quote tweeted that saying, how can we be racist? Some of our ex colonies are black, which is what that quote amounts to. How could we possibly be racist? We used to head the empire and now we have the Commonwealth. Not the argument. I think they were hoping they were making. The Daily Mail also had a complete meltdown, a bit of an outpost of sort of the royal establishment, I suppose they're very much devoted to protecting their honor. And we're going to go through just a number of the bizarre sort of articles and lines they took on Sunday. So the day before the interview head. We're going to start with their front page, the front page of their website declared, this is a sideshow. And then they lead with a palace official who says that it will be lost on the mist of time. That's the interview. While most Brits will be thinking about school going back, COVID jabs and Prince Philip getting better, which just shows quite how out of touch they are with large proportions of the British public. We can also see that the paper, which has said this is all a sideshow, led with the story on their front page. So going with that, that same quote about Prince Philip getting better being what people are really caring about. We can go and have a look at the front page. This is the Scottish Mail on Sunday. I think the British one was exactly the same. So it's such a sideshow. They've given this an 11 page special. So this is, you know, the interview hasn't even come out yet. They've devoted 11 pages to this. Now we can see some of the, you know, what appeared on those pages. Well, this is slightly changed. Don't worry about it though. So in the paper's leader, they anguished over the hurt. The interview would cause the Queen while brushing over the allegations of child sexual abuse against her son. Now I've got here actually the updated Daily Mail leader. Now the original leader didn't contain this whole sentence. So in this one, it says she has suffered. Her 99 year old husband lies seriously ill in hospital. She has suffered the pain of seeing her son, Andrew, sidelined from public life. In the updated one it says for associating with notorious pedophile. They hadn't mentioned them, notorious pedophile in the original. So I think that was probably after a complaint. The comment pages knowingly or otherwise also seemed to veer into territory of making threats. This was from Penny Juner in the comment pages. Harry's making the same mistake as Diana. And I feel he'll come to regret it just like his mother did, writes royal biographer. Like you don't have to know too much about Princess Diana to know that that's a slightly scary thing to be saying in the press. We'll go to today's reactions in a moment Ash. First of all, I want your take on the weekend of increasingly hysterical takes of the British press trying to tell us all to ignore the interview, dismiss whatever is said. Here you go. You've got 11 pages saying ignore this thing. And it sort of speaks to the very contradictory impulse within the British media about how they deal with Meghan Markle. On the one hand, they loathe her because what she's proven is that it's possible to opt out from the nastiest bits of our tabloid and press culture. And on the other hand, well, there's papers to be sold either way. You're gonna have to churn out papers with her face plastered all over it, whether or not you're celebrating her, demonizing her or saying, hey, stay out of tunnels, wink, wink. That's kind of the sort of strange place they've been pulled into, that recognizing their own dependence on demonizing this woman to ply their trade and also at the same time, deploring her for pointing that out. After watching the Oprah interview last night, I went to bed genuinely intrigued how the British press would react. Now, I knew that if the claims made by Meghan and Harry had been less serious, then the British press could just say, look, there being snowflakes, they're blowing this all out of proportion. And to be honest, that's what I was expecting. That's what I was expecting the debate to be this week. But given the allegations were such clear cut examples of racism and mistreatment, our press corps only had two options. So one of them was to say, this is a serious problem. We need to take this seriously. There's obviously something going on in the palace and reform is needed. Their other option was to say, she's a liar. They only had these two options. No longer could they say she's just being a snowflake because no one is willing to defend, prying, asking and concern about the skin tone of a baby. Now, I was particularly interested to hear from Piers Morgan. Now, sometimes it can be kind of unpredictable what position he's going to take. And he has spent the last week obsessively tweeting about Meghan and Harry calling them whining attention seekers. I was wondering if he was going to say, after watching this interview, I've changed my mind. Let's take a look at how he in fact responded. Okay, again, let's have the names. Who did you go to? What did they say to you? I'm sorry, I don't believe a word she says, Meghan Markle. I wouldn't believe it if you read me a weather report. And the fact that she's fired up this onslaught against our royal family, I think is contemptible. Now, I probably should have guessed Piers Morgan, truth seeker, he has clearly weighed up the prejudices of his fan base and decided there was no option but to dismiss the allegations. He is not willing to contemplate that possibly someone high up in the royal family could be a racist. That was a very short clip of Piers Morgan. Let's take a look at a slightly longer rant from the Good Morning Britain host. They've trashed his dad, they've trashed his brother, they've trashed his sister-in-law, they've trashed everything the queen has worked so hard to maintain with the monarchy. And they're supposed to believe they're compassionate. They felt they were trashed. They felt they were lied about. She said that she was driven to the verge of taking her own life. She says that, yeah. They have absolutely, obviously, author experience. So they were bullied by Meghan and when those allegations were made, her team came back and said it was outrageous, dismissed it, didn't take them seriously at all. But we're supposed to take everything she says as absolute gospel. No, you have to take it all seriously. She showed no respect for the alleged bully victims that she apparently traumatised and I've had one account of one of them and I can tell you, if they start talking, we're going to hear a very different story about the Duke and Duchess of Compassion. Yeah. But we're not allowed to hear their stories because they've been dismissed out of hand. No. By Meghan and Harry. We have reported on those allegations. Their stories don't count. We have reported on those. So you can see what Piers Morgan has done there and it's quite clever. He