Piers Morgan

I must admit to being not unbaffled by Piers – he’s a fascinating creature. I’m not entirely sure how it’s possible for an individual to be so freakishly dislikeable.

Nobody’s perfect of course. Each of us are a jumbled mash-up of our best and worst selves – a veritable  Bombay mix of good and bad aspects of our multi-faceted personalities which either appeal to, or repulse, others to varying degrees. But with Piers, it’s like he has a congenital condition. The good stuff’s just missing. In the same way that some people are born without a limb, or bone marrow, or a chromosome, so Piers is devoid of the smallest hint of anything that might in any way render him pleasant.

This superabundance of odiousness makes him profoundly difficult to like. I suspect his own mum has to deploy a heavy dollop of diplomacy each Christmas in order to let him across the threshold. He’s cunty through and through, like layers of an onion (a ‘cunion’ if you will) – one layer is peeled back to reveal another identical layer underneath. I suppose he’s nothing if not consistent.

On screen he peddles a supreme arrogance and a rudeness that’s unsurpassed. The list of people he’s offended is vast: mental health sufferers, celebrities (who’ve boycotted programmes he appears on), women in general. He’s a phone hacker, a slimeball, a muckraker, a right-wing imbecile with an antipathy for minorities and a world view so small and insular it’s a miracle he makes it out of his front door in the morning.

Ironically, given his odious traits, he’s also indirectly responsible for some genuinely uplifting moments. He’s been roundly ridiculed on panel shows (HIGNFY), routinely torn apart on Twitter (JK Rowling, Gary Lineker, Jeremy Corbyn) and trolled by his fellow presenters on live TV (Susanna Reid). Footage of him in a state of discomfort or mockery are so common, it’s almost a national sport. Sympathy is, quite understandably, never forthcoming though and no one’s ever on his side. Everyone loves to see a bully being bullied.

Incidentally, the video of him falling off a Segway and crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs is a tonic to the soul and frankly, should be prescribed on the NHS. Go on, You Tube it.