What Happened To Free Speech?

Quiet week on the news front! 

The pandemic was relegated to the third story on the news headlines this week. So there must have been some pretty huge news stories when you consider it’s been exactly a year this week when this nightmare started. No I’m not talking about Piers Morgan resigning, although I am going to comment on that soon or our President here in Mallorca telling us we’re going to have a better year than last year! 

It was all about that interview. Now I was going to leave this story alone after writing about it last week but I couldn’t leave it now it has become more intriguing. To be honest, I fell asleep about halfway through, as I did find it a bit boring as most of the juicy stuff had already been leaked out. 

It was all too staged for me, as I said it would be and Oprah “Nothing is off limits” Winfrey wasn’t anywhere near hard enough and for me was actually fawning to both of them at times. Imagine if that was conducted by Andrew Neill, Jeremy Paxman or even Piers Morgan! Yes I’m coming to him in a minute. But none of them would have suited the narrative the couple wanted to portray. 

The two serious allegations were racism and mental health which in my opinion needed to be answered by the Royal family or “The Firm” as Meghan called them. The statement from the Palace was simple and straight to the point. “While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.” I said last week that there are two sides to every story and it would be wise to wait before we condemn. That in my opinion is not them hiding but dealing in the way they know how and to try and stop the tit for tat that has already started. 

We live in a democracy that entitles all of us to our own opinion and that for me is refreshing. I conducted a poll on Facebook to find out which team you believed. Team H&M or Team Royal Family. It came out 70/30 in favour of the Royal family. 

There are already cracks starting appear in the accusations made by the couple. Conflicting stories are coming out about a lot of subjects covered. I won’t go into detail but these are easily found online.

The “pre-wedding”, that was actually a rehearsal.

Her half sister she claimed she hadn’t seen in 18 years. 

Royal protocol and Archie not becoming a Prince.

Press holiday parties at the Palace.

Friends saying she knew all about the Royal family.

The family cut them off financially. 

Security cut because Archie wasn’t a Prince. 

The negative press headlines that were shown were mostly foreign media.

Don’t we all speculate on how a baby is going to look? It’s the context of what is said and how it is said that is important. None of us were there so we’re relying on what we’re told. Meghan had said that it had been raised with her several times. Harry said that it had been raised with him once, at a different time from Meghan. So who is right? 

On the mental health issues and the accusations of bullying, you have to ask yourself, where was Harry? Didn’t they confide in each other? Surely this would have come out earlier if it was a constant thing? 

Monday morning it all kicked off on Good Morning Britain, with Piers Morgan saying, that he didn’t believe anything she said. Now I’m not a supporter of Piers, in fact I’ve sent him some tweets disagreeing with him on some of the things he’d said during the pandemic. But on this occasion I did. To then be told by your bosses to apologise as they’d had over 40,000 complaints and apparently one was from Meghan herself! He was probably left with no other option but to resign. How come they can make all these uncorroborated claims but if he disagrees he needs to apologise? He quoted Churchill saying, “Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like. But if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” I totally agree and we are all becoming frightened of saying what we believe, in case we get the social media pile on from the keyboard warriors. I’ve had it but to be honest I ignore it. 

Back to Piers, this is precisely why people tuned into the programme to watch him berate a politician or any other subject he didn’t believe in. Whether or not you agreed with him, you can’t deny it wasn’t great TV. 

He was never going to be your run of the mill interviewer, he left that to everyone else. He said the things that the man in the street wanted to hear. I’m sure he’ll be back very soon, what’s ITV’s loss is somebody else’s gain. There’s a new TV news channel launching with Andrew Neil for instance but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see him move into radio. 

After our President Armengol had told us the ground breaking news this week that “We can have a much better season than last year!” 

I’ll add one word here, Sherlock and you can do the rest.

But more importantly to add some facts into her words, that she probably needs to be aware of, that the UK Transport Minister Grant Schapps said on GMB this week after Piers had gone.

1. April 12th: when the Global Travel Task Force reports back on the practicalities of restarting International travel. 

2. May 17th: The earliest date that anyone can legally travel abroad. 

3. How well vaccinated are the destination locations. 

As of today in Mallorca, 2.57% of the total population has been vaccinated. 

With that in mind it’s good to hear that people are starting to be contacted about the vaccine here. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that Spain have decided to use the AstraZeneca vaccine only on people aged 18 to 55 years of age. This is the majority of the working population and the quicker we(yes I am under 55) get vaccinated the better. 

If the above dates don’t move we could be welcoming holidaymakers from the UK by the beginning of June. 

Take care everyone and enjoy your Weekend! 

Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.30-11.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance! 

Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com