said, because Meghan and Harry dismissed the bullying allegations against Meghan because their lawyers dismissed those allegations, we can dismiss anything that Meghan and Harry say. The problem is he has seemingly forgotten that he's not actually a lawyer for the Queen and Prince Charles. He's supposed to be a journalist. So when Meghan and Harry's lawyers say you should dismiss those complaints, we don't recognise them as true, that's what their lawyers are saying. You as a journalist aren't supposed to say, oh, of course, if their lawyers are saying that, that's not the case. So just the same in this situation, if there are serious allegations from Meghan Markle, you have to take them seriously because you're not the Queen's lawyer, you're a journalist. You're supposed to be, you know, at least attempt to be somewhat objective here. Now, it might have frustrated you watching those clips. Don't worry because this wasn't actually an entirely depressing episode of Good Morning Britain. Refreshingly, Piers Morgan got completely destroyed by a couple of guests. So the first was Dr. Sholok Moschogba Mimou and she started by challenging Morgan's unquestioning deference to the Queen. What kind of grandmother would be so close to her grandson, Harry, but then not use her power and influence as Queen to protect them from the racist media coverage? What kind of grandmother would protect her own son, Prince Andrew, from the potential crime of raping a minor, but would do jackal to protect Harry and Meghan, especially I have no doubt that she would have heard about the suicider thoughts and the help and support she needs. And then you sit there, humming on about how the royal institution is no racist. Are you out of your Godforsaken mind? Oh, you know what, I find what you're saying about the Queen actually disgraceful. The royal family as an institution is rooted in colonialism, white supremacy and racism. The legacy is right there. So you're now surprised that a comment would have been made by several members of the royal family about how dark arch- It's not several members actually. No, no, we can't spew lies. You're outraged by Harry and Meghan. Are we allowed to engage in any of this? Let me finish. Well, you're not stopping. That Harry and Meghan had the audacity to speak that truth that you should be at the actual outage of racism. Delicious seeing Piers Morgan get a taste of his own medicine there. The argument was incredibly well put. Why would you be surprised that this institution could be capable of being fairly goddamn racist? And why are you so annoyed at them speaking about what's happened to them? You'll notice that Piers Morgan, I mean, at times he sort of said, oh, maybe there's some factual errors, but basically the main thing he kept turning to was what he said actually in response to Charlotte there. If you watch the whole clip, he said this is disgusting because the Queen and Philip essentially, I'm paraphrasing here, are both elderly and the latter is in hospital. So he's saying they shouldn't be making these claims because these people are old and ill. I mean, I don't think portraying the Queen as sort of like a dispenseless victim works that well in this situation. Let's go to one final clip from Good Morning Britain because it wasn't just Dr. Shola who had to go at Piers for his reaction to that Oprah interview. He was also challenged by his colleague at ITV, Trisha Goddard. Why is everybody else such an expert about racism against black people? I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry, Piers, you don't get to call out what is and isn't racism against black people. You can call out all the other stuff. I'll leave you to call out all the other stuff you want, but leave the racism stuff to us, eh? I just think, okay. So charismatic. I love Trisha that. You're watching Tiskey Cell on The Borrow Media. We go live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7 p.m. if you haven't already. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. We have videos going out every day. Ash, you've had a fair number of run-ins with Piers Morgan. I want your take, I suppose, both on his decision to say, oh, no, she's just lying. You know, kind of a brave move, brazen, you could say. And then, I mean, that really effective takedown from Dr. Shola, especially. And then also, I mean, Trisha's sort of more light-hearted, dig at Piers. I thought we're both brilliant, actually. I mean, so I think what Piers Morgan has done is that he's made an assessment of where his audience is. It is generally a right-of-center audience, people who have very little time for what they see as the indulgences of the younger generation. So the younger generation are all snowflakes, oversensitive, they're wrapped up in their own trauma. They hate this language around, you know, white supremacy and being made to feel guilty just for the crime of being white, and they certainly hate hypocrisy. Now, this was a tweet which I saw, I think, last week, and for the life of me, I can't remember who it was that tweeted it, but it was a very good point. And it was talking about the way in which hypocrisy has been elevated to the cardinal sin above all others. So that if you're seen to, in any way, slip from the principles that you espouse to other people, so in this instance, Piers Morgan talking about compassion, and you forfeited all rights to be seen as a legitimate or valid player on the field of public discourse. And the reason why hypocrisy is such an effective line for the right is because they don't believe in anything. They don't believe in appealing to the better angels of your nature or a more compassionate kind of world or a more sustainable kind of world. So you're never gonna be caught out being hypocritical if you don't believe in anything. So it's a really effective line to take when you've got an audience like Piers Morgan's, which is both very moralizing and very judgmental, but also deeply cynical, particularly about what they see as virtue signaling. So I don't think it's surprising that this is the line that Piers Morgan ended up taking on the Meghan Markle issue. I do also think that there's something really weird about this sort of tenacity and ferocity of which he tweets about her. And this kind of burn that she never sort of, you know, replied to him when he wanted her to, I don't know, far from me to suggest that there's something pathological about that. I also think that from my own run-ins with Piers Morgan, something that I saw in him is that it's really hard to tell what the performance is and what he's genuinely feeling. So both times when I had arguments with him, both since had, you know, kind of karma interactions, he seemed really genuinely angry at me. And there was sort of comments made as I was walking off of the set. And I just thought, wow, you really do get this wound up. Like, what the hell is