In short
Legal dispute over Earl Spencer’s Diana-related book “Diana Swan Song” and whether Piers Morgan will force copies to be pulped; discussion also touches on UK politics (Chagos Islands) later in the episode.
Guests/backgrounds
Piers Morgan is a former British tabloid editor and TV personality. Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang are the hosts of Las Cultureistas.
Key claims
Morgan says Spencer’s “small error” is actually defamatory and spans pages, claiming Spencer wrongly wrote that Morgan was editor at the Mirror in 1993 during the publication of paparazzi photos of Princess Diana in her gym, and that Morgan’s spokesman boasted about sales and later Morgan’s side paid damages. Morgan says he joined Mirror Group two years later, so the book’s portrayal is false. Morgan demands removal/pulping of existing copies and says damages would go to King Charles’s charity. He also argues Spencer’s broader “historian” credibility is undermined by other alleged inaccuracies (e.g., Charles “celebrating” Diana’s death).
Notable examples
Morgan cites the Mirror Group’s reported £1m+ damages payout to Diana; he references his own 2005 diary-based book “The Insider” for a contemporaneous note about a phone call with Spencer; hosts discuss the “pulp”/“mash” framing.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to Piers Morgan's Legal Situation
1:27 to 1:41
Discussion on Piers Morgan's legal action regarding inaccuracies in Earl Spencer's book.
“Will that be enough to satisfy Piers Morgan?”
Piers Morgan's Response to the Allegations
1:41 to 5:32
Analysis of Piers Morgan's defense against claims made in Earl Spencer's book.
“It was where he'd literally got the dates wrong of Piers tenure at the head of the Mirror newspaper.”
Earl Spencer's Claims and Their Implications
5:32 to 8:02
Exploration of the implications of Earl Spencer's allegations against Piers Morgan and the royal family.
“Maybe this man who has written history books, who calls himself a historian, cannot be trusted as a first-person historian on his own life.”
Piers Morgan's Defense and Historical Context
8:02 to 11:49
Detailed defense by Piers Morgan regarding past events related to Princess Diana and his involvement.
“And Piers, you probably heard Earl Spencer on this morning with Lorraine.”
Conclusion of Piers Morgan's Statements
11:49 to 14:00
Final remarks from Piers Morgan about his legal stance and past interactions with the Spencer family.
“I'm guessing that payment to the King's Trust of all the charities was chosen for that reason.”
Mistakes in Memoir: Defending Accuracy
14:00 to 18:12
Explore the complexities of diary writing and the misconceptions surrounding it.
“And it's a specific diary entry in there based on a contemporaneous note I took after the phone call.”
Earl Spencer's Claims and Their Impact
18:12 to 24:25
Discuss the potential damages caused by Spencer's assertions in his book.
“So you don't have a problem with the book as a whole.”
Legal Action: The Path Forward
24:25 to 28:05
Understand the legal implications and potential consequences of the dispute.
“Just to close in on this then, ultimately, if he does not agree to pulp the additions that are out and incorrect, you are going to sue him.”
Discussion on Piers Morgan and Earl Spencer's Book
28:05 to 30:23
Explore the implications of factual accuracy and legal scrutiny in book publishing.
“It was online, you know, from Newsnight.”
Discussion on Piers Morgan and Earl Spencer's Book
30:55 to 31:15
Explore the implications of factual accuracy and legal scrutiny in book publishing.
“HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs.”
Show all 11 chapters
Political Analysis of Andy Burnham and Trump
31:23 to 37:12
Delve into the political dynamics between Andy Burnham and Donald Trump regarding national security issues.
“And he's going to be, I think he's going to be a great Prime Minister.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This is Matt Rogers from Las Cultureistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Cultureistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We've been talking about Kewpie mayo for a minute now, and wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise, the one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only, giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it.
0:35You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't you? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. This is a global production. What about the allegations from Piers Morgan? He's going to pursue legal action because there were some inaccuracies. Well, there was one. Will you've apologised for it? And it's going to be changed? Absolutely. I mean, unlike some journalists who we know of, I'm very happy to acknowledge I made a small error and I've apologised and it will be put right in the second edition.
