The Great Reckoning

In my Observer column today, I talk about the scourging of Britain’s failed elite. To give readers an idea of how many institutions are in the dock, I quote an extract from Piers Morgan’s diaries from the summer of 2004. Because I have more space, I can give you the full ghastly detail here – what lucky people you are.

Morgan’s managers had just fired him from the editorship of the Mirror for running pictures of British soldiers pissing on Iraqi detainees, which a fool could have told him were crude fakes. There is a risk that when the pictures are seen in the Middle East they will endanger men and women in the forces. Morgan does not care. He toddles off to the 40th birthday party of Ross Kemp. Brown is there. Blunkett is there. Tony and Cherie Blair are there, along with Greg Dyke, the former Director-General of the BBC, and Sir John Stevens, commissioner of the Met.