going on with your blood pressure? Like, are you on the statins, bro? Because maybe you need to be. I don't know, I think maybe it's the thing where someone's performed a role for so long, they can't tell where the edge of that is and where their actual personality begins. So I think he's got this phenomenal ability to just rile himself up into this kind of froth and a flap and really believe it. The thing to remember is that he's got a very keen sense of what makes good TV. He's dedicated to, you know, achieving numbers and that's it. And he's found a way to do that, but I think appealing to a really reactionary vein of opinion in this country. I'm gonna show you a clip which maybe shows us the root of why Piers Morgan really hates Harry and Meghan. If you take a look at this clip and decide if you think that maybe there is something deeper going on than what Piers is making out. Very intelligent, I thought very smart, very charming, very warm, very direct with eye contact. She was a really nice person and she seemed to me to have a sense about her of being concerned about issues, concerned about the planet, the environment, women's rights. She's got that campaigning streak too, but I really liked her. You know, I'm just sad, I lost her as a friend. It's like Harry, you couldn't have thought of me here. You're quite bitter about this. Well, I'm bitter, just sad. You know, mainly because I don't get the suits episodes and that really kills me. But also I thought we, I just thought we were friends, Meghan, what happened? But I get it because Harry, the moment it became serious, there's no way Harry wants Meghan Markle anywhere near media people, period. It doesn't mean I haven't ruled out that I might get an invite to the wedding. So you haven't yet? No, but I just think, Meghan will be sitting there thinking, you know what, I owe that guy one. I really owe that guy one. What does she owe you? She owes me an invitation to the wedding to make up for cutting me dead. No, let's get some perspective, because I showed you that clip. It's almost quite light hearted. Is it just that Piers Morgan is pissed off that you didn't get invited to a wedding? But you've got to remember the claims that Piers Morgan was making this morning on Good Morning Britain, which was essentially someone who he is speaking about very respectfully there. He seems to like her as a person back then. And now when she's talked about being suicidal and being blocked from getting any help, he's saying she's lying, right? And so going from that position to saying she's lovely, but I'm a little bit annoyed at her, not getting invited to the wedding and now speaking to millions of people on national television saying when she speaks about racism against her unborn child or when she speaks about our own mental health difficulties, it's probably a lie. Now, as you say, you've met Piers Morgan much more than I have. Is this really a sort of like pathological outgrowth of not being invited to a wedding? I mean, it would have been a great wedding. I would have loved to attend, but it seems like a slight overreaction. Yeah, I mean, you know what? I actually just don't buy that. I don't buy that. I think that he wants us to think that it's pathological and enraged because that also drives engagement. Piers Morgan is also quite happy being the story and being at the center of conflict. He's quite striking in being able to be genuinely furious with you and that anger is rolling off of him in a way which feels very tangible and quite distressing when you're in the room with it to then being incredibly cordial. Not kind of at the same time, but then about a year later, I went back on Good Morning Britain to talk about the coronavirus. And he was laughing and chuckling away at things I had to say. It was very, very polite, very, very cordial. And I don't think that one is any more genuine or fake than the other. I think that he's almost devoted the entirety of who he is to existing within the media and getting the story and telling a narrative which is gonna get eyes on it that he will fully commit himself to whatever it is the moment demands of him at the time. So I think that really, this is about responding to that kind of reactionary vein of opinion that exists within this country. And if that vein of opinion was seen to shift and if Megan was positioned somewhat differently in relation to it, I think he'd seem to switch back just as easily. And I think that kind of, I think it's a mistake to try and identify authenticity from people who exist at the top of British media. If they were authentic people, people who are sort of driven by the things which are deepest and most real about them, they wouldn't have gotten to the position where they are. Hmm. I think that's a very reasonable point, actually. You know, people like to corner of our media conspiracies. That was just Ash taking down a conspiracy theory. They're just saying, no, it's all rational choice. None of this, you know, there was a secret beef that happened and that's why all of this controversy has emerged. I want to go to a couple of comments and then we have one more case study for you of the British medias freak out about Megan Markle. The next one's really good, so do make sure you stay on. First of all, Henry VIII fake with 10 pounds says, begs the question, why didn't the Crown investigate the bullying allegations immediately? Doesn't that make the Crown at best terrible employers for politicizing the well-being of their staff? Now I presume that's a comment in relation to, yeah, what Piers Morgan was speaking there about the fact that the royal family or someone leaked in the days before Megan Markle's interview that she had had a bullying allegation against her two years previously. Now I think that allegation should be taken seriously and should be investigated. I don't think we can dismiss it out of hand, but Henry VIII fake is exactly right, which is that why didn't they investigate that at the time? It does not put them in a good light. And then we've got Adriana Peixoto with a five euro super chat who says, I'm a try hard journal from Portugal and I love your work. Thank you so much and good luck with your journalism. You're my go-to source for UK news from a left perspective. I don't know much about royal drama though. Well, you'll find out now about royal drama because Ash is here to explain it all to you. Unless it was, I don't know about it. I'm not that sure if I'm interested in it. Well, all I can say then is if you ever tune into a show and you're not that interested in the subject matter, if you then go on to send us five euros in the super chat, I think that's a brilliant reaction to being unsure about the content. So thank you for that. Let's go to our next media case study. On BBC breakfast, royal biographer Anna Pasternak said the interview between Meghan and Harry on Oprah left a bad