1:15Andy Burnham:Earl Spencer's apologised for the error he made over Piers Morgan. But is he actually going to have to pulp his entire first edition of that book?
1:26Jon Sopel:Yeah, Charles Spencer has said it was a small error. Will that be enough to satisfy Piers Morgan? We're going to ask him. Welcome to The News Agents.
1:40The News Agents It's John
1:44Andy Burnham:It's Maylis and the first indication that we had that Piers Morgan was unhappy with Earl Spencer's new book about Diana Swan Song was when he went on his own show as he is wont to do and essentially did a long-ish rant to camera Now, if you Google Piers Morgan longish rant to camera, you will come up with quite a few. But this one really hit home because this was the moment that he unearthed what he called a defamatory couple of pages in the book, where Earl Spencer had not just name called, not just described a phone call with Piers as being a bit tetchy. It was where he'd literally got the dates wrong of Piers tenure at the head of the Mirror newspaper.
2:42And that was something that Piers Morgan was just unlikely, could not resist, pointing out to our Spencer in very strong legal terms.
2:55Jon Sopel:And so what we have at the moment is Piers Morgan with a very straight face, but hiding a very big smile, making the prosecution case against this book and calling for it to be pulped for all the books that are in the bookshops now in Britain and around the world to be taken off and to be turned into mash. Pulp fiction. Yeah. Pulp Fiction, as the Sun headline, had it very cleverly this morning. And Piers Morgan, I mean, you said it was a rant. I actually listened to that whole. I thought he was very calm and the way he led up to it and he quoted extensively from the book and then just said, essentially, it's all bullshit.
3:39Jon Sopel:I wasn't the editor at the time. You have got this factually wrong. You have libeled me. What the hell are you going to do about it?
3:47Andy Burnham:Yeah, I mean, as an author, what a heart sinking moment to get that first call from your publishers. I don't know if you've seen this, you know, the little clip that pops up in your WhatsApp. I'm not sure if you've seen this. I think we better have a conversation because everyone gets things wrong. I think that's fair to say. And everyone can normally apologise for the things they've got wrong or correct the things they've got wrong. if it's a date or a name or a place or whatever. But Piers Morgan made the point there that it felt quite vindictive in its description of him having lost a major legal case against Diana because of an invasion of her privacy.
4:31Andy Burnham:And it's true that the Mirror Group did have to pay out about a million pounds at that time for showing pictures of Diana in her gym kit and her leotard. and Piers Morgan was made to be the villain at the centre and all he had to do was turn around and go, there was a villain, but it wasn't me. Interestingly, he doesn't name-check the former editor, so he's not actually trying to get anyone else into trouble here. He's just pointing out that he was literally the rival newspaper at The Sun at that time, about as far away from the mirror as he could be. And why this is becoming quite an interesting story, I guess, is A, because, you know, the royals, King Charles, the allegations that have been made in the last week are now right back at the forefront of many people's minds.
5:19Andy Burnham:And we probably won't forget that description, explosive description that Spencer made about the king, about how happy, how gleeful he was about Diana's death. And I think Piers Morgan recognised that this was, if you like, his in, to not only call out the inconsistencies and the errors about Piers Morgan, but to raise the idea in many people's minds that actually maybe the whole book was bullshit. Maybe the whole thing was fabricated. Maybe this man who has written history books, who calls himself a historian, cannot be trusted as a first-person historian on his own life.
6:01Jon Sopel:Look, just think of the furore there was about the salt path, and that was only about a walk in Cornwall. This is about the royal family and what happened with Diana and what happened with Charles and what happened. I mean, it's kind of 30 years ago. It could not be more incendiary. And yet the whole book is being called into question as a result of this factual error.
6:22Andy Burnham:So, I mean, he's done a huge favour, a huge, a solid, let's say, to the king who went as far as he probably could in terms of slapping Spencer down, talking about fraternal grief, which really means, you know, he lost his mind and he made it all up. And I think he has also just raised the spectre in a lot of people's minds that they should be slightly more questioning about the stuff that is in there. We're going to talk to Piers Morgan. And I think, you know, knowing Piers as we do, he's a man who never, let's say, shies away from being at the centre of a public storm. In fact, if there's anyone who runs towards the fire.
