BBC told it must win back the working class | James O’Brien – The Whole Show

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This is LBC from Global leading Britain’s conversation with James O’Brien 3 minutes after 10: is the time a very good morning to you um how how how scientific do you think we are I don’t mean what grades did you get in your gcss I that I’d be fairly near the

Back of the queue that I often feel my father and my mother should have been should have been due for a refund so poorly did I perform in some of my some of my science exams I also fell into that trap do you think I’ll ever

Start the show one day and actually go in the direction I was intending to go when the light came on why am I telling you about My GCSE results I’m about to go into a bit of a sort of personal ramble about that tragedy that peculiarly British tragedy where we can

Almost be proud of being bad at maths and science I was very much in that category to my eternal regret but when I say how good do you think we are how scientific do you think we are are um I’m thinking more of you ringing me to

Tell me something and How likely it is that we actually get a helpful snapshot of the broader public view now on some subjects that is simply not going to happen for for example uh well maybe it would now but for a long time uh this program in the context of brexit was

Dedicated to dealing in facts when at least 52% of the country remained addicted to at the very best feelings and at worst of course the blatant lies of the the Johnson’s and the Ree mulks and the fages and the rest of them so you were never going to get a

Snapshot I don’t think of broad public opinion on this program by going in on a very heavily invested subject like that oddly looking at the opinion polls I suspect if we do a broad political sweep we’re not far off the numbers that are now being reflected in the polls if say

One in five callers was a voter you’d probably have um a fair reflection of that in the in the way that the switch World responded to a broader um political question but I’m interested today I’m just looking at the first texts that have come in actually since I mentioned

A moment ago just before Nick clocked off that I want to turn your attention first today to Chris packham’s comments about protesting outside MP’s houses now for me at first glance that issue is a no-brainer it’s it’s a no-o Zone actually um to use a phrase that Paul

Scully has managed to bring back into public discourse it shortly before turning Westminster into a no-go zone for himself by announcing that he won’t be standing at the next election but I I I I’ve always thought that is one line we do not cross as a society but the

First texts to come into the program this morning are these one from Anthony and S one from Michael in Fulham I think if MPS use their role writes Anthony to enhance their personal life over the interests of the public then the public should be able to protest in a way that

Affects the MP’s personal life and in the same moment both at 10:02 this morning uh Michael writes if the politician is a lying lazy scer like Johnson or any of his crooked gang then protest outside their homes is acceptable they treat us like sewage it should work both ways um the problem

With both of those perspectives Lads is that you don’t get to decide whose home is fair game and whose home isn’t I think once you’ve allowed once you’ve ignited the green light then even the politicians you consider to be honest and honorable and dripping with Integrity become fair game and become

Their homes become targets for the people that you would find um problematic at best and repellent at worst actually I lied to you there was a text that came in at 101 actually from Simon who says I just wanted to say good luck to your team in tonight’s game

Against my team woking it’s a vital game for both teams so may the best team win there’s a mythical six points available there really is it’s an absolute relegation dog fight at the bottom of the national league and kitty woking or rather woking Kitty cuz we’re away is

Going to be potentially an absolutely crucial moment in that in that Saga what was it I said a minute ago about going off on unexpected and unscripted unscripted do me a favor have you heard this show before un unexpected and unplanned tangents well there we are uh

8 minutes after 10 and you know while we’re on the subject Angie’s been in touch to mention a call she made yesterday about um talking about Robert jrk’s dog whistle yesterday she says you clipped it up for LBC predictably a good proportion of the replies on Twitter are

Telling me to go home Point proven says Angie do you know quite often people who reply particularly to the LBC tweets don’t realize they’re proving the point made in the made in the Tweet so I I don’t I mean have a look at that from Angie and I mention it only because do

You remember were you listening to mystery on Thursday were you listening to M when um we took a call from Acme whistles in Birmingham from the official archist of Acme whistles to answer a question about whistles they’ve sent me a dog whistle uh they’ve sent me a dog

Whistle which I I I’ve got used for a dog whistle because I’m not a member of the Tory cabinet I haven’t got them coming out my ears but I may try it out on you a little later in the program and see whether or not it sends your dog

Nuts at the other end of the microphone it’s probably ofcom rules about that sort of thing so Chris Packham who I think is a Force for good I think he is a National Treasure I I’ve got a growing regard for the tiny number of people in the public

Eye who refuse to be quiet you you probably haven’t noticed this but there are you can count on one hand for a while I think until Carol vman um uh set her Targets on the government you could count on one finger the number of people with serious public profiles in this

Country country that would use them to criticize the direction of political traffic and that one finger would essentially count Gary Lin who simply tweets every now and then about his unhappiness regarding the behavior of of politicians and some policies the direction of traffic the language that

Is used to talk about refugees in a normal country you would barely notice Gary liner’s tweets that’s no offense to Gary but in a normal country you would barely notice those tweets but in a country that is in a strangle hold of the worst kind of right-wing media he

Sticks out like a sore thumb he’s gone from being a finger to a thumb there in the space of about 10 seconds he sticks out like a sore thumb because everybody is frightened or that’s not true some people agree with the direction of traffic there’s a column in the mail

Today praising France for deporting uh someone who I think can be fairly described as an islamist hate preacher they managed to get through the whole column saying why why can’t we be more like France without mentioning that they told us to vote for brexit so that it

Would be easier to deport people like this uh islamist hate preacher in France it’s it’s quite extraordinary how boiled and bent their brains are now but it’s even more extraordinary how few people get to say what they truly believe and have the what’s the word I’m looking for I don’t

Want to say courage although that is part of it but the problem with praising one man’s courage is that you essentially paint another person another woman another man as being cowardly and I don’t want to do that cuz I don’t think that’s fair but you have to possess something a

Thickness of skin perhaps uh a a security a Financial Security never mind a personal security but for example to invite The Guns of rert Murdoch or Paul daker to do their worst you have to be possessed I think of some fairly special skills some some fairly strong uh uh

Will to do that which is why so few people do so Gary does it Carol does it and happily she now does it of course on on LBC and in very specific areas Chris Pam does it as well increasingly Chris Packham does it as well he is motivated by a number of

Issues you can listen to a brilliant interview or I mean he was brilliant I was probably rubbish but you can listen to a a very engaging episode of full disclosure with Chris Packham from about a month and a half ago he’s he’s one of the people I as I’ve mentioned I think

Is an enormous Force for good and he is much more laser likee in in his targets he is motivated by a profound love of animals of wildlife of the natural world in particular and of the planet of course which means it extends into ecological issues and it is from there

That he has spoken most recently um 12 minutes after 10 is the time and what he has said is this he has said that MP’s homes should would not be off limits and and he specifies when it comes to Eco protests or just stop oil for example who have targeted MP’s homes

I I I think it was Green Piece wasn’t it that got on richy sunak roof he wasn’t there at the time but you can never be% sure of that he has um just stop oil protested outside the homes of rishy sunak and K starma and he has called

For if you like um or he’s offered his support to these groups protesting outside homes of MPS and my gut reaction to this is to disagree oh KY Allan and overa you’re quite right we forgot about fergal shaky didn’t we on our list of the good guys

Uh my gut reaction to this is to say no you can never ever do that I remember when some protesters they may even have been anti-brexit protesters found themselves on Jacob Reese moog’s doorstep and I just thought that it was completely wrong but when people I admire and respect say

Things I disagree with I have a very unfashionable habit of deciding to have a bit of a think about what I believe and what I think about something and I wondered whether my objection to this is both selfish and embarrassing selfish because if it’s okay to protest outside a politician’s

House then it wouldn’t be long before someone argued it’s also okay to protest outside a Gob on a stick’s house a professional commentator’s house a radio phone in hosts house so that’s perhaps where the selfishness comes from and the embarrassment I think comes from this and it’s not something I’ve ever noticed

Before or even thought about maybe I just don’t care enough about anything now I go on a March I haven’t been on many but I went on a March for a second referendum because I naively thought that we might be able to stop the madness that every everybody is now

Having their faces rubbed in I went on a stop the war March in in Glasgow but largely because I was cting Mrs obrien at the time and she was working there and I was hardly going to stay in the flat on my own when she went off to

March against the looming war in Iraq um and I I’ve been on others I accidentally went on a viex well my father was covering it for the Daily Telegraph actually and and I sort of found myself getting caught up in a in a protest at a mink farm would you believe in

Staffordshire but that doesn’t count cuz I was there even more by accident than I was on the stop the war March but I look at everything from I mean the news today you’ve got more evidence of appalling sexual violence rape and sex crimes being perpetrated by Hamas during the

October the 7th attack uh you you’ve got a report so I I mentioned that because the passion you feel when calling for the release of the hostages that are still held goes to places that perhaps traditional protest cannot reach similarly you’ve got reports coming in of children now starving to death in

Gaza on an unprecedented scale and the and the the frustration the the visceral frustration and horror you feel at that story may want you to to urge politicians to change course to do more in a way that they don’t currently do they are not currently hearing your

Cries so you’re going to have to cry louder but of course that’s a metaphorical description it means you’re going to have to find a new way of being heard so you get outside their home oh of course Jamie Oliver and Marcus rashford there’s more people than I

Realized on this list I may have to rejig the paperback version of how they broke Britain in order to acknowledge a few more Heroes of our time a few more National Treasures but that was where I ended up this morning I thought well listen to me Chris Packham is obviously wrong you you

Can’t protest outside someone’s home but maybe that’s because I don’t actually care enough even about the situation in Gaza I I don’t think that’s the answer I think that I do but I don’t feel any urge to protest outside someone’s home would a would a suffragette would a

Suffragette have done that probably are there points in history where protesting outside a politician’s home has proved a point in a way that protesting anywhere else could not we’re living in an era where politicians are trying to close down our rights to protest on an unprecedented scale it is when you dig

Into it quite frightening what’s going on but that leaves us with a you know a helpfully a happily binary Radio phone in question but I want you I really want the why of it okay CU telling me whether you think we or they I wonder if your

Answer is different should we be able to out protest outside an MP’s home question mark definitely not should they be able able to protest outside an MP’s home definitely not but does it change a little bit should we be able to protest out well yeah we would cuz we’d be

Really you know well behaved and respectful and PE should they be no God no down with that down with them they’re Splitters so I want the what why of it not just the what of it the what of it is easy what do you think should should

We be I mean are there issues now from which politicians appear to be so completely dis distracted detached from where you sit and where you feel the people sit that you should actually be able to take the fight to their front doorstep or is it obvious to you that

That is a door that we should never sanction going through I I don’t necessarily think that anyone who does it should be strung up from the nearest lamp post but there should be sanctions in place preventative sanctions deterrence but I want the why of it okay

I want the why of it 0345 6060 973 is the number you need hit those numbers now you will get through I’m pretty clear that I don’t think it should ever happen but I’m just wondering out loud with you whether or not that comes from a healthy place

Whether that comes from an authentic place or whether it comes from a fear of offering up my own home next because where politicians lead journalists often follow or indeed whether it is because I just don’t understand the level of frustration the level of anger even the level of heartbreak that prompts people

To take steps that the rest of us find remarkable and I think that’s probably most per in the context of the environmental threat this this belief this inability to understand how the rest of the world is failing to appreciate the urgency of the situation and if you can’t do it