taste in her mouth. I think there are those who will feel immense empathy and sympathy for Meghan. And I think there will be those who think this is absolutely unnecessary to speak out in this way. And all this stuff that's been made of Prince Charles not answering Harry's call. Well, I'm a parent when your children are insensing. Sometimes it's quite healthy not to answer that call. I mean, there are these details with a blown out of all perspective. And it was a very soft serving soapy interview in Meghan's favour. Nobody asked her about her relationship with her father. Nobody asked her the astonishing fact that she only had one member of her family at her wedding. This is a woman who seems to make a habit of falling out with people. But none of Meghan's real behaviour was questioned. It was an absolute exercise in torching the House of Windsor. And I came away with a very distasteful taste in my mouth. Now, what stood out for me in that interview was one of the opening phrases she said, which is it was unnecessary to speak out in this way. Now, again, you've got this issue where she isn't challenging the fact. She isn't saying that she's got some evidence or she has reason to believe that the royals didn't inquire about how dark their child would be, how dark the skin of their child would be. She just says they shouldn't have aired it. Why did they need to say that? She doesn't speak about whether or not she disputes them. She's just saying they should just shut up. And that's not a particularly good attitude to have as a journalist. But I looked a bit more into this person because obviously, I haven't generally had much contact with these royal correspondents or read anything they've written. I've taken a bit more interest this weekend for obvious reasons. And it turns out that Anna Pasternak, that person you just viewed there, has written a piece for the Sunday or had written a piece for the Sunday Telegraph in the run-up to Sunday Night's interview. And she compared Meghan and Harry unfavorably to Edward the Eighth. Now, Edward the Eighth abdicated in 1936 and she is comparing Edward and his wife, Wallace Simpson, to Meghan and Harry because they both gave interviews after leaving the royal family and comparing the two couples, Pasternak writes, the saddest thing is that Wallace and Edward, despite being banished, were dutiful and patriotic to the end. What a pity that from the teas as we've seen, Meghan and Harry who took it upon themselves to leave Britain seem unlikely to display similar loyalty to the crown on Oprah tonight. So you've got here a comparison between Wallace Simpson and Edward the Eighth, or he was the former Edward the Eighth abdicated by that point, and she's saying they behaved in a much more dignified way than did or than it seems Meghan and Harry have done. Now, you might have heard of them if you've watched the crown and that means you'll be familiar with what I'm about to tell you because this is an incredibly weird thing to say because she's saying Edward and Wallace were dutiful and patriotic to the end. Well, I have some information to you because Edward and Wallace were Nazis. Or at least sympathetic to the Nazis. Right, here they are, if you don't believe me, with Adolf Hitler who they visited in 1937 and that was against the advice of the British government. They weren't just going there on some sort of formal diplomatic business. They chose to go there when they were advised against going there. Now, their sympathies towards the Nazis was no secret in 1966. Edward wrote that Hitler had persuaded him at that meeting and so he said he'd persuaded him that. It was in Britain's interest and in Europe's too that Germany be encouraged to strike east and smash communism together. I thought the rest of us could be fence sitters while the Nazis and Reds slogged it out. So he was quite clear. He wanted to give the Nazis free reign in continental Europe. He is also thought to have leaked plans to the Nazis on how Britain planned to defend Belgium. That's because he was posted in France as a military person during that war and that's trees and really isn't it? And Churchill during the war was warned that Edward was a Nazi sympathizer and that the Nazis wanted to install him as Britain's leader if they successfully invaded. So this is who this telegraph, or this journalist who's written in the telegraph has said it was unnecessary for them to speak about this. She wants them to model themselves on a couple who left the royal family but who also were Nazis, right? Now, it's often said in Britain that people think it's or people act like it's worse to accuse someone of racism than be racist. Apparently it's also worse to accuse someone of racism than be a Nazi, right? That's what I'm getting from this royal biographer. Ash, I wanna go. I don't know if you've come across this lady but the idea that this was, it was so terrible that you could do an interview and speak badly of the crown. Instead you should go off quietly and just collude with some fascists. Seems, I mean, a little bit shameless to me as an argument. I mean, so the reason why it sort of hangs together if you don't do any investigating is because generally speaking, the royal family have been really good at airbrushing the nastier bits of their own history. It's one of the things that they've been best at. Unfortunately, with the kind of anarchic expansion of the media landscape, they can't have as tight a control on that narrative anymore. So you do have people of our generation who've learned a lot by watching the crown, Diana, in her own words. Diana's story, Tale of the Windsor. All of these things on Netflix. You've learned a lot and go, wait a minute. I remember the episode where the Wallace Simpson and the one who was called Edward and then was going by David, the former king, like maybe even conspired with the Nazis over like a potential invasion of Britain to reinstall him as king. That was in the episode. There are some documents which are said to suggest it, but it's a historically contested thing. There's this kind of huge gap of knowledge of who knows what. And I think that, you know, I was looking at that clip of her and I just thought this woman looks completely unhinged. Like, how can you be this angry and wound up about people who you don't know, who like you've never met. She looked like she was trying to swallow a rotten oyster. Like it was just in terms of demeanour, incredibly weird to watch. And I just thought what you can't stand is that perception of this institution is slipping away from both you and them. Young people in this country don't look at it in the same way. And they also don't have an idea of public duty being this thing which is so joyless that it's meant to suck out, you know, any happiness that you might otherwise experience at the price you pay for marrying into fame, importance, money is to