7:02Andy Burnham:Oh, God, how awful. Here I am, right in the middle of the world's media. But still, he makes a very compelling case for why he's taking the legal action he is. The whole Piers Morgan interview, coming up next.
7:22This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East, thus with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East, thus with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We've been talking about Kewpie mayo for a minute now. And wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only. Giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it.
7:58You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't you? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie.
8:16Andy Burnham:Well, Piers Morgan joins us now. And Piers, you probably heard Earl Spencer on this morning with Lorraine. And we're just going to play you a clip of his response to the sort of story so far. What about the allegations from Piers Morgan? He's going to pursue legal action because there were some inaccuracies. Well, there was one. Will you apologise for it? And it's going to be changed? Absolutely. I mean, unlike some journalists who we know of, I'm very happy to acknowledge I made a small error and I've apologised and it will be put right in the second edition. But that's it. He's calling it a small error that will be put right.
8:57Andy Burnham:Can you kind of let things rest there?
9:00Piers Morgan:No, because it's not a small error, is it? Because at the heart of this, there are several pages of his book devoted to what he calls a small error. Well, the small error is him detailing how the Mirror Group, the Sunday Mirror in 1993, perpetrated in terms of the cost to the Mirror Group, ultimately, the most egregious invasion of royal privacy in history when they published paparazzi pictures of Diana inside a gym working out in private. And he goes on to say that not only was I running the paper at the time, but that my spokesman boasted about increased sales figures, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
9:41Piers Morgan:Then the sales fell because the public opprobrium fell on us. And then we caved and then paid in a millions to Diana, which is true. The mirror grip paid well over a million pounds to Diana in damages. and so I come across as a despicable invader of royal privacy in his eyes and to all the people that read the book the problem is I wasn't at the mirror group at the time I didn't join the mirror group for two more years so this is not a small error he's personally saying that I orchestrated and benefited and then paid the price for a really shocking invasion of Diana's privacy and you know whatever people want to say about other stuff I've done as an editor and so on it doesn't dilute the impact of what he's published here being a defamatory lie now he knows the problem he's in because he's immediately issued a public apology to me which will have stuck in his gullet and he did that very very quickly before we'd even had a chance to send our legal letter in our lettering went last night from shillings and we're simply asking for the defamatory lie that he now concedes is completely wrong, this story, should be removed.
10:49Piers Morgan:And that means if they have to pop the book, they pop the book and start again.
10:52Andy Burnham:So what, 200 ,000 or whatever it is, copies of the book destroyed. You'd like that completely out and then you'll withdraw your threat. If he doesn't do that, where is this going in terms of your legal demands then?
11:06Piers Morgan:Well, I'm not making any money grab for myself. I've made it clear that any damages that we secure will go to the King's Trust, which is King Charles's charity. So the longer this goes on, the higher, obviously, the exponential damage will be by the fact that this defamatory lie remains in the book, and the more copies will be sold, and therefore, the damages ultimately just accelerate. It's a prima facie case. I mean, you ask any media lawyer, and we have the best media legal firm in the country in shillings, we've taken a good long look at it, and it's just It's an open and shut case. They should be racing to settle this as fast as possible.
11:44Piers Morgan:Every copy of the book that now gets sold exacerbates the damage they've done.
11:48Andy Burnham:You talked about the apology sticking in his gullet. I'm guessing that payment to the King's Trust of all the charities was chosen for that reason. Is that right? You just kind of want to piss him off.
12:01Piers Morgan:Well, no, I think he's the one pissing everybody off. I mean, he's published a complete lie about me designed to damage me. And more interestingly, I think, and probably more pertinent to the big picture of the book, which is that his big sales pitch, I heard him with Lorraine this morning saying that his only purpose in writing the book was to be lovely about his sister. he had no intention of targeting or attacking the king. Really? Because the very big first story that emerged from the serialisation was him, Earl Spencer, accusing the then Prince Charles of being as giddy with excitement as a lottery winner over Princess Diana's death.
