“Just finished an exclusive interview with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who’s flown to London for the coronation,” promised Piers Morgan, a man whose unearned smugness sizzles at room temperature like liquid nitrogen. Even his tweets appear to smirk. “We discussed everything from the Monarchy/Royals to China, Biden, Trump, cancel culture, gender, Ashes & Dame Edna.”
Earlier this week we said Albanese had spent the whole of the previous weekend putting every single step wrong. Turns out we’d spoken too soon by limiting it to a weekend.
“I like fighting Tories. That’s what I do,” Albanese famously said over a decade ago. And how better to demonstrate that than to return to the United Kingdom as a representative of the most enthusiastic and servile remnant of its empire, to swear an oath of allegiance to our new king? What more brutal shellacking could the forces of reaction endure than an exclusive interview with the sneering emblem of right-wing tabloid journalism (Morgan once was publicly rebuked by Rupert Murdoch for being beneath the ethical standards of the News of the World)?
Speaking of Morgan (and of people who find a way to offend the decency of Murdoch), the same day he was interviewing our PM about “cancel culture” and (Christ almighty) “the definition of a woman”, footage emerged of his off-camera back-and-forth with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, talking — and there’s no other way to put this — about Carlson’s newly swarthy balls.
“If we’re going to talk about sex, I’d love to hit some of the fine points of technique but, you know, but it’s your show. It’s totally up to you,” Carlson tells Morgan before their interview, which appears to be from April 2022.
Morgan replies, “We can certainly talk about your sexual technique, especially after your tanning testicles last week,” a reference to Carlson’s recent endorsement of that practice in his “End of Men” Fox Nation special as a way to reduce the purported decline in testosterone levels.
These are the men that our leaders seek out to discuss policy.
The conversation with Morgan is one of a series of leaks to concern Carlson since his exit from the network. Yesterday The New York Times reported on texts — sent to a producer after the Capitol riots on January 6 2021, in the same conversation during which Carlson called Donald Trump “a demonic force” — where the Fox host criticises a group of “Trump supporters” beating up someone he called an “antifa kid” on a video he’d seen weeks earlier.
He says this was “dishonourable” and not “how white men fight”, and goes on to confess:
I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me.
But that’s not what brought about his exit, most likely, argues former Fox host and slowly leaking water balloon Glenn Beck — but a recent speech in which Carlson expressed his religious faith: “When I was at Fox News, I was told not to use the word ‘God’ on the air. They COUNTED how many times I disobeyed,” Beck tweeted. “I don’t know if Tucker Carlson’s speech about God and prayer was the final straw, but I have a feeling it DEEPLY bothered Rupert Murdoch.”
Indeed, it was recently reported that Murdoch broke up with his fiancée Ann Lesley Smith on account of her “outspoken evangelical views”: “She said Tucker Carlson is a messenger from God, and he said nope,” a source told Vanity Fair.
Could Murdoch’s lack of faith be the reason Beck had to leave Fox too? Or was that more to do with the time he told Fox & Friends that then-president Barack Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people” and then his advertisers and nearly half his audience bailed? God only knows.
Do you have a problem with Anthony Albanese talking to Piers Morgan? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
It’s perplexing – going to the Coronation is just part of being PM, even swearing loyalty is part of the gig. But attending Vile Kyles wedding and talking to Piers Morgan are choices he didn’t have to make.
Is it part of some strategy to claw back working class reactionaries from the LNP? What’s next 200% depreciation on monster utes?
Unlike many, I always assumed Albanese would aim to govern for the centre of Australian politics, not the progressive left. But even I didn’t think he’d govern for the Centre Right.
But the ALP is a centre-right party. I assumed he’d govern from the left of the centre-right. And maybe he is – that’s the scary part. How fash are the rest of the ALP?
He didn’t have to go to the coronation of Charles Windsor either. He could have sent the Governor General.
I doubt that – in any case it’s an opportunity to network with other leaders while the media are distracted by 19th century piffle.
Agree. Biden stayed away. Am starting to become disillusioned with Albo’s decision-making and Labor in general. We have the same dilemma Victorian voters have… whither an alternative government?
On the vine, withering?
Sorry, that should be ‘on the branch, withering.’
Biden is the head of state of a country that defeated Britain in a war of independence. Legally, Australia is still a nation of serfs owing allegiance to the British monarch, their heirs and successors.
Until we cast that off, the PM is legally obliged to attend monarchical events as directed.
The situation has not changed legally since Menzies pronouncement of war on Germany –
“Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.”
If you don’t know your history or our legal obligations, best not to make it known.
If you voted against the republic, then YOU are responsible for Albo’s presence there.
Mock up a photo of Albo wearing a lei around his head, wearing a Hawaii shirt, and playing a ukulele and you have him summed up. It seems “he couldn’t give a rats” about Labor supporters and the less well off, but trying overly hard to win over swinging LNP voters and the wealthy. A great disappointment. If he mentions his humble origins while crying crocodile tears we will all puke.
Remember when Katharine Murphy nailed Scomo as only trying to appeal to “men who might vote Labor”? Albo is a mirror image of Scomo!
A particularly bad look a few days before what is shaping up to be a budget of missed opportunity for most of us.
A bit of honesty goes a long way. Admit it – you’d never vote labor in a pink fit, would you ?
More concerned about his relationship with Sandilands – one of the most atrocious media person in the country. But I must say as a long time supporter of Mr Albanese I am finding his recent associations a little disturbing.
Agreed. I can find nothing redeeming in Sandilands nor in Morgan.
Somebody should advise Albo that he appears to be enjoying the role of being PM. Not a good look to many. The correct demeanour should be one that conveys a person who is concentrated on solving many pressing problems and has little time for frivolities.
The correct demeanor is one that most anyone in a supposed democracy wouldn’t recognise: stop lavishing taxpayer money on all the frivolities and baubles the upper tier of alleged public servants are accustomed to rolling in, and make a point of telling all the fat privileged entitled fcks we have to tighten our belts to make life livable for the poor, and leading by example.
Whatever happened to that: “leading by example”?
No objection to anyone doing a good job to enjoy themselves at our expense but AA?
And those with whom he has been having such a good time are iffy at best.
So looking hangdog 100% of the time is the correct demeanor ? Bet you’re the life of the party.
Good lord, Crikey is really collapsing on the fainting couch over nothing here. Morgan is deplorable but he has an audience who wouldn’t ordinarily hear from a Labor politician in their media bubble. I’d love to see Dutton sit down with Guy Rundle for a grilling. Wouldn’t mean Dutton is now a raging commie and we all know Crikey would rightly mock any conservative media who claimed it did.
Dutton wouldn’t deign to speak with Grundle in a pink fit.
All yourself why. It’s the mirror image of the substance here.
Ask yourself… Goddamn lack of an edit button plus swiping to type is super poop
Morgan like Andrew Neill can actually interview people well when he wants to, in the vein of Mehdi Hasan, especially US grifters etc. who get velvet glove treatment in US media (like Oz), but the former will keep repeating same question again and again till they receive an answer…. local media don’t even ask let alone persist….. think it was Leigh Sales years ago fawning all over Andrew Neill ‘do you like Australia?’…… so parochial and star struck….