essentially accept racism that you should keep silent and not speak out in that way. And I think it sort of speaks to changing emotional norms within this country which is shifting generationally because I looked at that woman and I just thought she was a complete fruitcake. That was the analysis we gave you on watch. Right, let's look at the UK media as a whole because it's unsurprisingly closing rank. There's one thing that British journalists don't like you to do, it's criticise British journalism. And the Society of Editors have put out a statement on the accusation that the British media is racially bigoted. Now the statement begins, the UK media is not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to account following the attacks on the press by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Society of Editors has commented. Now they also go on to give this argument that the British media isn't racially bigoted. So they say, in the case of Meghan Markle and her engagement and marriage to Prince Harry, there was universal supporting coverage in the UK media which reflected the warmth shown to the couple by the British people, but that warmth could not and should not mean the press should be expected to refuse to report, investigate and comment on the couple's lifestyle and actions. And finally they say, or later they say, the UK media has a proud record of calling out racism. I'm not this one, I'm sorry. I'm coming. I'll get to the end of the quote. The UK media has a proud record of calling out racism and also being at the forefront of campaigns to support mental health awareness and other of the issues raised by the couple. I'm gonna have to throw to you there Ash because I can't hold myself together. Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, the UK media has done a great job of raising mental health awareness. You know, like when they demonized Frank Bruno for having to be institutionalized for his mental health issues. I remember that all the way they hounded Amy Winehouse. That was great, great awareness raising of mental health issues guys, really solid work. I mean, you've just, you've got to laugh, don't you? You absolutely have to fucking laugh because if you broaden this out and I think that you should broaden this out, I think that the hysteria that we see around Megadon Harry it's not just about them and it's not just about the royal family. Really, it's about the institutions which compromise the society that we live in. It's just so laughable because also the numbers fly in the face of this. We know from studies which have been done by the media monitoring group associated with the Muslim Council of Great Britain. I can't remember their name. That the majority of coverage of British Muslims is negative. It's associated with terrorism, with crime. It's not really about community cohesion at all. Similarly, when you look at the way in which images of black people are used, quite often it's to denote criminality or poverty. We have an institutionally racist media in this country, not just in terms of coverage but also in terms of how it's staffed, 91% of the British media is white. It's tremendously unrepresentative of the kind of audiences that it's meant to serve. And then even on top of that, the idea that what the British media was doing with Meghan Markle was to sort of bravely see past the madness of the adulating crowds to properly hold her to account. Look, if you wanna talk about her tax arrangements, go for it. If you wanna talk about that Harry's own history of racism, go for it. But the kind of coverage that she was being subject to, no other royal was being subjected to. So my favorite is that, I think is a Buzzfeed list which was just comparing articles between Meghan and Kate for them doing the exact same things. One being the very famous avocados, Meghan's favorite snack is responsible for drought, famine, mass murder. But the other one, and this is my personal favorite, a real deep cut, is that Kate and Meghan happened to have the same kind of flower at their wedding. I don't know what kind of flower it was. And Kate was celebrated, it was a very glowing piece about her flower choices. And the one about Meghan was, one of the bridesmaids had asthma, you basically tried to kill this little kid with your flowers. What part of that was holding the rich and powerful to account? What part of it was holding the monarchy to account? It was just reducing somebody's character to present them as somehow monstrous. And we know that you've gone the extra mile to twist this really innocuous thing because you presented it entirely differently when it was a white member of the royal family. So I mean, the statement from the Society of Editors is just so absolutely self-serving and unmoored from reality. Also the idea that they do a good job of holding the wealthy and powerful to account the rest of the time, fuck me, for the other one. We should say it for balance, hashtag not all journalists, even though the Society of Editors have put out that embarrassing statement. And we can look at a tweet Fred from Jess Brammer. She's editor in chief of the Huffington Post and formerly editor at Newsnight. She writes, I considered not saying anything about this because I'm aware I won't make myself popular with my peers but I'm just going to stand up and say it. I don't agree with the statement from my industry body that is untrue that sections of UK press were bigoted. She goes on, I don't disagree with every bit of that statement but that top line is not how some people working in our industry feel about the bigotry of some sections of the UK press aimed at people like them. We should vocally defend our industry but also be very aware of supporting them. So what about the politics of this? What about the capital P politics, the two major parties? How are they approaching the revelations in that Harry and Meghan and Oprah interview? Now it's not a particularly comfortable story for either of the major parties. I don't think any of them think there's particular electoral gain to be had from either saying Meghan's a complete liar or saying the Queen and the Royal Family are potentially racist. So you can expect there's going to be a lot of sitting on the fence but let's see what actually happened. Now the first is at today's Downing Street Press Conference. Boris Johnson was asked what he thought of the accusations made by Harry and Meghan and whether Buckingham Palace should launch an investigation. The best thing I can say is that I've always had the highest admiration for the Queen and the unifying role that she plays in our country and across the Commonwealth. And as for the rest of all other matters to do with the Royal Family, I've spent a long time now not commenting on Royal Family matters and I don't intend to depart from that today. Now a safe answer there from Boris. Everyone it seems loves