12:40Piers Morgan:It is hard to imagine a more shocking or damaging allegation to be made by Diana's brother against the now king of this country and I don't believe Charles said that and the reason I don't believe it is because there's also in the book an account by Earl Spencer of a phone call that he and I had in the same week that he had the call with Charles 30 years ago so in the aftermath of Diana's death and before the funeral in which he uninvited me and other tabloid editors from the funeral we'd all been invited by the Lord Chamberlain's office. I had specifically asked the Lord Chamberlain, has this been cleared with the Spencer family and was told he had?
13:20Piers Morgan:I said, under that circumstance, I will accept the invitation. He rang me the next day to say, I don't want you to come. The family don't want you to come. I'm ringing other editors to say the same. I explained very respectfully and politely the conversation I'd had with the Lord Chamberlain's office. He said, notwithstanding that, we would prefer you not to be there. I said, I completely respect your wishes and said, And by the way, could you please pass my deepest conternences to your mother, who I've got to know very well over the years. And I feel terrible for her and all the family right now.
13:50Piers Morgan:You said, I will do that. Thank you very much. I know that's an accurate record of the conversation because I wrote a book called The Insider in 2005 that was a massive bestselling volume of diaries. And it's a specific diary entry in there based on a contemporaneous note I took after the phone call. and people can go back and they can read that diary entry themselves and they can work out whether they think my account of the tone of that conversation is rude and surly and all the other things he's accused me of or is it respectful and polite and cognizant that this man had just lost his sister?
14:27Jon Sopel:Piers, isn't it possible that, you know, mistakes get made when you're writing a diary? I think you talked in your diaries about having tea with Tony Blair at a date in Downing Street when John Major was still the prime minister.
14:42Piers Morgan:Well, I didn't defame anybody with any of the mistakes in my book. My book was a volume of diaries. I made it clear it wasn't a handwritten journal every night. I had an unbelievably large number of boxes of little notes and letters and emails and notes I'd made to myself about various times I'd gone to Downing Street. I went to see Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister 56 times in 11 years for one-on-one meetings. So what happened with the diary entry about the cup of tea with him and Cherie and others was I just put it in the wrong year. The entry was entirely accurate and correct and never disputed.
15:17Piers Morgan:I just had it in the wrong year because I put the wrong year on the actual note that I had. So there were two or three examples like that in my book. But at no stage did I defame anybody. These were purely entries put in the wrong place. Now, there's obviously a qualitative difference between that. Everybody makes mistakes in books, right? You do typos, you get things slightly wrong, whatever. But this is an egregious, defamatory lie about me. And it goes over several pages. This is not just a little mistake in a paragraph.
15:49Jon Sopel:OK, just where are you now then with sort of your lawyers, shillings, as you've said, and talking to Penguin Random House? I mean, do you think they are considering pulping the book or are they kind of hoping that you will settle for something less that it is a correction in the second edition?
16:07Piers Morgan:Well, I just don't think that's acceptable at all. I mean, Earl Spencer seems to think he can dismiss it as a small mistake and we all just move on. As if the fact that right now there are tens of thousands of copies of that book being sold with this very serious lie about me in them. I'm just not going to accept it. I don't think anyone should accept it. frankly if i wrote a book and defamed somebody to that degree if i deliberately accused them of orchestrating the worst invasion of royal privacy in history that led to a seven-figure payout to princess dinah somebody who i personally got on very well with in the last few years of her life went to lunch with her at kensington palace with prince william just the three of us she used to ring me i used to ring her i'd run stories by her i'd kill stories we announced we weren't going to run any more paparazzi pictures where it looked like she'd been harassed or intimidated.
16:55Piers Morgan:That was at her request. She was incredibly grateful. So I would argue from everything I know about the last two years of her life, I probably had a better relationship with his sister than he did from all accounts that I've read. So this is why it matters to me.
17:09Andy Burnham:Yeah, you've called this egregious and defamation. I guess I'm curious as to why you think Earl Spencer wrote this about you? Do you think it was just a small mistake, his words? He got things wrong, everyone gets stuff wrong. Or do you think he hates you?
17:26Piers Morgan:I don't know if he hates me or not. He's a weird sort of mercurial figure. He turned, I mean, I used to have, you might have come to one of them, but I used to have monthly lunches at the Mirror where I'd invite all the great and good from business and media and celebrity and whatever, and royals on occasion. And he accepted an invitation to come in the early 2000s. I can't remember exactly which year. and he was charm personified and we got on very well and you know that was the last time I saw him so I picked up the book and simply asked my team can you find out what he said about me and I wasn't really sure what he said about me and it turned out he stuck my knife in but he stuck my knife in in a way that if he's purporting to be this great historian was obviously very antithetical to being a historian because it's completely factually inaccurate and the worst thing about It's so easy to check.