Normally you’re going to have to find new ways of doing it and we’re not talking about anything other than peaceful protest all right we’re not talking about in the first instance nothing but peaceful 0345 6060 973 is the the number you need it’s 19 minutes after 10 James O’Brien on

LBC James O’Brien on LBC well I never I sometimes get texts from you and I read them and I think nah you someone’s yanking your chain or or that would be a brilliant madeup answer in the mystery hour board game do you know why the Duke of Wellington became known as the Iron

Duke I bet you don’t and I bet I’ll give you a tiny clue all right it’s relevant to the conversation we’re having about protesting outside MP’s homes which Chris packer has said should be permitted partly I think because the issue he cares most about in this case environmental protest

Environmental emergency is one that trumps any niceties or or conventions regarding peaceful protest outside of politicians H but but what do you think and crucially why Alex is in Newcastle Alex what would you like to say hi James thanks for having me on I just want to

Say that politicians come to our doors knocking on it and act demanding votes journalists come to the doors of celebrities and people in the news um demanding photos and interviews why shouldn’t Everyday People come to the doors of the people in charge of votes on genocide and cost of living crisis

And climate crisis and say hey please represent us because you’re not doing a very good job right now God I hadn’t thought I I don’t know that the um the politician example is is is as powerful as the Press example because a politician knocks on your door you might

As well complain about the postman coming around you can just say not today thank you off your Trot it’s like an encyclopedia salesman if such a thing still exists but goodness me the the the press and all of the newspapers writing up Chris packham’s comments as if it’s

The end of the world as we know it will’ll Park people at the bottom of your front path and have people putting all sorts of things through your letter box and fighting with each other to get a microphone I mean one thinks again of I think this program has almost been

Sponsored by Gary liner today but every time he tweets something they don’t like they’re camped outside his house the poor fell can barely walk his dog without coming under constant pressure but I don’t think I’m being I don’t think I’m ducking the issue when I say two wrongs don’t make a

Right do they oh absolutely not but I think in this case when the wrong is genocide or everyone is probably going to die from food crisis because of the climate crisis then I think protesting outside somebody’s house in a peaceful respectful manner is absolutely okay when protest is being clamped down in

Every other sector of society you can’t protest outside um oil and gas companies outside petrol stations can barely protest outside Parliament um anymore and nobody will ever listen to you when you do so I think sadly it needs to happen um I you remind me that the only

Time we talk about protest is when they go somewhere or achieve something that protests don’t normally achieve so in a sense the message you’re reiterating it’s not one you’re endorsing is you can you can protest wherever you want as long as it doesn’t make any difference to anything or anybody yes

Don’t stop the traffic whatever you do don’t stop the traffic and don’t disrupt an MP’s home life just just out of interest is it something you would do yourself or are you speaking to me as a philosopher manner I think I would yeah if the what you’re protesting for is

Valid enough then absolutely and talking about the genocide of children G you’ve used that word a lot which is um obviously challengeable and must be challenged I I don’t the need to challenge the phrase ethnic cleansing at the moment looking at the situation on the ground in Gaza but I don’t I do

Challenge the use of the word genocide we we will wait upon the findings of the international Court in the ha on that question which at the moment seem seem a long way off but of course that is what you believe to be occurring and therefore the passion with which you

Would want to protest or call for a cessation of hostilities is going to lead you to places that you wouldn’t go in in defense of other causes um thank you Alex I I I’ve got a horrible feeling that the selfish explanation of my own motivation is is the one that I’m going

To be reaching for first I just sort of think well I don’t care how passionately you feel about that why on Earth would you come outside cuz remember you you know the kind of people that are going to protest outside my house are not people who care passionately about the

Future of the planet or indeed their fellow citizens that they’re going to be furious with someone who doesn’t hate foreigners enough or who refuses to conflate all Muslims with terrorists and extr exists or who keeps getting proved right about brexit and Boris Johnson and Donald Trump and even Jeremy flipping

Corbin I you know I’m not there’s not going to be anybody outside my house calling upon me to do something that I have any power to do except to shut up and stop saying things they don’t like hearing because they don’t blame themselves for what they see in the

Mirror they blame the mirror and and I I you know how how do you police that is that selfish or is that just a personal perspective that informs an objective one I don’t know I genuinely don’t know 0345 606 0973 Rob’s in Sheffield Rob

What do you think I I I think that we need a private life and I say we because I’m a I’m a elected city counselor and I realize that we go out there and we knock on doors and we uh deliver leaflets but we’ve got families we’ve

Got private lives being switched on all the time and and having a mobile phone and having an email address means that we are out there but sometimes we do just need to switch off and the previous caller said yes but you go and knock on your own door our doors yeah yes but

When someone says to me actually not now or I don’t vote for you or actually can we not have this conversation I say okay yeah sure that’s fine and then I move on and that’s why I put you in the same category as a as a as a you know a

Charity collector or or a door Todo salesman it’s if you stick your foot in my door at that point and say no hang on a minute we’re the liberal Democrats uh that’s the point of which your behavior becomes unacceptable but you can’t do that with a peaceful protest you can’t

Go out onto your doorstep and say all right could you move along now please thank you so so it does feel as a breach of something quite special significant yeah and and and this is and this is it is if I receive an email or a phone call

As I have since I was elected of of of someone bouting conspiracy theories or or being really quite vile and and I do I and I won’t share some of the topics but do generally just go you know what I’m not going to respond to that yes

Because it’s not my prerogative I’d love to be be able to respond but I know it wouldn’t help and there there is this breaking down and I see these videos online of oh we’ve we’ve set up camp outside this MP’s office or this MP’s home now the family are probably

Incredibly supportive of of of the politician but they need privacy there might be children there there might be and not just politicians homes but but also so you know do you remember when they kind of rampaging mob hit a vaccine Center during the lockdown some places should well a that’s not a peaceful

Protest I guess there’s a difference also peaceful is is is nuanced isn’t it if you’re protesting outside of a family planning Clinic then you the the psychological impact of you just standing there with a sign or standing there saying a Hail Mary is completely different to what it would be like if

You were doing the same thing outside budgeon or weight TRS or whatever it and and this is it is if someone does turn up outside my house and I might agree with them but I’ve got neighbors as well who are going to be impacted by this and

I say to them guys I agree with you could you move on and it’s unlikely to happen on the other hand is that line of peacefulness no I hear you but the last caller used the word genocide um which a lot of people rightly or wrongly are using to describe what’s happening in

Gaza it’s not not a word I use or endorse or emergency Planet planetary emergency they would say to you how can you possibly be worried about your peace of mind or your neighbors when things of such epic import are unfolding on our in our world and our politicians are

Doing nothing about them I grant you rob that a liberal Democrat counselor in Sheffield is unlikely to be able to Halt either uh anthropocentric climate change or the continuing attacks in Gaza but my point stands they’d say to you how dare you I mean who you think you are

Worrying about your neighbors when the world is burning and and and I completely understand the argument but there are there are places and spaces in the fact that there are meetings there are times where we we come together and we discuss these things and I I I have opinions on on all

Of these things that I will happily happily share in those spaces but there is a there is a reason why po politics is becoming feeling increasingly fraught at the moment and and it becomes a deterrent I mean you know I talked at the beginning about the thickness of

Skin or the the the personal robustness required to speak out regularly and accurately in my view against the direction of political traffic um and of course the more abuse that a politician receives the less likely somebody is however motivated and however passionate to be drawn to politics yeah Rob thank

You brilliantly articulated so we’ve had both sides of the argument and you can see why I was worried that my response was going to be dictated by my personal circumstances but then again who isn’t 1032 is the time I I why the Duke of Wellington was known as The Iron Duke

Could not be more relevant to this conversation I presumed it had something to do with his behavior on the battlefield didn’t you you thought why is he called The Iron Duke it’s the same reason Margaret thatch was called The Iron Lady well kind of cuz they were

Kind of ironik iony in their attitudes no nothing like that at all I’ll tell you the real reason after the headlines with Thomas Watts James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC 10:36 is the time I Dan in Brighton writes here’s how I see it James I don’t lie to people I

Don’t cause people harm I live a moral life I do not hurt anybody I am not corrupt I have empathy and compassion I do not play with other people’s lives or emotions and also I’m not worried about anyone coming to my front door it’s not rocket science it is more complicated

Than that Dan I I I think Tobias Elwood was the most recent MP to have his home targeted by um Pro Palestinian protesters or peace peace protesters Palestinian peace protesters um and I I he’s widely regarded as one of the good guys generally don’t at me I I I nearly

Did the curse of O’Brien yesterday on Bim alfy after it made our own news bulletins that he had a tweet up describing Donald Trump as a Cancer and I thought how can that be controversial surely that’s what all MPS whatever party they belong to should be saying

And the and the ones that are actually cozying up to Donald Trump like um what’s the chops Andrea Jenkins they are who had MaGa on her Twitter profile uh they’re the ones that should be newsworthy but that’s probably just part of the reason why Donald Trump’s

Probably going to be back in the White House by the end of the year 10:37 is the time uh protesting I’ve just had another thought be careful I kind of be exhausted at this right uh you’re not going to stop it you’re just making it unlawful so looking at what the

Suffragettes did the bombing and arson campaign undertaken by the suffragettes as opposed to the suffragists was probably much greater than most people who who who just sort of fondly and somewhat lazily site emiline Pankhurst and others as forces for good appreciate you know letter bombs assassinations IEDs arson four people killed I think

Between 1912 and 1914 of whom two were were were um 24 injured and and uh and and four killed so it was illegal so you’re not by saying it should be illegal to protest outside a politicians house you’re not somehow creating a world in which nobody ever protests outside a politician’s house meaningful

Social change often often comes about through a form of law breaking but whether or not it should be legal is the more pertinent question today and at the moment the consensus is that it really shouldn’t B Dan’s uh analysis not withstanding although Phil in lington Spa makes Point similarly thing is James

The levels of decency morality and statenh have fallen so low in government leaving only contempt for the electorate from many of those in government that they can no longer be afforded any credibility or respect every action has an equal and opposite reaction and this is simply the manifestation of this as

You yourself stated in your bestselling book Britain is indeed broken um people have been pushed so far that they are responding in the only way open to them I I I’m not going to agree with you at this stage there’s 20 minutes left of this hour but I don’t think that you can

Do that it’s a you know you don’t lose faith in British Parliament simply because Boris Johnson is in it or was in it you don’t lose faith in British democracy simply because Boris Johnson can get to the top of the tree or Liz truss can get to the top of the tree

It’s it’s our only Safeguard against Anarchy against chaos imperfect institutions imperfect conventions imperfect traditions and it seems to me that protesting outside someone’s home is one of those things that that gets filed under a safeguard against Anarchy even even if it’s peaceful protest Allan’s in Manchester Alan what

Would you like to say very much with in agreement with you last car was it Rob yes in Sheffield yeah as as a politician in a town um that’s how right James you’ve had two MPS murdered you’ve had one who’s given up by the next election because of threats

To his family I believe you’ve got five that’s mikp now yeah Mike frier I believe you’ve got five MPS now with more or less permanent police protection and a mayor of London yeah s Sadi KH so once the template is set as in you know once we’ve done it once then it