the Queen. I mean, it was worth noting that in the interview of Harry and Meghan, they were quite positive about the Queen and they made it clear that it wasn't the Queen who asked about the skin tone of their baby and they said that she was a bit more supportive than the others. So safe answer from Boris Johnson. Keir Starmer had a slightly trickier job. That's because he's under pressure within his own party for supposedly not taking racism seriously enough. Something we've talked about on the show numerous times. However, you'll also know Keir Starmer is desperate not to offend socially conservative voters in the so-called red wall. So how was he going to respond to this political hot potato? Let's take a look. It's really sad to see the family in turmoil like this. The issues that Meghan has raised of race and mental health are really serious issues. And it's a reminder, I think, whether you're in East London as we are here or in Meghan's situation, that too many people still experience racism in 21st century Britain. And we have to take that very, very seriously. It's a reminder there's a lot more to do. Nobody, but nobody should be prejudiced because of the colour of their skin or because of their mental health issues. Should there be an investigation into these allegations? I think they need to be taken very, very seriously. They are allegations in relation to race and to mental health. And for too many years, this is bigger than the royal family. For too many years, we've been too dismissive and too willing to put these issues to one side. Can't do that. Serious allegations need to be taken seriously. You can see that as often as the case, Keir Starmer sort of sat on the fence about what should actively happen. He said they should be taken seriously. He didn't explicitly back an investigation or an inquiry or whatever one might propose. But Ash, I actually thought there he was... It was almost quite risky from Keir Starmer because his answer there, even though it sat on the fence in terms of what should happen, listening to it seemed quite clear that he believed or at least was taking very seriously those allegations of racism by Meghan and Harry. Well, yeah, I think what was quite interesting was that the two political leaders had a lot in common in their strategy of how to address this question. And so they looked at this very, very polarizing issue and they went, okay, I'm just gonna do the blandest and broadest possible response which is gonna play to my base. So Labour, of course, have got a very urban, a very young and a very diverse voter base. That's who goes out to vote Labour. Meanwhile, most of Boris Johnson's voters would literally take a bullet for any one of the minor royals. Lay down their lives for Princess Michael of Kent. Who's my least favourite royal? She can fucking do one. But they've just sort of offered the sort of blandest, broadest approach which is kind of a way of using the interview and the specifics of it as a lever into a discussion of kind of more general values. And I think that that's probably a wise thing to do. I wouldn't believe Keir Starmer if he was sort of saying, let's meet outside Buckingham Palace, bring a brick. Nor would I think it's right or appropriate for Boris Johnson to go any further than what he said in defensive royals. Also what he said was bullshit. He has commented on the personal masters of senior royals before, such as when he defended Prince Andrew with regards to the Jeffrey Epstein allegations and said, well, he's done a lot of good work for charity and it's like, yeah, but what about the having sex with the traffic minor bit? And like, what about that allegation for us? But yeah, I think they sort of played it as well as they could. It was a huge story which didn't actively involve anyone, either one of the two major parties. It's kind of a wise strategic move to sit this one out. Do you think? Oh, I mean, absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think if I was, I think, I mean, Jeremy Corbyn maybe would have said it out. Although I suppose if you were a Republican, it would be interesting to push. I mean, I'm a Republican obviously and Jeremy Corbyn was a Republican, but he decided that this was not an issue worth expending political capital on. But I mean, a populist anti-royalist campaign, if there was a time for it now would be it. Clearly, no one's expecting Kirsten to do that, but it's interesting at what point we think that a Republican campaign might become politically viable in this country. I would hope sooner rather than later. Although, let's take a look at what the public think of it. All it's not necessarily cutting in the directions that we would like or the reactions that we had when we watched that interview. So this is from YouGov, who find that UK viewers side with the palace. Although this survey was done before the interview was aired on ITV. So that's an important, I suppose, limit to how much we can take from this. But 47% say Harry and Meghan's interview is inappropriate and 21% say it's appropriate. Only 29% have sympathy for them. 23% have not very much and 33% have none at all. It'd be interesting if that changes at all after the whole ITV interview airs. I'm sure lots of people will be all watching and we can go to their other findings, which is that 39% of people have sympathy for senior members of the royal family when it comes to the situation with Harry and Meghan. 25% have not very much sympathy and 20% have none at all. Now that was tweeted by Paul Brand of ITV, but that's YouGov data. On that second question, I was a little bit suspicious. I mean, what does a senior royal mean? I mean, if I was asked that before this weekend when I've been spending quite a lot of time reading about Harry and Meghan and stuff, the senior royal, what is that? And we all know that people quite like the queen. So I think the wedge issue here is gonna be Prince Charles, isn't it? The next in line to the throne, who seems like a not particularly likeable fella. We're gonna go on to our other story in one moment. First of all, Ash, will we see a viable Republican movement in our lifetimes? Well, you know what? I've been thinking about this a lot and one of the things I find so astonishing is that it's seen as a completely outrageous opinion in this country. If you work in political media to say, I think having an elected head of state might be a really good idea. People look at you like you've just advocated for the legalization of bestiality or something. So I think that there would have to be work done on just normalizing it as an opinion. And I think in a weird way, Jeremy Corbyn as polarizing a figure as he was, he found a way to articulate it in a way which felt warm and authentic and very him. So I'll never forget in one of the 2019 debates and this was around the time of, you know, the Prince Andrew Jeffrey Epstein scandal. He