18:11Piers Morgan:You know, to remind myself, I simply Googled Diana Jimpitch's furore, Up It All Came, chronology.
18:18Andy Burnham:So you don't have a problem with the book as a whole. I'm just trying to understand your stance on it.
Read the full transcript
18:23Piers Morgan:I have a problem with the motivation because I do think that he was on record after Diana died when he was liberally attacking the media, which is his right to do with her brother. I completely understand that. But it wasn't the British tabloids that had anything to do with what happened in the underpass in Paris. So many of us on the tabloids had a very good relationship with Donna. Me, Richard Kaye at the Daily Mail and others. We were regular confidants of hers. He may not have even been aware of that. She might not have told him. They weren't that close, I was told by the end. But the reality about where we are with this is he's entitled to write his book, but he did say on the record, on camera, and a clip that's been doing the rounds all week, that he would never, as the brother of Princess Donna, ever profit from her or her death.
19:07Piers Morgan:And yet here he is, 30 years later, profiting from her and her death. It reminds me exactly of Prince Harry's hypocrisy with everything he's done in the media landscape, where he trashes his family and the monarchy and so on, whilst also wanting to be private and attack newspapers for invasion to privacy and all the rest of it. It is just shameless hypocrisy.
19:29Andy Burnham:I can understand your position on hypocrisy if you think that he's just in it to make money. I guess more widely, and this is a point that Tina Brown makes, very respected in terms of her royal books. We would want to know these memories, wouldn't we? If these were, whether he's a historian or not, he is a man at the very centre of this whole episode of massive public life. And if this was written confidentially in a letter, you know, it would be published anyway, presumably after his death. You do want to hear this period of history from somebody right at the centre, don't you? I mean, it would be crazy to say this stuff should never, ever come out.
20:09Piers Morgan:But how do we know any of it's true? I mean, I know for a fact that what he's written about me is completely untrue. I know his characterisation of the phone call we had is completely untrue. Well, that's what I'm asking.
20:17Andy Burnham:Do you believe none of this is true? I don't know. There may have been factual inaccuracies, as you had in The Insider, but broadly, this is a period of history and we might as well hear it from the horse's mouth.
20:28Piers Morgan:Well, I think it's really important if you're going to claim you're a historian, you're doing it for historic reasons, which is what he's doing, you better be damn sure that your facts are right. And my issue with this is his facts are clearly not right. And that's only about me. I haven't even read the rest of it yet. I imagine that if he's been as slipshod with me as he is with others, there might be many more examples. I mean, he actually said in his apology that he assumed I was the editor at the time. What historian makes such a lazy assumption when there's a two year gap between me joining the Mirror Group and this enormous high profile case being settled?
21:04Piers Morgan:That's not the work of a proper historian. So it's the fact he's made himself out to be a historian and the fact that he went on Laura Koonsberg at the weekend and said repeatedly, I'm a historian. That's why you can believe me. I am telling the truth. And he repeated that again with Lorraine. I don't believe him. I don't believe for a moment that Prince Charles, a few hours after Diana was killed, was celebrating like a lottery winner. I think it's a grotesque and sickening thing to say about Charles, given that everyone else around him at the time told me he was completely shocked and grief-stricken.
21:35Piers Morgan:Nor do I believe for a moment that Charles would have said to him, the grieving brother of his ex-wife, that we'll forget about her soon. I just don't believe it. So why don't I believe it even more emphatically now? Because I know what he's put in the book about my conversation with him on the phone in the same week is also grotesquely wrong. That's why I don't trust him.
21:56Jon Sopel:Piers, when your researchers found the entry about you in the book, were you angry or did you laugh? Because frankly, the world's media have been knocking at your door, us included. We want to hear what your take on it is. You are at the centre of this route and probably the person best placed to prosecute it. I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe you're enjoying it.