Becomes the norm and you will not get people going into politics James you know you for an MP and I know people call them yeah but you know if you’ve got a protest outside your house sort of Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday when you’re in Parliament or you might be away on

Parliamentary business and your wife or your partner Rings her up and says there there there’s people outside the house and you’ve got your kids there going to sit around and say you know what it’s not worth it why would I do you know yeah a local counselor get stick I get

Stick yes of course yeah I don’t go on social media mate because of the on actually speaking of social media I once complained to to Twitter as it was then about Someone putting my address up and it didn’t count as a it didn’t count as a violation I can’t remember exactly why

But it proves your point doesn’t it rather neatly that the the social media has made everything worse and allowing people legalizing peaceful protest on people’s doorsteps or encouraging it would would would only add to that mess I mean it’s not illegal really actually technically because no one got arrested

Outside Tobias Elwood’s house did they but as we’re talking almost about a social convention that we don’t see the need to breach what would you say to somebody and let’s focus on the environment somebody who is did you watch that Leonardo DiCaprio film a couple of years ago did you watch don’t

Look up no I’ve not seen it J it’s worth a watch so someone who is absolutely with full scientific backing oh sry I have there was a bit of a parody yeah exactly that yes exactly that it yeah so someone like that academic and so you’ve got someone listening to this program

Who cannot believe that this point is not being properly understood by people and and they they’ve tried everything they just but they honestly believe if they could somehow get something in front of a politician if they could just focus their mind on an issue then they might just achieve a little bit of

Traction tell them where they they should go nowhere near a politician’s home well you the thing is it’s I know I know what people are saying though you know it’s the only way we can get through but you know as someone involved in politics yeah we are aware of what’s

Going on we are aware of the emails we get the MPS are aware of what’s going on because their office will will get emails people will want to meet them and there is a you know there is a way of doing things in this country and no

One’s saying it’s perfect James but the thing is if if nobody goes into politics I’m talking good people decent people then it does attract them does attract the more extreme people yeah well again it’s interesting though isn’t it that most of the debate is breaking down along personal experience you me and Rob

All worry it might happen to us and make valid points as a consequence of that about the deterrent putting people off coming in whereas the people who are coming at from the perspective of protest I mean I’d ask them in fact I should have asked them I mean it does it

Ever work does it ever achieve any could you imagine Jacob re M coming out of his house walking through a bing mob of roners and deciding that brexit was a bad idea after all I mean there is that point as well to to wonder about isn’t

There yeah but the thing is what what we’ll achieve at where e morg is when he gets his p45 in May which is another reminder of what the how the democracy is indeed supposed to work Alan thank you and thank you for what you do as a counselor um stepen cter says you

Haven’t emotionally connected to the fact that MPS are failing to take the action needed to protect us from social collapse MPS are not attempting to stop what is happening in Gaza would you support peaceful protests at their homes if the terror of Gaza was coming to your

City and MPS were doing nothing to defend it that’s a brilliant question Steve I I suspect it’s probably rhetorical but of course if the terror of Gaza was coming to our city we wouldn’t have the luxury the energy the time or indeed the wherewithal to protest outside politicians homes not

Least as the politicians homes would have been blown to smithin by now but I take the point you’re making and I haven’t got an answer to it I just feel that it is a a line Society shouldn’t cross and you can tell that my little hooks and teases

Which spent 20 years trying to master and I’m finally getting the hang over working when you get a text like this for the love of God are you going to tell us about the iron Juke if I was in a very mischievous mood I’d say yes after this break but I’m not

So I will the Iron Duke the Duke of Wellington was known as The Iron Duke because he fitted iron bars to the ground floor i’ be absy house wouldn’t it in London he fitted iron bars to the ground floor of absy house so that the bricks being lobbed at his windows

Wouldn’t actually break them that’s why he was known as The Iron Duke had absolutely nothing to do with his prowess or resolve upon the battlefield or in Parliament or anywhere else he was called The Iron Duke because of essentially people protesting outside his home orbe it nobody so far on this

Program has advocated the lobbing of bricks at politicians windows and um if you did I think it would be a straight red 10:45 is the time James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC I don’t know what it says about us really as a as a team but you wouldn’t believe how many

People have been in touch so making the same joke claiming that the Iron Duke was known thus because of the perfect creases that he always managed to achieve in his trousers two thoughts not a bad joke I’m a bit confused as to why so many people have reached for it is it

A Trope second thought as any fool know uh there’s no earthly way the Duke of Wellington would have ironed his own TR trousers that oddly do you know what the correct phrase is for the person that would have ironed the Duke of Wellington’s trousers Batman I think I

Think they’re called a Batman I hope I haven’t just invented that or dreamt it I’m pretty sure that they called it Batman I used to know a bloke whose dad very good friend of mine at the time whose dad was a very very very very very very very very senior army officer I

Can’t tell you any more than that CU it would actually give away his identity so senior was he as an army officer and his dad’s Batman which is not phrase you hear in common parlons very often is it no his dad’s not Batman that’s weird everyone knows that’s Bruce Wayne but

His dad had a Batman and his dad’s Batman used to do this thing with his uniform so the uniform would be and I presume this was for special occasions rather than every day but to be fair I never checked so the uniform would be on a mannequin right so you’ve got Batman

Mannequin uniform uniform on the mannequin and the Batman would wrap cell tape around his hand Sticky Side Up yeah like that I don’t know why I’m sh I said like that I’m on the bloody radio well I could you could be watching me on YouTube so there you go for all my

YouTube fans very big in Germany apparently danen uh so w wrapping all the cell tape into Alan Partridge wrapping the cell tape around his hand like that yeah and then would do that to the uniform on the mannequin to get off every last little tiny bit of fluff so

Anyway I’m just mentioning that cuz as if the dukee of Wellington iron his own trousers uh 10:51 is the time back to protests outside MP’s homes I think I I asked you right at the top whether or not we would get a scientific view on

This I think we’re close to it I I I do think we feel it shouldn’t be encouraged and and possibly it shouldn’t even be allowed but history has taught us that those people who are prepared to break the law in pursuit of their point are sometimes proved right Tom’s

In leads Tom what would you like to say morning pal to be honest I could do with the Batman myself all do with a B I discovered this morning there are Facebook groups dedicated to those of us who are a little bit obsessed with how to correctly load a dishwasher so I’m

Signing up for that next but that’s not why you rang it no it’s not sorry pal um so look it’s a bit of an armchair the this I’m not involved in politics in the way that your previous callers were I was actually asked I was invited to

Stand uh as a labor candidate when I used to live down south um and I and I I turned it down I’ve been a stall labor Man All My Life um but I don’t see any MP of uh any side of the house to being

Um hared like that I think we sort of it felt to me like we crossed the Rubicon in sort of the around the brexit debate where we went where we where we ticked over into the personal but I think we were LED over there by the MPS

Themselves how do you mean how do you mean tipping I don’t think you I don’t I mean at first glance I’m going to disagree with you quite robustly I think we’ve been look at the Duke of Wellington mate he was having bricks lob through his window I don’t think tipping

Over into the personal that’s why it’s called the Iron Duke you know Tom I bet you didn’t know that that that I didn’t that’s inter it’s not new though that what do you mean by the tipping over into the personal well I think we will never find out defeated by

Technology um did you know that my plan to use a dog whistle wouldn’t work Andy and Andy and alak an’s been in touch to say that the whistles use a frequency above 23 khz whereas radio stations cannot transmit audio any higher than 15 khz and I I can thank John Cooper by

Name the archist at Acme whistles in Birmingham who rang in to Mr on Thursday and provided one of our favorite favorite answers of all time is Tom back I should give him another world and then we’ll go to James in spolding Tom what what when what do you mean when when did

What do you mean it tipped over into the personal um well I think with the instruction social media especially like you can you can ACC access people you know directly into their pocket on their personal device you know um and by email as well you know MPS used to get letters

You know a few letters a week so they could keep with correspondence but now with email they get thousands and thousands of emails and you I think you get to a point where MPS are frightened to do their job uh now I think people should be held to account absolutely but

I think that we um it sort of led to the scenes that we saw in the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago but it is to me indicative of a loss of faith in the system and the usual way of doing things by the general public I I think

Yes I think you’re right and I think one thing that’s been missing from the conversation so far is the importance of resisting restrictions on protests in other context so um it’s that James cleverly in the home office at the moment isn’t it so soel braan previously pretty Patel

Before that all dedicated to closing down public protest in fact that clip of Andrew Mah that you just heard where um uh suggestion that MP should be prevented from meeting with certain groups that’s extraordinary former labor MP as well that’s extraordinary so resist that sort of thing um but don’t

Maybe fight the wrong Battles by demanding the right to protest on someone’s doorstep when they’re taking away the person inside the house is right to sit down with the group that you’re representing I I think it is a lot more nuanced than some of the headlines allow although I’m not

Comfortable being on the different side of any argument to Chris Packham um except letting foxes sleep in your bed it’s gone complete Partridge today hasn’t it he did tell me during the full disclosure interview we did together when he was a kid that he he would have

Wild animals in his room he didn’t just keep like you know birds in a shoe box he’d keep a fox in his he’d have fo sleeping in his bed so there are some things with which I will never agree with with Chris Pam and this may well be

One of them James is in spaling James what would you like to say hi James it’s a pleasure to speak to you likewise thank you James how polite it’ll never catch on I just wanted to say I think there’s um a really good balance of of all of

The point of views this morning I think that I don’t I don’t think people should protest out outside people’s houses but I also think that I have a huge amount of empathy for people in that I don’t I just don’t don’t think politicians listen enough to people anymore um you

Know James cleverly recently said you know you you’ve made your point but I also think it’s you can say that all you want if you’re not going to listen to people if you’re not going to get round of people around the table frequently enough with people with people that

Protest then it it’s difficult to know kind of what to expect and and you know you hear all the time politicians say at the moment this is what the people think this is what the people think but if you look at polls and and just you know George Galloway’s recent you know

Reelection uh mainly mainly on the point of Gaza it’s increasingly at odds what politicians are saying people think with what people are actually saying and I think this is the natural consequence of that is the people don’t feel hurt the frustration is a natural consequence of that but the frustration doesn’t justify

The the tactic doesn’t justify the action not least because of that slightly GID point I just made about Jacob ree MOG wandering out of his house and deciding he was realizing rather than deciding that he was wrong about break it’s it I think these things make the protesters feel better but they have

No impact whatsoever on the politician except possibly a hardening of resolve you know the likelihood of me changing my mind because you’re camped out on my doorstep might actually diminish as a consequence of you being camped out on my doorstep yeah but then I suppose this

Is where we get into this vicious cycle isn’t it where you know politicians you know refuse to to start engaging with people that are you know infringing more on them where people then feel that they not being heard even more and more and it just gets into this cycle so it sadly

It will take one thing but I I think it will it will be having the politicians having to give in and speak more to people because you know the more the people are not heard the worse and worse it’s going to get and there’s a there’s

A greater force well yes I mean these are I don’t know if a if B follows a but certainly everything you say is accurate and you can see why I can see why you might knit them all together you mentioned George Galloway of course which we’ve been quite careful not to do

Much on on the program this week but I did come across one little clip of him that I think might be of interest to those who are uh should we say how can we put it politely to those who are perhaps falling for his shtick at the