was asked, you know, what do you think about the monarchy? And he said in quite a warm and self aware way needs a bit of improvement. And I think that he had a way of tapping into something that everybody in this country thinks. Nobody thinks that the royal family are the ideal family. They think that in some way, their dysfunction is another element of their self sacrifice, but ultimately they're really weird people who you wouldn't necessarily want to hang out with. And so I think that as you tell that story more and you sort of say, well, well, actually why do we have this really weird dysfunctional family at the top of our society? You, I think we'll create more space for that kind of sentiment. I think the other thing that would need to happen for there to be more normalization of, you know, Republican ideas is that it will have to be Prince Charles coming to the throne. The Queen came to the throne at the time where broadcast media and particularly television was being democratized. People had more access. You know, she's the only Queen most people, the only monarchs sorry that most people have ever seen. And for lots of us, and this includes, you know, your parents' generation and my parents' generation, they've only known her as an older woman. And I think that invites a certain kind of, if not class deference, then the kind of deference that you have for your own grandmother, the sense of there being a kind of matriarch, this figure who kind of keeps everything together. And, you know, it's also tied up with, I think, memories of World War II and those kind of norms around self-sacrifice and public duty and all the rest of it. Once she goes and you've got Prince Charles who for most of his adult life has been synonymous with social awkwardness, social inadequacy, selfishness. And of course, you know, having an affair and breaking the heart of, you know, the people's princess Diana. I think that he won't have invited that same kind of emotional attachment. And I think that that's where you can kind of make those arguments. I don't think that there's a very receptive space for the abolition of the monarchy at the moment. Even though to me, it just seems like a really common sense thing to do. I mean, like, fuck's sake, man. Got an unelected head of state, creates loads of problems constitutionally, wouldn't you just want to iron that out? But I think it would have to be when Charles ascends. I mean, it feels like it should be one of those easy wins, you know, like when a party wants to justify a spending pledge and they have low hanging fruit. So, you know, like a mansion's tax, you say you want to fund XYZ and every time they ask you how you're going to pay, you say a mansion's tax. If you said every time how you're going to pay it, well, sell Buckingham Palace. I think that would presumably have some political purchase, maybe not as wide as I'd hope it to be. Let's quickly run through our only non-royal story of the evening. Before we do that, we have 4,400 people watching. We have 1,100 likes. I've just checked the numbers. Let's go over 2,000 likes while we're still live because it does help us on the algorithm. Maybe we'll have some royalist watch and converted to Republicanism and then that successful Republican movement will come just that little bit earlier. Now, International Women's Day originated in the labor movements of the early 20th century. The first Women's Day was organized in February 1909 by the Socialist Party of America. Then in 1911, more than one million people attended rallies on March the 19th in Austria, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, calling for women to be given the right to work, vote and hold public office. Interestingly, the 8th of March, which is today, as a date for International Women's Day originates in revolutionary Russia. In 1917, the day was declared a national holiday to mark women gaining suffrage. And it's only since 1977 when the UN recognized the 8th of March as International Women's Day that it's been celebrated, even if in quite a low key fashion in this country, outside socialist countries and socialist movements. Now it's unfortunately not a public holiday in Britain, but it is used as an opportunity by campaigners, journalists, politicians to talk about or to put the spotlight on gender inequality and wherever they may be. Now Ash Sarko, my co-host, my guest tonight had an interesting piece in politics home today, which was on the abuse faced by women in public life, both on social media and from our mainstream press that we've devoted so much of today's show to analyzing. Ash, to close the show, I wanna get you to talk through some of the issues you talked about in that article, sort of lots of recounting of the horrific abuse actually that you've faced throughout the time we've been working together. I have to say I do not get like 100th of that abuse, partly because I don't have the same profile as you, but also because I'm a white guy, quite easy being a white guy on social media as long as you can ignore people. And also because you blocked me on WhatsApp, so you don't have to get it anymore. Oh, maybe that was your alt that I had to block. Yeah, it was your alt. Ash, tell me about your article, tell me about your argument. So speaking as an international woman, I did an article for International Women's Day and I was asked to write about online social media abuse and it was part of the Caroline Nokes guest edited edition of the house magazine. It was for an audience of MPs and Lords and Westminster insiders. And it seemed to me that the story that needs to be told to that audience is not another one about anonymous trolls because obviously anonymous trolls do make my life worse. And luckily I've got very supportive friends and colleagues and family and also people who form part of our audience of Navarra media who make me feel really, really held and really, really supported. It doesn't change the fact that it's really horrible when it's happening. It feels very invasive. But do I think that that is the worst and most corrosive thing in politics right now? No, I don't. And I look at what happens not just to me but to women like Diane Abbott or across in the States, Ilhan Omar and AOC. And I don't see that fundamentally as the result of what anonymous flag accounts have got to say on Twitter or any other social media platform. In fact, I would say that generally hostile environment which is conducive to online abuse is one which is shaped by people who occupy very prominent and very well-paid jobs in the media. And so this is something which I talk about in my article which is on the one hand, you take somebody like Mike Graham who we've spoken about on the show before in terms of the stuff that he has said about me not just on Twitter but also on his live streamed show for Talk Radio about me being a bloke with a moustache. It's completely