22:23Piers Morgan:Well, I've never been afraid to admit that I like being in the centre of a media firestorm. You know, that's been something that I've been perfectly happy to be for four decades. Do I mind appearing on your show right now to talk about something where I think that I emerge in a good light against somebody who has done an egregious thing against me? No, it's fine. It's better than being on the receiving end of having to defend the indefensible when I've got things wrong. And I don't pretend to be the Mother Teresa of the media. I have got things wrong. What John's saying is you're loving it. What John is saying is, are you a dog with two dicks?
23:01Piers Morgan:Well, it's a very unusual way to describe me. But if you would like to say that in that slightly jealous tone, yes. No, look, it's not that I'm loving it. I have no problem going out and defending myself in a situation like this when it's a huge global story, which it's become. I'm getting calls from all over the world. I will go out and defend myself and I will explain to people why this matters and why I think that actually the stuff about me matters to me, but it's fairly inconsequential in the wider scheme of things with this book. The real damage has been done by Earl Spencer to the reputation of King Charles, who I think has been doing an extraordinary job given he's got cancer and he's 77 years old.
23:42Piers Morgan:He's had the scandal with his brother. He's had the terrible fallout with his son, Harry and his wife, Meghan, and all the damage they've caused the royals. You know, he's had Catherine, his daughter-in-law, also fighting cancer. He's lost his father and his mother. This is a man who's been through an awful lot and yet has actually barely put a foot wrong as our monarch. And now he has to deal with stuff from 30 years ago by somebody who's deliberately put out as the selling point of the book, not how lovely Diana was, but how disgusting Charles was and saying stuff which I frankly don't believe.
24:14Piers Morgan:So I think me exposing the lack of veracity in this book is important and significant in protecting the reputation of our king against what I think is an unfair attack. Just to close in on this then, ultimately, if he does not agree to pulp the additions that are out and incorrect, you are going to sue him.
24:38Andy Burnham:Is that correct?
24:39Piers Morgan:Yeah, we have taken legal action already. We've put the letter in. You're taking him to court? Yeah, if it comes to it, we'll go to court. It's an open and shut case. He's never going to get to court unless they, I don't know.
24:50Andy Burnham:What kind of damages are you looking for? I mean, if this is in monetary terms, what would that mean?
24:54Piers Morgan:Well, it just gets more egregious the more damage is caused by the more people who read the lie. I don't know. I don't know. That's for lawyers to thrash out. But I do know the problem for him is going to get worse, not better with every day he doesn't deal with this. And the problem for Penguin will get more expensive every day we don't deal with this. And my issue with Penguin is where were the fact checkers? Did you not have a fact checker on this historical book? Did you not think anyone should be just checking basic things? like when I became editor of the Mirror? Was it consistent that I could have been the guy in charge when this terrible invasion of privacy happened with a seven-figure payout?
25:32Piers Morgan:This is not a small mistake. It's a massive clangor. And I was the victim on this occasion of that. But like I say, the bigger picture for me is it goes to the heart of his general veracity in writing this book and his claim to be a historian and the damage he's trying to do to our king.
25:50Jon Sopel:And is it possible that you think that maybe the penguin lawyers who i'm sure are huddling as we speak are saying well as you yourself say you know mother theresa and therefore what what is the extent of defamation against the former tabloid editor i mean does his reputation really sync with this it's a small case let's fight it okay well then fight it i'll see you in court piz morgan thanks for joining us thank you
26:20Andy Burnham:what what do we think a dog with two dicks is exactly a very happy dog a very happy that's
26:28Jon Sopel:what we think a dog with two dicks is that we're not we're not going to face a defamation case from all i was trying to suggest in maybe a rather unconventional form and a slangy form was he must be very happy with the way things have turned out because for piers i mean he's hit the bullseye with this you know this libel alleged libel that has taken place in the book and I think it's you know plays to all
26:54Andy Burnham:his strengths. I have to say it is the perfect triangle for Piers Morgan I feel like I know Piers well enough to know that he will adore that this has happened. Yeah. That he gets to be absolutely on the moral high ground. He is, he's correct you know if somebody's written something about you that is not only untrue but is really quite ugly and damaging then yeah, you get to put it right. But to set the record straight against somebody you may or may not already kind of loathe, it's probably quite a nice place to be. And it allows Piers to be very, I think, patriotic, very regal, very close to the king and Camilla in his words.