Minute we have already and it’s only February 65,000 people Uncharted undocumented unvetted we have no idea who they are although we know most of them are men and most of them are fighting age men at that who are now being put up in three at least three star hotels sometimes a little better

Even than that at the expense of the public potentially forever more when our forces cannot interdict a single one of the boats bringing illegal migrants or Refugee uh claimants for Asylum we can’t know which until their cases are heard and their cases have a backlog of hundreds of thousands I I I

Just thought that was interesting because pretty Patel was was swinging for him yesterday and I just thought that she could have made that speech she could have delivered much of that speech although I think she’d probably have a better grasp of the numbers which were complete gibberish and of course the

Three star hotel argument is one of the most dishonest tropes in the whole Refugee conversation uh here is a building that used to be a three- star hotel we’ve now turned it into a holding facility for refugees the facilities that saw that hotel that ex Hotel received three stars are no longer in

Place I I suppose you could say well there’s still a sign outside James at which point you’d have to say I don’t think I can help you but do be careful to stay away from scissors so I just I one of the reasons why I think the the

The line between Galloway and farage is so thin is because they’ll say whatever they think the audience they in front of wants to hear um which is why it was particularly interesting to learn that another prominent politician of the last few years is considering legal action against Nigel farage at the minute and

Has indeed taken instigated the first steps towards that process I’m not going to tell you who it is until after this James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC it is 4 minutes after 11 it is Jeremy Cor that is uh threatening legal action against Nigel farage for reasons

That are politically very interesting uh because K starma Used Nigel farage’s uh long history of being criticized for deploying what are often perceived as anti-semitic dog whistles using and making comments that um are at the very least anti-semitic adjacent and starma used it to put pressure on sunak at last

Week’s P pmqs it was actually I didn’t realize at the time I wasn’t entirely sure why he’ done it but it’s actually a very very very clever wedge issue that starma has deployed there because it’s very tricky for sunak to talk about extremism or to talk about um people who

So hate or people who are divisive while apparently keeping a seat war for Nigel farage in the conservative party but for some reason that I haven’t quite worked out although I suspect it’s linked to what I’ve just described and far is lifelong desperation to be taken

Seriously and to be a key part of the establishment he claims to despise um farage got really really rattled by it and and attacked kir starma by making comments about Jeremy Corbin that Jeremy Corbin clearly considers or currently considers to be actionable and and he took to Twitter yesterday to reveal that

He was indeed instructing lawyers on that issue so I mean there there is a political scenario a political stroke legal scenario for which I’m fairly confident you could could sell all sorts of tickets you could sell all manner of tickets roll up roll up roll up and just

For the avoidance of confusion no no problem at all for me even though both of them farage and Corbin both get a chapter in how they broke Britain I know exactly whose side I would be on in that battle um and if you don’t you need to

Pay more attention to the program 6 minutes after 11 is the time I’m going to change T completely now we’re going to have a conversation that demands certainly no political engagement whatsoever it the new there a newest chairman of the BBC do you remember why

The last one had to go it’s again is is evidence perhaps of some of the stuff we touched on in the last hour just how absolutely dared everything has become as a consequence partly of the b word but partly of allowing complete uh delinquents like Boris Johnson and and

Liz truss into Downing Street everything is in some ways compromised corrupted arguably even broken do you remember the last chairman of the BBC well it was not only a big mate of uh Richie sunak and Boris Johnson I think he used to be richy Sak’s boss at Goldman Sachs and he

Was working as an adviser in Downing street during lockdown it’s an amazing thing that isn’t it of all the people in all the world that may have been qualified to advis during lockdown it turns out that his former boss at a merchant bank was the best qualified of

Them all um and his name was Richard Sharp and he wanted to be chairman of the BBC and lo and behold Boris Johnson made him chairman of the BBC but what neither of them had disclosed at the time was that Richard CHP had played a role in facilitating a loan of up to

£800,000 that was made to Boris Johnson and guaranteed by a distant cousin that he had I don’t believe any previous knowledge of and none of them thought fit to mention that thankfully it got picked up I think it was it was probably the Sunday Times it was probably Harry

York and Gabriel Gabriel pogrund at the Sunday Times who seemed to be holding the fort for investigative Journal J ISM in this country at the moment and as a consequence of it coming out he had to resign as chairman of the BBC so then

They had to find a new fell and lo and behold they found someone that they quite like the the cut of the jib off and he has come out his name is Samia sha he’s come out indeed he’s written to all staff at the BBC telling them that they need to win

Back working class audiences now I mean he talks about reflecting class and thought in all its diversity and I haven’t got the first idea what he means I think if you’re talking about opinions that are very popular with Billy bunch of numbers on Twitter who’s got a bulldog Avatar uh and never uses

His and can’t spell then those opinions are more often reflected on question time and other BBC programs than mine are I think I I mean certainly farage being a good example how many other MEPS can you name members of the European Parliament who went on question time can you name

One so the idea that the discussion programs where you are more likely to appear if you’re a fully paid up member of the tufton street lobbying incestuous lobbying Network than you are if you’re a world Authority on whatever your academic discipline may be the idea that though you’re not having diversity of

Thought on the BBC is ridiculous so I mean by all means challenge that what would diversity of thoughts on the BBC look like if if it have if if it’s not there already the the the the tragedy and the strength of the BBC is that they routinely put people on it who don’t

Just work for organizations that are dedicated to its own destruction which would include the would include the conservative party but they actually put people on Who are the eles dedicated to the BBC’s own discussion The Daily Telegraph columnist Daily Telegraph it barely has any readers anymore compared

To when my dad were there but they they pop up on the question time panel all the time if you don’t text me to ask why I never go on it said they do invite me there’s absolutely no problems on that front and I may change my mind at some

Point in the future but at the moment the risk of who you’re going to be sitting next to I you you run the risk if you go on question time of sitting next to someone that you’d cross the road to avoid I went on would you

Believe of all say no to most things but I quite like quiz shows I agreed to go on Celebrity pointless thinking Well it can’t be that bad it’s not as if I’m going to end up sitting next to or standing next to someone who I find truly

Repellent and I’m not going to name any names I’m just going to suggest you can probably find a list of who the other contestants were on the uh on the BBC archives so that’s why I don’t do it but the idea that there’s no diversity of thought is I think

Absurd which brings us to diversity of class so the new chairman of the BBC the one who got the job after the last one was found to have had undisclosed connections with an £800,000 loan made to Boris Johnson the former prime minister Boris Johnson of course beloved

Of conservative MPS who think that if you can’t afford to make ends meat on Universal Credit then you should try eating sawdust or selling your children for medical research but he couldn’t afford to live on an MP salary which is north of 150 Grand a year but heho double standard away talking

About showcasing the full range of British culture and talent um I don’t know what he means so I’m going to put up diversity of thought on the list all right you can challenge that if you think I’m wrong if you think there isn’t diversity of thoughts on the

BBC then tell me what you think is missing what do well there’s two questions here isn’t there there you tell me what you think is missing when it comes to diversity of thought on the BBC and you could also tell me what you think Samia Shar is talking about

Because I suspect they are two very different things what is missing is someone who would routinely respond to a booking from a a secretly funded tufton Street Think Tank uh like the taxpayers alliance or The Institute of economic Affairs what is missing is a guest on every single program they appear on

Asking what the hell they’re doing there if they won’t disclose their funding so there’s some diversity of thought that you don’t see unless they accidentally book George Momio but when it comes to class I have no idea what he’s talking about do you how do you make a program that would

Win back working class audiences I’ve got a horrible feeling that this is much much more patronizing than programs that or rather than attitudes that he would say alienate workingclass audiences what on Earth is a workingclass television program I don’t need any instruction on what a program that tells workingclass stories

Looks like in fact the 40th anniversary of the miners strike starting tomorrow will be a very good example and BBC 2 has been running a series of frankly extraordinary documentaries absolutely brilliant program making in every way so a workingclass drama would be everything from Coronation I mean most obviously

Soap operas but I I I I don’t understand what it means a pro not just what is a workingclass program 03456 06973 but a program that is designed to win back workingclass viewers what on Earth is he talking about now I I do this I don’t think I do

This too often it’s one of the tiny burdens I bear that if I don’t mention my own quotes privilege End quotes I get a bunch of messages saying oh it’s all very well for you and your um your your Ivory Tower and if I do mention my

Quotes privilege End quotes I get a bunch of messages saying why’ you keep banging on about your privilege um but I think I should mention it I am clearly not working class although my background isn’t quite as privileged or as as rarified as a lot of people who end up

Going to a school like the one I went to or doing the job that I do now but what the hell does he mean this chairman of the BBC when he talks about the need to win back working class audiences what do you what would that I mean does that mean anything to

You 0345 60 6973 the the reason I I like this as a topic is because I think it highlights something that the Tories have tried to do in recent years with without as much success as they probably expected they try to portray someone like 30p Lee Anderson as being a representative of

The working class CL when he’s nothing of the sort he’s he’s a representative of um not very bright people with extremely strong opinions and there are loads of them in every social class if he spoke with a posher accent and was possessed of exactly the same opinions

People who think Jacob Rees morg is a genius would think that 30p Lee Anderson is a genius they’re both to use a technical term as thick as mince so I’ve got a horrible feeling that people like Samir Shaw when they use the phrase work in class just mean thick as mint which

Is about as far away from reality and as far away from the truth as it would be possible to get so what what’s he talking about topics like this don’t always work I got to be honest with you because I I could do look I could fill the

Switchboard Now by saying what’s a workingclass program and you’d ring in and someone would say Alf garnet and someone else would say Bullseye and someone would say EastEnders and and someone would say Fred dibner and it would be mildly interesting for about 5 minutes but the switchboard the phones

Will be ringing off the hook this is a completely different question much more nuanced much more complicated and therefore much more interesting when a senior uh Tory friendly BBC chairman says that we need to win back workingclass viewers what do you think he is talking about yeah Benjamin proves my point

Jeremy Kyle I I genuinely don’t know what is a program that is likely to appeal to a quotes workingclass viewer End quotes but not for example appeal to me and vice versa what is a program that might appeal to a middle class viewer but not appeal to whoever it is that

These people have in mind when they talk about workingclass viewers 16 minutes after 11 is the time help me out with this one cuz I mean the worst case scenario is that he is talking absolute gibberish and nobody’s got a Scooby-Doo what kind of thing he has in mind when

He talks about programs that might woo back the working classes but in some ways I want you to explain that to me as well cuz it gets reported straight this stuff in newspapers that are largely written by people from my social class chairman of the BBC comes out thinks

He’s going to win brownie points by saying we need to win back workingclass audiences if you’re nodding in agreement and you don’t normally ring in because you think we’ll probably end up having a scrap you’re probably right but if you are nodding in agreement to this just

Take a moment out of your morning to tell me what you are thinking what is on what on Earth is a program that Woos a workingclass audience because I could be blind to this issue I could be completely insulated from it I could be an absolute victim of my own um

Prejudices privileges presumptions call them what you will but I I I’m going to say to you I don’t think there is such a thing as programs for the working class I just don’t think it exists as a genre I don’t think there’s a program that I

