Piers Morgan speaks out on debate with Emily Maitlis amid ‘pathetic’ BBC backlash

Piers Morgan mocked over being ‘cold-hearted’ by Emily Maitlis

Despite being pals, Piers Morgan, 57, and Emily Maitlis, 50, aren’t afraid to tell each other exactly how they feel during fun and feisty debates about national and international affairs. After defending her against her employers at BBC who reprimanded her for sharing one of his tweets that condemned the Conservative Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the former Good Morning Britain host admitted she would never “repeat what she says” during her rants with him, in public.

The only difference between us is that while I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat what I said then in public, however job-ruining that may be (!), Emily wouldn’t repeat what she said

Piers Morgan

In his latest Daily Mail column, Piers shared an insight into his relationship with the Newsnight presenter, with the pair occasionally “locking horns” over their differences of opinion.

“I spent Saturday night shouting at Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis,” he began.

“To be fair, she spent most of it shouting at me too, over a delightfully fun and feisty dinner party at her West London home, in which we gleefully locked horns like rutting stags over everything from transgender athletes to wokeism and Laurence Fox.

“The only difference between us is that while I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat what I said then in public, however job-ruining that may be (!), Emily wouldn’t repeat what she said,” he explained.

READ MORE: Piers Morgan hits out at ‘spineless’ BBC as he supports Emily Maitlis

Piers Morgan says Emily Maitlis ‘won’t repeat’ her private opinions following BBC backlash (Image: ITV•GETTY)

Emily came under fire from BBC for retweeting one of Piers’ tweets (Image: GETTY)

“Because she understands the importance of the BBC remaining politically neutral.”

And while that is deemed a obligatory quality in a journalist, she was still pulled up by the Beeb over what Piers described as “spineless nonsense”.

It comes after he had tweeted his confusion to his 7.9 million followers back in February about the Government considering jail sentences for people who broke Covid quarantine rules.

He penned: “If failing to quarantine properly is punishable by 10 years in prison, what is the punishment for failing to properly protect the country from a pandemic?”

Despite their lengthy friendship the pair often get into ‘fun and fiery’ debates (Image: GETTY)

The BBC claimed Emily breached editorial guidelines for not being impartial (Image: BBC)

Top 10 most followed Twitter accounts (Image: EXPRESS)

Piers continued in his column: “This didn’t seem an unreasonable question.

“Given the UK has suffered the worst coronavirus death toll in Europe due to the Government’s unarguable failure to properly protect us with its shocking policy disasters on PPE, care homes, testing and border control.”

But after noticing Emily had retweeted Piers’ tweet, the BBC decided to take action with their complaints unit finding that she “breached editorial guidelines” by failing to provide “surrounding context” to ensure impartiality.

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They said in a statement: “The retweeted material was clearly controversial, implying sharp criticism of the Government, and there was nothing in the surrounding context to make clear that Ms Maitlis was not endorsing it or to draw attention to alternative views.”

While noting that she had removed the post after 10 minutes, she still “failed to publicly clarify that it had fallen short of editorial standards”.

BBC guidelines say staff should “take particular care about maintaining our impartiality on social media” in personal and professional accounts.

It states “expressions of opinion on social media” include “sharing or liking content”.

“This is spineless nonsense,” Piers retorted.

“The only ‘alternative view’ is that the Government did properly protect us from the pandemic, which not even the Government now pretends it did.

“Yet the BBC, which spent 25 years covering up the appalling Diana/Bashir fakery saga, didn’t hesitate to hang one of its biggest stars out to dry for telling the truth.”

He furiously added: “Pathetic.”