27:38Andy Burnham:I'm sure, I'm sure that's being heard in the palace. I'm sure the knighthood is on its way. Not that it comes from the king but you know what I mean so I think he has I think he's sort of played a blinder over this because it's hard to fault the logic of what he's saying and yet you're left with that slightly uncomfortable feeling that he's never had a better week also if you're Earl Spencer you're thinking oh fuck fuck fuck fuck of all the people I could have got it wrong with I've got it
28:05Jon Sopel:wrong with bloody Piers Morgan who I hate who I don't like why didn't I get the name of a charity
28:10Andy Burnham:wrong or something he would have been understanding but just wanted a lot of money for the charity I also do think that you know you and I have gone through the book writing process and the lawyers
28:20Jon Sopel:are all over you can we defend that are we sure of that have you got a factual bet you know I have
28:25Andy Burnham:the best copywriter ever copy you know corrector for my book and she went through she was absolutely brilliant she went through every single chapter and she said oh you know you said you were wearing a white jacket in the interview with Emma Thompson, I actually went back and I checked the interview, you know, which was there. It was online, you know, from Newsnight. And actually it looks like it's sort of beige with specs in it. And I was like, great, let's check. That's incredibly good, you know, research from somebody who has just a vested interest in helping you consistently be accurate. And I don't understand why he didn't have that.
29:02Jon Sopel:No, exactly. And, you know, and the legal department will go through everything with an absolute fine tooth comb. To think, is any of this libelous, actionable, defamatory? And, you know, the questions they ask... That should be leaping out at you. That should be absolutely bloody leaping out. So it is astonishing that something that is so kind of elemental and so easy to check got through. And I think that it has weakened Spencer. Look, you know, the rollout was going pretty well. He'd got a kind of nice big show on the BBC primetime on Sunday. There was, you know, American TV was similarly kind of queuing up.
29:44Jon Sopel:It was all going so swimmingly well. Big serialisation in the mail with those terrible headlines about the king. Probably exactly what he wanted. And bang, it's now looking like, well, how much of this can we trust? How much of this can we believe?
29:58Andy Burnham:Yeah. Publishers, if you're listening to this, we want to know how much it costs to pulp. 200 ,000 books. And is it cheaper than facing Piers Morgan in a settlement? Probably, right? Yeah. Don't know. Don't know. Tell us.
30:14Jon Sopel:We'll be back.
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31:31Great election win. That was a big one. And he's going to be, I think he's going to be a great Prime Minister. I think he's got a lot of assets on his side. And we talked about everything from Rolls Royce to energy to immigration. We covered a lot. And we're with him. It's a special, really special country. And we are with you all the way, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you, Mr. President. That's wonderful.
31:56Jon Sopel:Well, Andy Burnham couldn't have asked for much more at that stage from Donald Trump, which was the first time they'd sat down and met, as you could tell and hear and see. The cameras were there to record it. And Donald Trump was full of praise and Downing Street probably loved it. I would just caution that Donald Trump does say these sort of things. And it's when things get down to business that you see, you know, how sturdy the friendship is with Donald Trump. And it tends not to be that sturdy as Keir Starmer would be quick to find out when he was told he was no Winston Churchill.
32:32Andy Burnham:Yeah. And the same is starting to happen already to Andy Burnham. When we left you yesterday, you'll remember that we were reporting on the phone call that Burnham had reported having with the Mauritian prime minister. and it was suggestive that he was going to carry on Keir Starmer's stance with the Chagos Islands and presumably we were talking about this for reasons of national security or possibly because of the continuation of Jonathan Powell. In that same job, he was going to stick with what Keir Starmer had offered, which was essentially handing back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and then leasing out Diego Garcia at the cost of an unknown quantity of billions.
33:14Andy Burnham:So we highlighted the phrase that he used, which is he would do everything possible to make this deal come about. Less than five hours later, the whole deal seems to be on hold because he was asked about handing back the Chagos Islands when he was with Donald Trump. I think it was Tony Diver of The Telegraph who said what's going to happen. And you heard straight away from Trump how much he still hates this. It's a terrible deal. It's a bad idea. whilst Andy Burnham is sitting there. And what came after that was essentially an agreement from Burnham to review the plans to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, where Streeting, the Defence Secretary, has now confirmed the plans are on hold, adding, we're not going to go ahead without the Americans.