Would only enjoy if I’d had a humbler upbringing or a more difficult upbringing the idea that story I mean what’s Charles Dickens is Charles Dickens does Charles Dickens appeal to the working class does William Shakespeare appeal to the working class what’s Samia sha got in mind sounds to me like just as it’s

Impossible to really Define what woke means if you’re using it as a pejorative people trying to be anti-woke end up speaking ail trying to think who the best caller is this hour yeah you are allowed to agree with me I I should make that clear so you

Think of yourself as working class we may not get into the weeds of what that actually means so you think of yourself as working class would you tell me what you think about the idea that there are programs that would appeal very specifically and directly to you because

Of your class all right so I’m watching a bit of one day on nflix at the moment um and that doesn’t just appeal to my class it it is about me it’s about my generation it’s about a graduate class of society who went to University in the

Early ’90s when Rai culture was kicking off and everybody wanted to get a job in the media it’s frankly ridiculous how well David Nichols knows the world in which I moved but one day is enjoyable for other people as well and I what else am I absolutely loving at the moment I’m

Loving um slow horses which is espionage and I’m in the tourist which is about a bloke who loses his memory in the outback and has uh links to Irish uh criminal family back in back in Isa I mean so what is it you so you think

Let’s do it that way around the royal family Ro yle one of the best television programs ever made do you have to be do you have to be like the royal family to enjoy it do you have to live in a house like the ones that that Jim Royal and

His family of course what on Earth does this mean so you are working class tell me what you think about the idea that there are programs that can be made that are made that used to be made which would appeal very directly and almost exclusively to you 0345 6060 973 cuz

I’ve got a feeling this is actually a bit worse than we realize I’ve got a feeling that when a you know an executive a Tory friendly BBC executive comes out and says we need to make more workingclass programs I’ve got a feeling that either they haven’t got the first

Idea what they’re talking about but they very patronizingly believe that this will somehow appeal to people who don’t like thinking about things or they’re talking about something much worse which is we’ve got to start reflecting the kind of prejudices that 30p Lee spouts on a regular basis and represents and

They’re no more working class than Jacob Reese MOG is upper class so give me a call on this I I think it should be interesting but frankly it’s up to you 20 minutes after 11 is the time James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC I love this um

Mark’s been in touch as a working-class man from the north James I’d love to see more programs about whippits racing pigeons and beef dripping I well I I I mean I know you’re joking but I don’t know what the chairman of the BBC is talking about

When he says that they need to do more to win back workingclass audiences unless in his mind you’re not being funny Mark you’re being you’re being literal um actually while we’re at it perhaps we could include the question of of what would a program designed to appeal exclusively to workingclass

Viewers look like and I mean you can’t really say Jeremy Kyle a cuz that was on ITV and B because it’s not on the Telly anymore and C CU I think people viewed it like they view pornography didn’t they like a sort of poverty pornography

A lot of people tuned in who would be from a completely different socioeconomic class to the people who appeared on the program for the same reasons that people sort of slowed down for road traffic accidents or turned up at the Coliseum to watch some Christians being eaten by lions I could be wrong

But I’m genuinely baffled Simon is I don’t know how to pronounce that conen conon conon conon morning James well you’re not working you’re not working class you live in France listen I’ve worked more here than I before the UK I can tell you anyway what’s he on about what’s he on about

This this You’ sto my you’re stole my point because part was about Jeremy Kyle all that type of program where where I think that they appeal to that base level of people who they proceed to be working class for a start so it’s an incredibly snobbish thing to say then we

Need to win back workingclass audiences but the real story is the red the red wall Le Anderson those people who actually are homophobic but W admit it the ones that are SE hang on you can’t you can’t say just a little bit close there to lumping Lee Anderson in with

The comment about homophobia which I know wasn’t your intention but for for the avoidance of doubt and for absolute Clarity that you’re you’re offering up those as two separate constituencies absolutely absolutely correct but basically it’s it’s those people who are perceived to be working class who actually a point that’s never really

Raised very much is the big fear I have for reform getting in any sort of power is those working class votes they’re just the people that Trump Min to wo who believe he is their savior even though he wouldn’t um shall we say um if they

Were on fire yes so yeah okay so rhetorically I get I get that but he’s the chairman of the BBC he’s not making speech to on the stump in Ashford in um Ashfield he’s he is presumably coming from a place where as a you I think he

Used to be a BBC executive so he’s middle class all day long he thinks there are programs that are working class programs what would he have in mind they they want to try and I don’t know they want to rehash something to um go against what they perceive to be the

Leftwing liberal so he he means anti-woke he means anti-woke absolutely so we’re looking at why aren’t there more right-wing comics on the Telly question answer because they’re not very funny usually correct not always some are but you know generally speaking they’re not very funny and therefore

They’re not onelly as much as the ones who are funny who happen more often than not to lean a a little bit towards the liberal so I’m trying to think what an anti-woke drama would look like I suppose it’s the ones where the baddies win is

It maybe maybe maybe so you don’t know none of got CL back to my rendering anyway yeah well crack on good luck with it Simon there you go actually doing literal proper hard work proper manual labor while speaking to us about class issues on the radio um I I listen I

Sometimes the absence of an answer is the answer in itself but I’m naive enough to think that that the chairman of the BBC must have something in mind when he talks about programs that could win back a workingclass audience but what I don’t have is a meaningful idea of what that would be

Except the really patronizing idea that he thinks they want more we must have more programs about whipit we must have more programs about I I don’t know if it was America it’ be chewing tobacco would what is what is it so you name a working-class program and I will almost

Certainly say I love that and I’m middle class Mrs Brown’s Boys is getting quite a few mentions in my inbox well listen I say a lot of controversial things on this program and I’m always happy to deal with the consequences I think it’s brilliant I love Mrs Brown’s Boys Don’t at me I

Think it’s got a real end of peer feel to it it’s got a real variety show vibe to it maybe that’s what he means he means that that that I mean there’s very few places in the country now where you can see an end of Pier show the last one

I went to was in chroma but you know the kind of world that gave us the Les dennises of this world or the or the Dustin G’s the Les dorson you don’t have that world but there’s a reason why that doesn’t provide a conveyor belt of talent anymore is cuz the venues don’t

Exist I don’t know what he means Martin’s in touth Martin do you no I don’t know what he means either but um I I just think that uh it’s not about working class or not working it’s just simply about entertainment and perhaps they need to have tinmouth sorry carry on it’s just

About whether they have uh whether they should have more entertaining programs whether in um calling it working class or non-working class and uh I mean the best program that’s been on for a long while was the uh was the post office one that I saw that was on I TV yeah was

Absolutely brilliant and arguably precisely the sort of thing that the BBC should have been making and lacking in doing yeah and I wonder why that is and I think um I do wonder sometimes whether there’s a a desire not to um educate the masses but just to entertain them if you

Entertain them as they did enrollment times rather than educate them uh you’re on a good thing aren’t you if you’re in charge you’re talking about bread and circuses aren’t you yeah there it is so I mean listen in the absence of anything else and he hasn’t explained himself

Very well in the in the reports that I’ve seen we’re going to we’re going to conclude he just means we need to throw the plebs more bread and give them the odd circus so they don’t start really biting chunks out of the people who made

Me chairman of the BBC off the last fell had to resign because he hadn’t come clean about his role in the 800,000 loan arranged for Boris Johnson as usual James you put it much more succinctly than I should have well you gave me the bricks with which to build it Martin you

Gave me the bricks with which to build it so that yeah I mean well what else does he mean if not a kind of uptick in the in the Jeremy Kyle type programming or or would just keep them entertained not in full what does he mean when he

Talks about anybody who thinks as richy sunak clearly did that Lee Anderson is representative of workingclass values probably thinks that Jeremy Kyle is representative of workingclass entertainment and that’s not only patronizing I would say as a fully paid up member of the middle classes I would say that was profoundly

Profoundly and and quite horribly insulting uh Thomas wats is here now with your headlines James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC strong from Paul I don’t think there is workingclass TV James my workingclass parents would happily watch a Dennis Potter play on a Sunday night after surprise surprise maybe more

Workingclass representation in the media would prevent the idea that workingclass TV equals reality shows uh yeah I mean more diversity in the corporation more diversity in program making problem with that of course is um 14 years of to rule making social Mobility almost move into reverse something oddly I know what you’re going

To say when I say this is a subject I know a bit about you’re going to say well it’s the first time for everything James but I I’m the trustee of a charity that seeks to help young people from backgrounds very different from mine into the media uh it’s a charity we set

Up in the memory of a one of my best friends uh who who who we lost during lockdown not to covid but that obviously denuded the funeral of some of the meaning um and ceremony it would otherwise have had but he he was a a lad

From Rochdale who ended up in the media by Dent of being a bloody genius and realized that he was knocking around with herberts like me instead of anybody pretty much who came from backgrounds like his so in his memory and because he asked us to we’ve set up a charity to to

Try to to redress that balance and the balance the imbalance is is epic but how that would reflect on screen I don’t know to be honest with you that the the young people I have to stop myself saying kids CU it’s so patronizing but the young people who we’ve

Helped get into positions or or get work experience or get breaks if they ended up running the BBC I don’t know that they would make programs different from the ones that are currently being made and that I think is because I don’t know what a working program looks like

Steve’s been in touch he describes himself as an extremely frustrated television producer producer and you’ll see why morning James what does workingclass television look like that loud slapping sound you can hear is all the BBC Commissioners simultaneously face paring because as sure as godm made little apples they won’t have a clue

Either yes and thank you for your kind words about the show similarly Lee who I don’t think is being sarcastic said they should just broadcast your radio show James I like to think this is a classless place um not as in that has no class but as it doesn’t it doesn’t lend

Itself to any particular socioeconomic sector uh Tristan is in Greenwich Tristan what would you like I mean I oddly I should in the interest of full disclosure I would normally and completely unfairly use your name as an example of the kind of name likely to pop up at the BBC in a commissioning

Role from someone who is violently divorced from the working class so I’d like to apologize retrospectively for that and ask you why you rang in today Tristan just for that reason so I am working class from lincol originally um you name it I am as working class as

They come um and that’s the problem I don’t think people know what it means I mean politicians use it all the time alarm clock WR they don’t necessarily know what it means and then with the BBC and other TV shows they they kind of confuse benefit class and working class Oh Lordy

I hadn’t thought of that God well that’s even more insulting in a way isn’t it and also it is offense to the BBC but if there’s ever a controversial message like in East Enders or whatever they always give it to the white working class person what do you mean by

Controversial I don’t I haven’t watched these standers for a while okay so there’s a there’s a character called Karen who’s white working class Works in aundre ETC loads of kids and she’s she’s seen her sort of down and out but whenever they have a little chat about brexit or immigration or anything else

She she’s always made to look like the silly one and they all sort patronize her for like having white working class she represents the whole of white Working Class People and that’s problematic because well a Jacob re MOG is all of the things that you’ve just attributed to Karen except the except

The lwi income and and B because that creates the well East Enders is a tricky example isn’t it but the idea that middle class people think that everybody like her holds the views that she has when actually the opposite is true but conservative politicians and possibly this BBC chairman think that like that

Aren’t being articulated enough and that they are so both sides think that she is representative of a class when really she’s just representative of a position yes it’s a tough one what would a program look like then that was specifically likely to or designed to appeal to people from from your

