James O'Brien clashes with Piers Morgan on 'cancel culture'
29 October 2020, 09:01
James O'Brien clashes with Piers Morgan on 'cancel culture'
This is the moment LBC's James O'Brien clashed with Piers Morgan on the subject of "cancel culture".
The exchange between the pair comes after the Good Morning Britain presenter earlier this month told LBC that the UK has become a society where people have been "bullied" into no longer being allowed to have an opinion.
Speaking to James about cancel culture, the former Daily Mirror Editor said: "I do think at the very least somebody as woke as JK Rowling should not end up with a hashtag 'RIP JK Rowling'. That is the kind of illiberal fascism which is the very thing that 'wokies' claim that they detest most in genuine fascists."
However, James argued that Mr Morgan's argument only worked in the context of debates concerning trans issues and asked him to provide examples from other areas to support his broader point.
Piers Morgan: "People have been bullied into no longer being allowed an opinion"
The pair then discussed the subjects of if James Bond should be a woman and if it was appropriate for a school for girls to tell staff that they could no longer use the word "girl".
Speaking of the latter, Mr Morgan asked: "What about the girls' right to be called a girl given 99% of the kids there are girls?"
James said: "When it comes to trans there is a tension and a confusion and an unresolved animosity between two very furiously entrenched camps but there isn't on anything else."
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Mr Morgan then brought up how Google removed an egg from its salad emoji a couple of years back, a decision he said was a reaction to "radical vegans screaming away".
He said: "What about my rights as somebody who loves eggs to have the egg in the emoji. Why does a radical vegan get to have it removed when I, like most people in the country, love eggs."
Speaking of his broader perspective on cancel culture, Mr Morgan said: "Hand on heart, my issue with it all collectively is that this kind of nonsense, what it drives is a sense of ongoing all-encompassing censorship where companies in particular are now bowing to pressure from the 'woke brigade' to virtue-signal their way to a place that I find hellish..."