34:03Andy Burnham:So this is, to your point, really interesting. We did pick out that line, everything possible. Was he already starting to show that it wouldn't happen? Because we heard that it was going to happen. And now he's basically saying it's all on hold. You can have a lot of graciousness with Trump sitting there. But as soon as you come out of the room, what have you done? You've basically caved your whole plan because the guys just told you it's terrible.
34:28Jon Sopel:If you just do a simple pros and cons, a sort of ledger of good side, bad side of doing this deal. What is on the good side of doing this deal? I mean, yeah, a bit of international law supports you. Yes, that's what Mauritius wants. But you piss off Donald Trump and make the relationship with the US even more difficult. But even more importantly, it's got such little support in Britain. And so electorally, you know, I think Andy Burnham had the tone and it was very interesting. He used this phrase that this is something I have inherited. Yeah, it's not mine. This is not I didn't design this. I want out of this.
35:06Jon Sopel:And you can see it's a win-win from Burnham's point of view. Trump will love him for it. And the British people think it's a terrible deal and will think, oh, well, Andy Burnham overturned it.
35:17Andy Burnham:I get that. I totally I hear that. But my only question is, if this was the deal that the Tories actually put in place in the first place, and if this is the deal that has been recommended not once but twice by Jonathan Powell, is there something, is there some bit of national security that we still do not know about? Is there an imminent invasion by the Chinese or whatever? I don't know that we do not know about, which is what is making British policy recommend this as the more safe option. In other words, you do not want to be left holding the Chagos Islands because you do not know what's coming at you.
35:47Andy Burnham:That's my question. And sometimes the British public, you know, yeah, we love being informed, but we're actually not particularly well informed about issues of national security. We don't know what's going on here. And since when did we take the capriciousness of a loser president who is actually at his lowest point in the polls, who has proved time and again that he doesn't actually understand the art of the deal, that he doesn't understand how to stop a war, that he doesn't really understand negotiation at the highest level, that he can't actually make the economy. Since when did we suddenly turn around and go, oh, well, yeah, OK, we better do what Trump wants, because that that really makes sense.
36:22Andy Burnham:That hasn't worked for anyone.
36:24Jon Sopel:Look, I fully agree about, you know, Trump and the position of his presidency right now. But the thing that Keir Starmer could never explain is why it was costing Britain billions of pounds to give back the Chagos Islands and how that was possibly a good deal for the British taxpayer when America, you know. Now, look, in fairness, you know, Keir Starmer had originally got the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on board with the Chagos deal. And it was then that Donald Trump said, this is a load of old rubbish and I want it binned. I think Andy Burnham has come in, looked at the billions it's going to cost, looked at what voter attitudes in the UK is, looked at what the attitude of Donald Trump is and thought, there's one very simple solution here.
37:11Jon Sopel:Bin it. Bin it.
37:12Andy Burnham:Yeah.
37:13Jon Sopel:We'll be back tomorrow.
37:14Andy Burnham:We'll see you then.
37:14Jon Sopel:Bye bye. This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We've been talking about Kewpie mayo for a minute now. And wow, so many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Kewpie? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Kewpie is made with egg yolks only. giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it.
37:52You haven't tried it yet? Well, find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about, why don't you? Kewpie. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Kewpie. This has been a global production.
From the publisher
"I made a small error and I've apologised and it will be put right in the second edition, but that's it." That's what Earl Spencer told Lorraine this morning. The error in question is about Piers Morgan. In his new book, Spencer claims that Morgan published a hidden camera photo of Diana in 1993 while working for the Daily Mirror. The big problem with that? Morgan didn't join the Mirror until 1995. He's launched legal action against Diana's brother - and speaks to Jon and Emily.
Later, Andy Burnham will be pleased that his first face to face with Donald Turmp went off without any major hiccup. Their meeting on the sidelines of the UN was actually pretty chummy in large part - so why is the UK now having to rethink its plan for the Chagos Islands as a result?
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