Self-described perspective is there such a no there isn’t and that’s the thing because group I mean you’re you’re as I always think let’s say about class but it’s environment family social economic background is more than color or diversity it’s more diversity of thought really and is there a lack of diversity

Of thought on the BBC at the moment bearing in mind go on what sort of thoughts aren’t properly represented um I can’t think of anything off the top of my head I don’t really want to go down a rabbit all but well you I mean I don’t want to turn this

Into that conversation on Sky new when the when the culture Minister couldn’t name anything that proved the BBC was biased but and and and I don’t want to monster you either but I completely disagree with you I can’t think of a thought that I haven’t seen spouted on Question Time whether it’s

Representative of any class or position or not I can’t I I mean you must be able to think of one light loose example of of a thought yeah I’ll give you a loose example question time you know some of the audience in question time believe a certain thing but it’s that kind of

Shory peer pressure of they they don’t want to say it so then they’ll say we selected a group of people that represent All Views and then they’ll say who agrees with I don’t know we’ll say brexit yeah and nobody put their hands up and they go see see nobody agrees

With but they did they did see people twitching but no there’s people in the audience twitching but they look around and think I do not want to be the person that get five years ago they all put their hands up yeah but now it’s like they

Don’t want to be seen as the gam or the person with a right wing view or the extreme left view so a lot of people now don’t think they might you don’t think they might have changed their mind well not everybody has obviously but when you see those questions and know you know

The audience the audience is deliberately chosen to reflect the result of the last general election don’t you yeah and a mix of when they ask them to be in the audience they ask them what I’m saying is you can see there’s certain questions where they’ll

Go put your hand up and it’d be slightly controversial and there’s got to be at least one person that agrees with it because they’re twitching but they won’t put their hands up so how would you fix that then I don’t think you could you have to

Change the format of it to to to do what to maybe have some I mean I I think I think you’re spectacularly wrong about this but but I don’t want to fall out so so you you see you see an audience on question time and you’re convinced that

They actually agree with you but they’re too frightened to put their hands up at times yeah okay I I suspect they do maybe everybody thinks that Tristan no no when they do polls like let’s say um the death they’ll do a poll in around 60 65% will probably say yes they agree

With the death penalty yeah then they’ll say in the audience who agrees with the death penalty nobody put their hands up and you just think they don’t want to be that one that gets clipped up on Twitter as being the gam there may be some truth

In that it could also be that the kind of people who want to bring back the death penalty are not the kind of people who routinely apply to be in the question time audience true and that’s the same with the BBC you can’t just say true and gbly move on I’ve just given

You a reason why perhaps your theory is completely crackers no to watch it next time there’s a controversial question see the audience twitch all right I look for this I’m looking for twitching members of the audience and if I see anyone twitching I’ll know that they agree with

Tristan thank you the patron aint of twitchers Mind how you go it’s 11:42 Gary’s in Finchley Gary what would you like to say hi James uh yeah so um hang on I’m just trying to tell if you’re twitching or not are you twitching or not are you

Going to tell me what you really think or or are you are you twitching thinking they’ll clip this up and go bluming viral I’m not going to say what I really think cuz I don’t want to go viral they go did you ring into no no no I’m I’m

Definitely going to tell you what I really think so uh first of all I I I work in partly in the TV industry as a writer director and producer okay so that’s my background so um what I think they are trying to do I mean let’s can

We talk about some very very good program yes the appeal across the board yes the 1% Club is absolutely brilliant television is that the is that the Lee ma quiz show yes yeah that’s well anything mate I could watch Lee ma read the phone book to be honest with you but

It is also a brilliant format you’re quite right brilliant it is a brilliant format and it works across all classes all ages all representative it just works right it’s brilliant then you’ve got other programs so I you’ve got programs the very successful BBT programs like normal people which was a

Huge hit and worked across all uh classes and even though it was very much a sort of middle classy students in Ireland kind of thing it seemed to be incredibly popular across the board yes so we so what I think we’re doing is we

We what we need to do what the BBC needs to do is say we want to make good programs that’s the ambition is to make good TV not to make programs specifically for for the working class or the middle class but but there is a thing that like ofcom which is a

Regulator has this um regulation in it that it says you have to make a certain number of programs in Wales you have to make a certain number of programs in Manchester I basically say if you’ve got good comedy and it’s all coming from the mancunians I’m from Manchester James

Maybe I should use it something else so so I don’t know if we could quite do this I think I can see where you’re going if all the funny people are in Manchester then make all the comedies there exactly and if all the funny people in London who cares where they

Come from I mean well you know that you know what the answer to that is geographic quotas so you know have having the the massive program making potential now in Salford has changed the game or beard it involved in the first instance a lot of people having to

Uproot from a lot of people commuting actually to present programs in sford and then come back to their homes in in London later or at weekends but I I do quite like the idea of of a National Treasure a National Institution like the BBC actively trying to break down

Geographical barriers a same with channel four in leads I disagree with you a bit on that if we if we take something like the the post office uh drama right that that was an astonishing thing and it took the country by storm yes and I wonder what would have

Happened if that program had been on Channel 4 or been on the BBC would there have been a different reaction from the public because but because it was on ITV which is seen as being a more uh working class or totally inclusive kind of thing

As opposed to if it been out on BBC 2 it might have had an entirely different reaction and might have sunk Without a Trace and I think this also this also applies to Comedy so in my world which is the the comedy World um if you look

At the the top comedy in any any broadcast well they announce like what the top comedy is each week in broadcast magazine and the top one is nearly always liac with not going out right and it gets like a million viewers is it and then and then the one that’s like two or

Three down I promise you is like Dad’s Army repeat Dad’s Army well they would keep repeating them if they weren’t popular but you so what does that tell us no but they’re getting they’re only getting 300,000 viewers it’s actually it’s actually not popular broadcasters have have actually failing to unite the

Country and that is the if if that is the intention to unite the country then they need to work harder it’s not about working class it’s about Mass Appeal making stuff that actually appeals across all boundaries to all Rel but historically all all great art would

Wouldn’t it apart from some sort of you know Avant guard stuff particularly in the in the arena of performance art like acting all the great stuff historically would appeal right across the from the Groundlings to the monarchy wouldn’t it to not to put too fine a point on it if

You take something like Faulty Towers which is still regarded as like one of the top comedy programs of all time yes this is not a workingclass program the idea that workingclass people don’t find it funny or upper class people don’t find it funny is ridiculous it’s justun be absurd have you ever watched

Brassic no let me recommend that to you because I mean brassic is I think one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on television and it is set very much in I suppose like Shameless was as well these are programs set in workingclass communities without making a mockery of

The of the main characters or the class of the main characters but I can’t imagine anybody turning that off because it was two quotes working class en quotes give it a world Gary thank you for your call 11:47 is the time James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC it is

11:52 I I’m going to read this from in Hitchin cuz all human life is here but I again I’m not sure that this is the case Alan I think when Samir sha says the BBC should make more programs for the working class it’s a euphemism for more racially diverse

Programs he probably wants to say the BBC should make more programs for those with names like his or other ethnic minorities but that would be too controversial so he’s using what he thinks is a passable synonym for the same I think the exact opposite Alan bizarrely I I I don’t think there would

Be any out I mean maybe the Daily Mail would get upset about it or Nigel farage but if if the chairman of the BBC came out and said we need to see much more representation of ethnic minorities or LGBT communities on our screens I don’t know that the criticism

Would come from anywhere except the uh the usual places I think he’s trying to appeal to the people who would criticize him if he did say that I could be wrong but remember who put him into the the the job at the BBC it’s the kind of

Political class of um of the last few years I well maybe I I just think that would be unlikely not least because nearly half of British viewers last time they were asked said they thought that ethnic minorities and LGBT communities were over represented on television and the people to whom the current iteration

Of the party seems to be desperate to appeal are the kind of people who would say that they thought that that the ethnic minority population was over represented on telly just 26% versus 45 saying that they’re under represented that’s a yugov call poll from March of

Last year uh 11:54 is the time 0345 6060 I don’t know why I’m giving you the number we’re going to run out of time in a minute Sophie’s in Edinburgh Sophie what made you pick up the phone hi James I I called in because actually I think this is indicative of a

Kind of really wide misunderstanding of it actually what working class even means because so I’m um from a village just outside wolver rampton originally but I’m now at the University of Edinburgh right and my university has what 63% of my University were privately educated gosh just to put that in some

Context 97% of students in the UK are State School educated um just yes so I nearly mansplain then I said I think it’s a bit lower than that but you’ve checked and I haven’t so I’ll shut up yeah I mean I’m part of the 97 Club um

And also I’m the state educated students officer for the classic Society University yes so so so you’ve done your research then and I haven’t so I’ll stay even doubly quiet go on um this is something that really means a lot to me because I think fundamentally the reason I picked

Up the phone is that there’s no such thing as a workingclass program because the the TV shows that you listed just towards the start uh slow horses especially they are some of my favorite TV shows and we are from different backgrounds there’s no such thing as as

A divide in that in that sense at all I actually think that what he means by workingclass programming is and I’m not even disparaging this by the way but um programs that aren’t you know intellectually stimulating things like like Jeremy Kyle and I don’t think that’s something that’s reserved for the

Working class because I don’t think that anything really is reserved for any class I mean like you’ve been saying this whole time you know faulty Powers that’s not portraying the working class I don’t think it’s it’s got anything to do with the content of the show so much

As the people that he would associate with that level of intellect if that makes any sense yeah of course it does so so there is a snobbery here it is cuz I mean the idea that he was either originally he’s either talking gibberish or he’s speaking to quite an unpleasant

Prejudice you’re you’re nodding towards the second conclusion that he thinks that A working class program would be the televisual equivalent of junk food to be yeah I mean to be completely Frank with you I’m in my third year at Uni now I’m studying Classics which to my

Sugarin is the same as what Boris Johnson studied at University and it’s one that’s very very rooted in kind of an elite background yes that’s true and I me it should it shouldn’t be that’s just cuz they don’t teach it in state schools really and and and well you know

More about this than I do but I they really should and that’s something I feel very passionately about but I think that over these years at University the the main thing that I’ve kind of come to conclude is that working class amongst people who oned often becomes a synonym for

Sick and that is what we think is probably being appealed to here and it’s part why they made Lee Anderson Deputy chairman of the conservative party because if you are from a background like mine and unlucky enough to have had key influences and friends and family members over the years from very

Different backgrounds you could end up thinking that Lee Anderson is representative of anybody other than Lee Anderson exactly I mean Lee Anderson stands for absolutely nothing that I stand for at all and yet it’s it’s made out that he’s a representative of me and my family and the people from my

Background and that’s not fair so we think that Samir sha is somehow dreaming of the televisual equivalent of 30p Lee whatever he would look like in TV form is the program that Samir sh is streaming of that’s a terrifying terrifying thought terrifying thought how did you

End up doing classic were you just lucky that the school you went to did it or did you seek it out yourself very lucky I had it just so happened that one of my teachers at um my high school had a degree in I think Classics or ancient

History something like that and she I was in the first year that um she or maybe the second year that she she managed to put on an ancient history GCSE for just one class in the year I was lucky enough to get put into that

