Thursday, January 7
Six years ago I was having dinner with a friend at Cafe Boulud, an acclaimed New York restaurant, when a scruffy, unshaven man burst inside and screamed: ‘SELL EVERYTHING YOU F**KING OWN AND PUT THE MONEY INTO TESLA STOCK! YOU’LL ALL BE BILLIONAIRES!’
He carried on shouting the same thing for several minutes before he was eventually wrestled away and thrown outside, still loudly beseeching us all to invest in the electric-car firm.
‘What a lunatic,’ my Wall Street savvy friend chuckled. ‘Tesla’s going nowhere.’
‘Really?’ I replied. ‘This feels like a sign to me.’
The price at the time was about $30 a share. It recently hit $854, making Tesla’s maverick founder, Elon Musk (above), the new richest man in the world, worth $185 billion
‘No! Trust me, Tesla will be a gigantic bust.’ And we went back to our steaks. What we should have done was left immediately, sold everything we owned and put the money into Tesla stock.
The price at the time was about $30 a share. It recently hit $854, making Tesla’s maverick founder, Elon Musk, the new richest man in the world, worth $185 billion.
Had I ignored my friend and listened to the lunatic then, I’d now be a billionaire.
‘Life is too short for long-term grudges,’ Musk once said. Perhaps, but in my friend’s case, I’m prepared to make an exception.
Wednesday, January 13
My relationship with Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been a rocky one during this pandemic.
It hit a low point in June when I branded him a ‘dithering, blundering, inconsistent, disingenuous, lying bullsh**ter whose abject failures have made us the laughing stock of the world’.
But that didn’t stop him being the only member of the Cabinet to send me a hand-written Christmas card. And some of our regular exchanges on Good Morning Britain have become the stuff of viral legend, not least when he broke down and sobbed on the day the Covid vaccines were first rolled out.
Today he put up a creditable performance under interrogation from Susanna Reid and me, until I asked him for his reaction to Marcus Rashford once again shaming the Government over free school meals for our poorest kids – this time highlighting the scandalously meagre food parcels being sent to some families.
‘I’m really glad that we’re able to send out food for those who receive free school meals!’ Hancock declared proudly.
‘Well, if you’re that glad,’ I retorted, ‘then can I just ask you a difficult question: why did you vote against it?’
In October, Hancock was one of 320 Tory MPs who voted down a proposal to extend the school meals scheme over the winter – only for the Government to then do it anyway after a public outcry led by Rashford.
‘Well, I’m really glad we were able to put it into place!’ he replied, smirking.
‘Again,’ I countered, ‘if you’re that glad, why did you as Health Secretary vote against it?’
‘Well… because… the reason that I’m glad now,’ stammered Hancock, sitting in what looked like a lavishly decorated Victorian toilet at his home, ‘is because we’ve been able to sort that out!’
‘No thanks to you,’ interjected Susanna.
‘Let’s be honest,’ I said, ‘you got shamed into it by a young football player with a conscience who managed to prick the conscience of you and the Government. Do you regret voting against it?’
‘Well, of course…’
Wait, was he about to admit it? No.
‘I’m pleased we’re making sure that during this lockdown…’
‘That wasn’t my question,’ I interrupted. ‘I asked if you regretted voting against it. It’s a very important question, because you wouldn’t have done it without Marcus Rashford’s campaigning. So, do you regret voting against it? It’s a yes or no.’
‘Well, as I say, I’m really glad it’s happening…’ Hancock persisted.
‘Do you regret voting against it?’ I interrupted again.
‘Well… I… er… put it this way, in the first lockdown we took this action and…’
‘Health Secretary,’ I intervened again, ‘you only have to say yes or no, you either regret it or you don’t.’
He smirked again. ‘Well, I’m really glad the situation’s been resolved!’
‘So you regret voting against it?’ I pressed.
‘I’m really glad it’s been resolved, and we’ve sorted it out. I’m going to use my own words to describe my own feelings on this one.’
‘So you won’t answer the question?’
‘I’m answering the question,’ he nodded firmly.
Of course, he wasn’t.
‘Is there some sort of politician training that means you’re not able to apologise for anything?’ tweeted comedian Jason Manford. ‘Piers Morgan asks a perfectly reasonable question on behalf of the country & Matt Hancock slimes and worms his way out of it. Resign!’
He was joined by One Direction star Louis Tomlinson, who raged: ‘This is disgusting. What an evasive coward! Hold your hands up and take responsibility.’
Louis messaged me later to say: ‘It would have been such a breath of fresh air to hear him admit he was wrong.’
And isn’t that so true? Why don’t politicians understand that voters would respect them much more if they were simply honest?
Hancock would have been applauded if he’d said: ‘On reflection, I should have voted for the proposal and I’m sorry.’ Instead, he will now go down in shifty ignominy.
‘It’s the interview that had half the country screaming at their screens,’ said The Independent, ‘one of the most excruciating pieces of British political TV ever.’
Satirical website The Poke posted: ‘Piers Morgan’s glorious takedown of Matt Hancock had everyone cheering (even people who don’t like Piers Morgan).’
No journalist should care about being liked. Just as no politician should care about being attacked for admitting a mistake.
Thursday, January 14
My dad (Glynne, above) still hasn’t got back his sense of taste or smell, ten weeks later. But he has extracted a rare positive from ‘long Covid’
My parents are now recovered from their nasty bouts of coronavirus back in November. Well, almost. My dad still hasn’t got back his sense of taste or smell, ten weeks later.
But he has extracted a rare positive from ‘long Covid’. ‘I can drink £3 bottles of wine and pretend it’s Chateau Latour ’61,’ he said. ‘The experience is exactly the same.’