indistinguishable from the stuff that I would get from an anonymous account. So what's the difference there? Why is it that we're so quick to condemn the anonymous troll but when it's somebody who's got a blue tick and a radio show, which I imagine pays pretty well that there is a lack of condemnation and a lack of accountability because it seems to me that anonymity isn't the issue. And then broadening that out a bit and thinking about the way in which racism and misogyny combines with quite paranoid anti-leftism which has its origins in the kind of McCarthy era red scare. Well, let's take a figure like Tom Newton Dunn. So Tom Newton Dunn for those who are unfamiliar he now works at Times Radio but before that he was political editor at The Sun. So he was a real Westminster insider. And in December, 2019 an article appeared under his name in The Sun called hijacked labour. And hijacked labour was basically this network map which positioned Jeremy Corbyn at the centre of a hard left cabal which included myself, Hamas, the long dead philosopher, Michelle Foucault and it had these little fact files that you could click for more information for each of the 490 individuals named. And some of these fact files led to very, very questionable sources one being Arian Unity which is unsurprisingly British neo-Nazi organisation and another for the Millennium Report which is a deeply anti-Semitic conspiracy theory site. So this hijacked labour also turns out has its origins in a piece of far-right propaganda which was doing the rounds on the weirdo corners of the internet called the traitors map and it just sort of been dusted off and tidied up a bit and presented under the name of Tom Newton Dunn in The Sun. Now that map was just as deranged and unhinged and conspiratorial as that whole Three Oranges episode where randoms on the internet thought I was condoning terrorism because I posted a picture with an orange lolly. This was just as insane except it had gone through the credibility laundering process of appearing under the name of a Westminster insider. And to me that points towards something really worrying that one there is a conveyor belt between far-right fringe conspiracy theories and seemingly reputable media sources. Now I use that term very loosely with regards to The Sun. And two, that Tom Newton Dunn has never felt the need to apologize for this or to explain himself. Meanwhile, in his job at Times Radio he presents a radio show with Gloria De Piero who's a former Labour MP, somebody who has taken anti-Semitism very seriously and lots of other people who were very scathing of Labour's record on anti-Semitism are quite comfortable to appear on his show. Now, Michael, I guarantee you if either one of me or you published an article on Navara Media which had its origins in conspiratorial, racist, fringe corners of the internet and which cited anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi sources I don't think that current or former Labour MPs would feel that comfortable appearing with us. You wouldn't get Aisha Hazareka who again took the anti-Semitism issue very seriously cosying up to him when they're doing skypapers and calling him her sofa husband. You would have some modicum of accountability, some social consequence at the bare minimum to someone going, what the fuck dude? That was really messed up. So that's what I'm hinting at in this article that actually when it comes to the abuse of women of women of colour and in particular left-wing women of colour that environment is created by people within our own industry. The call is coming from inside the house and rather than asking those really difficult questions of our own industry, instead what most people do is they try and draw a veil of silence around the whole issue. And I think I know why that is. I think it's because once you've made it inside the club or inside the firm there's no kicking you out. These are people who are very enmeshed with each other's personal lives and social circles. So you don't want to ask a question of one of your drinking buddies like, hey, why did you publish that neo-Nazi conspiracy theory? But that would actually be one of the most effective, I think, means of achieving some change and a change to that sense of impunity. And that's also why I made the decision to include that particularly in the house magazine knowing that it has the audience that it has because I wanted people to see who weren't necessarily on the left just how bananas some of this coverage is and to start thinking a bit more critically when they start suggesting, oh, ban social media anonymity. In some ways anonymous trolls are the least of my problems. I mean, it's really worth saying and obviously it doesn't just boil down to this but it's significant. Everyone you mentioned there, so the two real perpetrators, Tom Newton, Dun and Mike Graham and then the two people you're saying who are sort of passively accepting that, Gloria de Piero and Aisha Hazarika, all of them are employed by the same person which is Rupert Murdoch, right? They're all under the same stable. They all owe their careers to the same man and that's why they get away with it and why they won't call each other out. We should end there, Ash. Thank you so much for giving us that insight at the end there. And for all of your royal analysis, I've had such a enjoyable, interesting evening. It's been a rollercoaster of 24 hours in the intersection of royal life, American celebrity and British politics. I imagine on Wednesday, we'll be talking about something slightly less regal but I don't know, this could be rolling on. I wouldn't want to say. Ash, thank you so much for joining me this evening. Get some well-deserved rest. It sounds like you haven't slept much. I'm about to absolutely conk out. I'm just really glad that I didn't say anything completely bizarre and I didn't libel anyone just through being delirious. Although I guess we'll spend the next few days looking out for lawyers' letters. Exactly. You never know at the time. That's what I find. We've also got a couple of shout outs thanks to Joe Clark for his 10-pound Super Chat and Natalie Pearl with 4.99. Says, birthday shout out to the comrade of my heart, Simon and much, much love to Navarra Media for keeping us sane and well informed for the past two years. Very sweet message. Happy birthday to Simon. And thank you so much for watching this episode of Tisgy Sour. If you haven't already, do make sure you hit subscribe. Thank you for your Super Chats. And if you are a regular supporter, thank you so much. You are what keeps this show on the road. If you haven't already, please do go to navarramedia.com forward slash support and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month. We'll be back on Wednesday at 7 p.m. So for now, good night. You've been watching Tisgy Sour on Navarra Media. Good night. It's been a long day.