Class when I requested it and then yes I ended up here lifechanging absolutely yeah I’m very very lucky to have had her so uh shout out to Miss Taylor yes indeed a shout out to Miss Taylor take care Sophie thank you um I think that that covers it

Fairly clearly of course Sam may have meant something completely different I’m told he went to I don’t I don’t know it matter but he went to Latimer Upper School in West London no hostages tells me and then attended St Katherine’s College Oxford um so picking up on uh on

Alan in Hitchin Point uh no hostage asked is that what Alan meant when he said that he thought sha wanted to make more shows for and about people like him I don’t know you’d to ask Alan it’s coming up to 12:00 noon um bit torn on

What to do next there’s quite a few stories around I the one that I’m drawn to for similar reasons to the conversation we’ve just had is about what would you call them Terms of Endearment they would have been once but they are not anymore and whether or not calling particularly young women things

Like sweet or cute stifles their creativity I think I’m going to need another crash course James O’Brien on LBC it’s 3 minutes after 12 you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC um turn your there’s I don’t know if you’ve seen this story about the Granddad who

Um left 50 Quid to each of his granddaughters cuz he didn’t feel that they’ paid him enough attention that makes him sound bad actually I I read this story and ended up feeling sorry for the Granddad I thought I was going to feel sorry for the granddaughters I

Might tell you a little bit more about that and we should probably have a little look at what happened in the House of Lords yesterday with regard to that Ander Bill Ken Clark that veteran Lefty that well-known Marxist fire brand former conservative Chancellor Ken Clark radio can be a bit like social media

Can’t it I feel I should put an emoji off to say because I don’t want to get text saying you really think I would do as well I would get a tell do you really think Ken Clark was a Marxist fire brand it shows what you know about politics you

Ridiculous lemon I will I will get a text so don’t send me that text now just cuz you think it’s funny to send it like where the humor goes meta but that well-known Marxist Firebrand former conservative Chancellor Ken Clark should just work as sarcasm shouldn’t it if I

Say former anyway he was particularly brilliant in the House of Lords yesterday on the question of why on Earth any Sovereign British government would seek to ignore both reality and international law um but it was just the five defeats that peers inflicted on on that bill last night that United Nations

Who uh been quoted today approvingly by people who normally disapprove of them saying things like the uh Rwanda scheme is a violation of international law reiterated their position last night um I like these sort of stories girls are less inspired to be creative than boys are because they are

More likely to be called sweet or cute instead of cool or Brave now bear with me on this it’s an interesting study girls as young as five um are reported to have been essentially stifled you do something as a girl and you’re going to be called sweet or

Beautiful or cute you do it as a boy and you could be called Brave or cool or Innovative the research has been undertaken by by uh or or rather for Lego across 36 countries because I imagine part of the process here is trying to work out why boys would be

More drawn to Lego historically than girls would be um and the biased language is what they found reinforces traditional gender roles now just stop for a minute if if your eyes are rolling if your eyes are rolling at something like this I I’m on a mission

To help you I think I think we did it last week with the um nights where a London theater was going to try to encourage a an exclusively black identifying audience because the play is about slavery and as we proved I think close to perfectly thanks to the calls

That we took that’s a really good idea that no one needs to get upset upset about particularly when the number of nights upon which that will happen will be a tiny percentage of the number of nights upon which the play is on but I I

Do and when I say I I I’m I’m reaching out to you if you’re rolling your eyes I understand the kneejerk reaction to change when the subliminal message behind that change is that there was something wrong with the way we used to do things what were we talking about

Yesterday when I recalled the the women of a certain age who used to ring me to tell me that they used to like having their bottoms pinched in the office um in the in the 50s or the 60s even the 70s because they took it as a compliment

It came up in context didn’t it on a on a slightly different phon name but it was an example and what I realized speaking to those women and and going back a few years now but they were lovely women but what what I realized was that you are almost you’re almost self

Therapizing you’re almost convincing yourself that that wasn’t a violation because the alternative is is is nastier it’s uglier the alter ative is is annoying so I did it with corporal punishment of all things I spent years arguing that there was nothing wrong with corporal punishment because it couldn’t Poss

Because it hadn’t done me any harm because the alternative to that would be to admit that it had done me harm and that in some way psychologically it continued to do me harm so it’s like a sort of weird suit of armor that you strap on in order to protect protect

Yourself from the genuine consequences of something you’ve endured I’ve told you before you could have a PE teacher who’d say something it’s only pain it doesn’t really hurt and you’d sort of go along with it but of course it hurts it’s blooming pain it’s called pain for

A reason so quite often one of the things that I really really probably the biggest things I learned in therapy was the importance of recognizing the hurt that you suffered when you were little because you’d put so much effort into persuading yourself that you hadn’t I

Also think and I haven’t plugged a book for a while but my last book the one before the one that’s currently um currently in book shops my last one how not to be wrong was all about this the one that came out during lockdown little word of advice for you if you’re

Thinking of publishing a book try not to publish it when the book shops are shut it’s just a suboptimal state of affairs um but that was trying to draw lines between what I’ve just described to you and how we end ended up being led through covid by people who were still

Very very much emotionally crippled by the kind of experiences I’ve just described that British Public School stiff upper lip the worst possible the worst imaginable approach to life that you could have if you were trying to steer a country through a pandemic so look what Boris Johnson did what did Boris Johnson

Do he denied it he claimed that we’d be absolutely fine if we let it run through as like a dose of salts everything he did was like textbook emotionally crippled public school boy who has spent their whole life convincing themselves that they haven’t been harmed At All by their

Childhood experiences whether at home uh or or or at school or at the kind of school that we both went to so I mention that simply because I have a huge belief in the liberating power of recognizing that just because we used to do things like that when we were young doesn’t mean

That we should still be doing things like that now I I mean look the stupid examples would involve sending kids up chimneys but that that’s why you’re rolling your eyes I think it is we’re working out but that’s why you’re rolling your eyes you’re thinking well I

Was called cute I was called sweet how dare anyone suggest that anyone was doing me harm when I was called cute or so I call I I call girls sweet I call girls cute how dare anyone suggest that I’m doing no one is suggesting you’re a wrong no one is suggesting that you’re

You’re bad no one is suggesting for a minute that you are uh a force for evil just as if you were on the receiving end of this stuff and you think that it’s ridiculous to suggest that there was anything wrong with it then no no one is

Sort of casting you as as a victim or as a broken Reed who’s being cruy abused by Society we’re just saying that maybe there’s something in the idea that how you phrase things biased language will reinforce traditional gender roles and I buy it I buy

It I I I don’t know it and I hope that with my daughters my daughters would probably tell me off actually if I used words like sweet and cute instead of cool or brave but I I do think there must be a reason why the findings of this survey

Support the notion that biased language really really drives home traditional gender roles so if you want to play with Lego and it is Lego that have conducted the research you will almost end up talking yourself out of it by Dent of the language that’s deployed

Around it it’s not about mom or dad or teachers saying oh no no no no that’s for the boys and that well it might be about that I don’t know I don’t want to put words in your mouth it’s about systemic inequalities it’s about limiting creativity um telling girls that the

Stuff they’re good at is not the stuff that is traditionally malale dominated whereas in fact every girl deserves the freedom to explore her creativity without fear or pressure so what I need from you is examples what I need from you is the proof of the pudding CU it’s quite well

Written in the times but it’s not written quite well enough for me to understand the story implicitly yeah you are less likely to be called Brave or genius and therefore you are less likely to have your creativity nurtured you’re not you’re not you’ve got about 90% of young of of females believing

That their confidence would be boosted if adults Focus Less on results and more on complimenting the creative process so what does that look like what does that look like um what what is biased language look I’m going to be completely honest with you just because I’ve got daughters doesn’t

Mean I’ve been on a damine journey I think I’m a heck of a lot better than perhaps my dad would have been but we’re both coming from a desire to be the best people we can be the world has changed so what what would be an example for you as a

Woman of of biased language reinforcing traditional gender roles and you can go back as far as you want or you can tell me about how your how your daughter was treated the the the just the way in which we use words sending messages to girls and young women in particular that certain

Paths are not for them Sophie just did it brilliantly in Edinburgh on class-based conversation the idea that studying Classics going to Edinburgh University is is an Avenue that is closed to people from backgrounds like her and then it was the intervention of one Visionary teacher we were going to give her a

Shout I forgotten her name was it Miss pot I can’t remember but it was the intervention of one Visionary teacher that that that knocked those barriers down for her I want to do it from the gender point of view I want to know what it’s

Like I want to know what it does because some men who reach for words like cute or sweet and some women who reach for words like cute or sweet think that they’re doing a good thing they think that they’re doing they think that they’re playing a compliment but it does something

Subconsciously to a young woman and what it does is shut doors how many times have I said to you it’s about doors it’s about not just having lots of doors in front of you but being able to see the doors in front of you it’s where

That phrase you can’t be what you can’t see comes from money buys you doors it buys you options it might not buy you happiness but it buys you options to talk about diversity in the last hour depending on the class that you belong to you’ll have more doors if you come

From a middle class than you will if you come from the working class you’ll be more aware of avenues that are open to you your school will be geared towards showing you things that other schools will not be geared towards showing you so here’s what I want

Okay I just want to know what role biased language plays in real lives and and we’ll start with yours all right 0345 606 973 is the number you need and and I think it’s it’s going to it’s going to be need to be women to start with which

Means I’ll get 30 men queuing up to contribute to the conversation which kind of proves the point if I was feeling really ambitious I’d wonder whether this also plays a role in in the fact that we get more calls from Men on on most subjects than we do

From women is whether or not it’s tied into something similar this is more of a blokey thing to do than a I don’t know we don’t need to go there I want you to tell me how the choice of words actually dilutes female confidence in their own

Ideas and in their own creativity have I explained this all well there’s only one way to find out if I haven’t explained it very well you can do a better job than me of explaining it that’s almost the point of the topic but no one’s ever

Going to call me cute or sweet no one’s ever going to get to the end of one of these interminable monologues and go James has been very cute today that’s really sweet that’s just not going to happen and I think that’s partly because

I’m a man you get to the end of one of these monologues and you say God that was Brave or that was brilliant or that was cool or that was rubbish so I I just I know there’s something here I can’t quite get my hands on it I

Want you to tell me what it is it’s about the relationship between language and expectation and you know what I’m talking about cuz you’ve lived it and I don’t cuz I haven’t but by 1:00 today I really want to James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on

LBC and cue the queue of texter almost exclusively male complimenting me on how cute my last monologue was but you take my point that’s not language you would use to describe a man guess which phrase has already popped up more than any other in my inbox from women saying tell

Telling me why they particularly hate a phrase okay what do you think the phrase is we’re talking about how biased language enforces gender stereotypes the phrase is grow a pair you got to grow a pair it automatically implies that only men can serve solve certain types of

Problems I I’ve also been educated in um the notion of stereotype threat this is Mike who tells us about a book called whistling Vivaldi by Claude steel you look at how female mathematicians were given a test and one group of females were told men generally do better at

Maths the other group were told that in general men and women perform similarly on this test and the second group did better than the first group it’s like a self ful fulfilling prophecy or in this case the correct term would be stereotype threat you’ve also pointed

