I’m very surprised Piers hasn’t cancelled his holiday to appear on GMB tomorrow even if he’s not paid to do so. He must have tweeted over 100 times this weekend, he must be in a permanent state of rage.
He might linger on the sofas ready to see if a member of the cabinet agrees to appear on the show knowing he's on holiday and then pounce on them unexpectedly.
This.
If the government put forward a rabbit to stand in tomorrow's media headlights and they don't avoid GMB, I fully expect Morgan to unexpectedly appear - just in time for that interview, and unannounced. He won't miss a chance to grill them on this.
He seems to have been in a permanent state of rage since the coronavirus crisis started, and has been constantly trying to put down the government on twitter at every opportunity.
To be fair he's been in a permanent state of rage since about 1995.
Ben wanted to step back a bit from presenting daily as he had been previously (bear in mind he presents a lot more than GMB so it's not all he has to fit into his schedule). It was after that that they got Piers in for 'one week only' in May 2015 and decided to bring him back for good from November 2015.
I think Ben is meant to present 2 days a week which is pretty much a job share with Piers under normal circumstances, but obviously Piers has gone up to 4 days at the moment.
When Piers joined in 2015, did Ben oblige to be demoted to Fridays and relief presenter or was he made to do it?
Ben had already stepped down from full time about the same time John Stapleton left which is I think when we seen Kate get an increased role as a Charlotte returned from maternity leave all around a similar time. So Charlotte was newsreader which allowed Kate to present alongside Susanna or Ben more often. Then Piers joined later in the year.
This has all been said before, but the non-Piers GMB is barely GMB at all now. Susanna (as lead presenter) with Ben, is a passable substitute...but the progs without her are even more disappointing.
It’s just such a vastly different show sans Morgan. Can’t really think of anyone who could even vaguely replicate what they have with Piers, except for the likes of James o’Brien.
Richard Madeley is probably the closest they get. I guess the trouble with Ben is his TV persona is very much the opposite of Piers - he's built his career around being a nice guy. Susanna is a strong anchor but in a very different way to Piers (professional is the word that comes to mind) - if she was a bit more opinionated and grabbed the headlines in the way Piers did they'd almost be an argument to split them up to ensure at least one is always on air.
I wouldn't be surprised if Piers goes back to three days after half term, and they might even return Charlotte to the news desk, even if just for half an hour, as TV continues to return to a "new normal". Possible though they might give Lorraine the week after half term off first though.
I'm not normally a GMB viewer as I'm either in bed or having to watch kids tv. But was able to catch the first half hour and was a bit disappointed that there was no Piers Morgan.
I thought in the circumstances they might have brought him in. I noticed that James o'Brien on LBC who was also off this week announced that he will be presenting his show today, and thanked his fill-in for being kind and giving him the slot back for a day