Piers Morgan and Rupert Murdoch (Image: Paul Edwards/The Sun/News UK/PA Wire)

In late 2020 the inexplicable media fixture and stretched-out baby Piers Morgan wrote a book called Wake Up. It railed against “cancel culture” and the “woke agenda” and we suspect it takes longer to read than it did to write.

Morgan is now headed to back News Corp, to appear on US screens on Fox News (and, via Sky News, Australian ones). This is proof, if any were still needed, that certain members of the media can only fail upwards — and hopefully it’s the final time we have to point out that those who complain loudest and longest about “cancel culture” are not in any way subject to it.

When Morgan literally stormed off Good Morning Britain in March because he was being criticised — for calling Meghan Markle and Prince Harry liars after their Oprah interview — everyone knew it would have no effect on his ability to trip into another high-profile gig.

It was noted just how transparently, pathetically personal his fixation with Markle in particular was. She declined to go for a second drink with Morgan in 2016, and he set about trying to destroy her. But this has been the driving force of Morgan’s career — his pathetic reverence for power and celebrity mixed with his ability to hold a grudge.

Jenny Diski’s review of his 2005 diaries collection The Insider notes this tendency — to proudly recount insults from celebrities, so long as they were talking to him. Coupled with this is his fawning over power. Regarding Mohamed al-Fayed, Morgan concludes: “Behind all the flamboyant bombast there lies a razor-sharp mind.” And of course, Rupert Murdoch, the man responsible for Morgan’s first editor role at News of the World, is singled out for something more:

Murdoch has an extraordinary mind, it races around all sorts of disparate subjects at high speed, pumping out completely unambiguous statements. He doesn’t do middle ground … His power doesn’t require him to impress anyone. He wasn’t recognised by anyone in the room, there were none of the usual mutterings you see and hear if you go somewhere with someone like Richard Branson. But if, like me, you know who he is, then he holds your attention like Don Corleone in The Godfather. He is easy to talk to, and surprisingly funny. I really liked him.

When Morgan’s News of the World managed to sink below even the subterranean standards of British tabloids, Morgan moved on to the non-Murdoch-owned Daily Mirror. During his tenure, the paper was highly critical of the “War on Terror” (at least until it cost it too many readers).

Whatever the sincerity of this stance, The Insider also makes clear that Morgan is animated by the slight of Tony Blair leaking the date of the 2001 election to The Sun rather than to him.

And now those traits have coalesced into what might be his biggest gig yet. Cancel culture has worked out very well for Piers Morgan.