‘I want to stand for parliament’

Piers Morgan talks to Freddy Gray about interviewing Gordon Brown, his horror at the prospect of a Tory government, and why he’s tempted to move into politics

Piers Morgan comes across on television as the consummate new Briton: boorish yet charming, vulgar yet strangely elitist, at once chauvinist and cosmopolitan — an archetype of the Blair era.

In person, he’s much the same. We meet in a pub, at his suggestion, and he orders a latte. He calls me ‘mate’, which is nice, and we settle down towards the back. Unfortunately, however, the amicability doesn’t last long. We start talking about his recent ITV interview with Gordon Brown, the one in which Gordon and wife Sarah — good friends of Piers’s — welled up about the death of their baby girl. The Prime Minister’s poll ratings have since improved. At the risk of sounding cynical, I begin, would it fair be to say that Brown’s emotional display was staged? ‘Depends what you mean by staged,’ he says, his eyes tightening in suspicion.