Out in an unsigned text that I didn’t need to do a long monologue on that one I could have just said here’s a story here are the details I don’t quite get it could someone explain you’re absolutely right I could have done that wouldn’t have been as cute though so

That’s that’s what I mean I know this is true and I’ve read the story but I can’t well I tell you what the story needed and I took the example from the times it really needed case studies it rather than just saying biased language reinforces traditional gender roles I

Wanted you to say if you do this to a girl she will end up doing that and that would be a diminishment of ambition or believing that certain paths are not for her so you tell me what this story is about Mia is in exitor Mia what would

You like to say hi James yeah I’d like to say I’ve been with my partner 14 years he’s Tre right and um occasionally about two three times a year he goes oh cutie and like Pats my bum and inside my belly there’s like this excuse my I’m

Not going to swear I won’t don’t S I won’t I won I won’t it’s there’s like a rage of plea and I’ve asked him please don’t call me cutie you know I’m 58 yes I’m not cutie you know even you shouldn’t really say it to a 16y old

Anyway but it’s like know your place stay cute wear a dress then I’m happy yeah you come off those rails sorry if you come off that then he’s not going to be happy so know your place you know be a cutie so they’re minimizing it’s it’s a minimizing descript it’s a diminishing

Description um it just makes me I mean I don’t feel I am cute you know I have my good days and I have my bad days Mir and go oh my God but if I was being him if I was being him today I’d say well I think you

Are I’m what well I’m being him now I I mean I think you’re looking lovely today and but you don’t use that word then use that word that’s a lovely word I love the English language and everything that’s involved in it so’s lovely but cue is you know you’re the first that’s

The first thing and this so literally all I should have done at 12:00 was so here’s a story here are some words I don’t really understand what’s going on but you’ve already given me lesson number one which is there’s a huge distinction between the word cute and

The word lovely oh my God yes I love word and I love the word darling you know darling this sounds a bit like darling you know it’s a bit like but there are some beautiful words that are not used in the English language and please use them and the other thing

Sorry before I go no you take all the time you want I’m not going to tell you to absolutely he also says if I come downstairs and we’re going out for a meal he goes oh you look you look nice and I got promoted to very nice after 10

Years and that’s all he ever says I mean your sister can look nice I mean I would love it to come home he comes home and he goes Co you up upstairs no clothes now or something like that this has taking quite a turn really no oh you

Look very nice very nice darling have you told him any of this or are you just sharing it with me a few he’s um very he he you know the chin goes up oh I can’t do anything right with you know and it’s just like he he’s built like a gorilla

He works in intelligence I can’t tell you does he he drags it’s almost like he drags his knuckles behind his he FS the door back and front and all over really so um so it is that simple it is just just use your words choose your words more

Carefully Lads in the first instance lovely is a beautiful word and we love hearing it and buy flowers for no reason you know yes I I don’t know that you might have veered slightly off Target on on the on the conversation that we’re actually having very romantic no but but

For the reasons that fit in with the conversation that that that we’re having I get that I I mean the other thing you’ve reminded me of is that the the phenomenon of introducing your wife or your girlfriend speaking as a man to another man and him commenting on

How good-looking she is I I I actually actually come back quickly Mia how do you feel about that if someone commented on how I look no if you if we were married and I introduced you to a colleague yeah and he said God you’re really punching above

Your weight or you’re really be to me or said to you you’re really beautiful what what does cuz I think that’s really weird um it is I would probably blush and just stand closer to you like you know what’s going on that that happens that happens it

Would be a compliment and and all Compliments are meant in a nice way it depends on how it she’s meant as a compliment though as well no it’s just no it’s not is it no you’re right there is something here and and and you have you have edged us

Closer to it but I feel that we’re not quite in the water yet what what is that distinction between cutie and lovely I find it deeply weird deeply weird when you in person face to face introduce someone to someone and they comment on how good-look your partner is um

Obviously never happens to my wife but it happens to me quite a lot Claire is in rugby CLA what would you like to say oh hello um yes hi um I I rather think that’s a lot of the language used um infantilizing that’s the word yes of

Course it does because well if I can just mention this when I was I must have been around 10 years old I’m now 63 so at that time the news readers were almost always men I think they were always were until Angela rien arrived but there was probably and the

Weatherman did the weather and then they started introducing women to doing the weather for example and I remember my older brother I mean he wouldn’t I’m sure he wouldn’t think that’s now well I hope not but he sort of dis dismissed them and said well the weather man is

Very knowledgeable about the weather but the weather girls they’re just they just read off a script they don’t you know in effect they were not classed in his mind as of he was 14 at the time so yeah yeah you know um so that language immediately means that they are not worthy of

Respect where the woman would have a different cache and partly why we change language and people sometimes get upset about it if we were to say where the person where the correspondent make it actually a gender neutral phrase and it would lose some of the connotations you

Describe well I don’t think we refer to them as we the girls now do we I don’t know probably not yeah yeah it’s just it just it seems to me that once you infantilize people they are disempowered they’re just children I think that’s the word that’s missing I think that is the

Word that is missing from this story is is that you you know talk about gender bias and traditional stereotypes but it is infantilizing cuz you’re you you I mean yes it is Sugar and Spice what is it sugar and spice and all things nice isn’t it it’s that kind of stuff you’re

Making whereas you don’t speak to men like that you don’t use what word would you ascribe to a boy that you wouldn’t ascribe to a man Brave probably mommy’s Brave Little Soldier um thank you CLA this is really really interest I mean I knew it would be but I didn’t know so

Here you go I never tell my niece she’s beautiful I always tell her she is smart and strong um Sue’s not very happy with lovely so I I don’t know that the cute versus lovely conversation is necessarily that fertile but she says do not call me lovely ever

All right Sue I won’t professional effective empathetic looking well they’re all fine but never lovely it’s it’s sexist I don’t want to know if a colleague thinks I look nice how dare they com comment on my appearance it gets right on my and that’s a word I

Can’t say on the radio Christine is in woking him Christine what would you like to say I’d like to say say that I don’t think compliments of women and their intelligence are mutually exclusive no and the reason is because my daughter who’s just finished 5 years at

University I we’ve always told her she looks beautiful yes we’ve also always told her she you know she’s lovely her dress is cute she’s got ribbons she was bought up like that she’s a girly girl however we’ve also told her she’s clever she’s as good as a boy and she anything

She want once when she was at doing her a levels one of the boys of her College told her after the mock exams you can’t beat me at physics because you’re a girl and she told him well actually I have beaten you and furthermore I’ve beaten

You at chemistry as well I like that and she’s strong and she know this so so when you say a girly girl some people will bulk slightly at that but they’re taking away her autonomy in a sense um don’t know I mean she wears dresses at

The balls she went to at University I didn’t see any of the um fellow dentists of the lady dentist wearing um trousers they all wore ball gown I don’t think that’s not quite that that’s not quite what’s under under discussion here I I don’t want to mansplain no one’s

Suggesting that they’d all be wearing trousers it’s more these words like sweet and cute so if she did really well in her Dentistry exams and someone commented on how sweet and cute she was rather than on how clever and successful she was that that’s the kind of biased

Language that I think is being described in the research um as as if that’s something something that only women sorry I’m talking over you you carry on no no no no I don’t think um as I said I don’t think it’s one and the same I mean we

Would say it in the same sentence you know if she was standing there with her certificate or if somebody had say you’ve done really really well and you look beautiful yes but not cute no probably not cute well that’s that’s the only bit where I was getting confused

Cuz cute is the this is why cla’s word infantilizing is so helpful you call a young female graduate who’s just aced her exams cute and you’re doing her a disservice I I think I would yeah yeah probably I wouldn’t call anyone who wasn’t three cute I would call a

Three-year-old boy cute Bingo Bingo but you would never call a 30-year old man cute whereas a 30-year-old woman can well we heard it didn’t we our first caller gets her bottom ta get patted and called cutie by her husband yeah oh I don’t know my husband would call me

Actually no he might call me beautiful but probably not Beauty I don’t think anyone would call Beauty to be honest it’s a weird one and and and yet we know somewhere that it is limiting creativity I perpetuating systemic inequalities is the line which sounds a bit high futing and pompous but

Actually isn’t because it’s about it’s about infantilizing creating different standards of aspiration and achievement but Chris a Time reminder you can easily do both and we both like that male or female you’d like to be complimented both upon your intelligence and upon your looks Amelia Cox is here now with

The headlines James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC it’s 12:36 you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC some sometimes you almost feel the enlightenment kicking in don’t you when uh even even if you haven’t got the the final Anis that you’re sort of coming to a better understanding of it even as

You’re still not quite able to articulate what it is that you are understanding um some of the points don’t stand up up to scrutiny so Matt talking about Showbiz people but I don’t think that that oddly I think terms like darling sweee honey all of that are

Gender neutral it was the late Richard aten who was famous for calling everybody darling so I don’t think you infantilize when you are in equal opportunities um uh uh deployer of such such such sort of language Trisha says it’s diminishing qt in particular is diminishing and infantilizing if you

Say hi cutie to Smiley babies um without knowing whether it’s a boy or a girl that’s completely different but but if you’re doing it to grown women then you’re looking at a different proposition entirely it comes from Lego the research was commissioned by Lego and their vice president of global

Brand said in in an increasing AI driven World creativity is the magic that will set us apart Lego play whether it’s free building or instruction based helps develop essential skills that are equally relevant to all children in today’s world and and the idea is that girls playing with Lego should be just

As likely to be playful inventors curious scientists daring dreamers and bold adventurers as boys are um I I like that and I get it or I’m nearly there Julia’s on the a of man Julia what can you tell us hi um there’s just there’s three words that that um you never well

I you never hear them RAR associated with men which is bossy yeah there’s never a bossy man being assertive or creative or strong he’s never bossy but if a woman does it it’s a it’s a term quickly used and um yeah sassy and feisty sassy and Feist similar lines you

Know you don’t get a sassy man or a feisty guy feisty fell feisty fell no you might oddly you might apply it to a to a tiny boy to a little boy feisty to a bit again yeah that’s di you know we’re talking about in yeah infant it’s it’s dismissive and

Diminishing it’s kind of you can be strong and uh you know assertive as a man but if you do that as a woman you’re bossy or feisty or or over and don’t step across L and and and so you dig back to the roots of it and

It’s patriarchal I mean it is the idea that you you really should be looking after a man and if you’re not you’re feisty or bossy or sassy yes you’re not you’re not knowing your place remember your place and if you step if you step out of there then

Yes stay in your lane have you I mean how much I suppose I want to know when you realized this in a way because I I’m clearly for women listening to the program the Journey of Discovery is not necessary but for me and from other men listening to the program the Journey of

Discovery is but is this something that is innate you just sort of hear it now this conversation and go oh yeah that’s that that thing there that I’ve known I I did a a culture and Communications course um a while ago in Canada okay and

They one of one of the the courses we were doing as part of that uh degree this came up but since then that was bossy and it’s just always stuck with me because I’ve got a daughter yes and um the word she uses sometimes and then I

Find myself using it with her and I have to pull myself up is Sassy so don’t be cheeky yeah the word she uses is sassy and then I realized actually I started using that word um and that’s the bit like you know it’s having having a

Daughter you find you put much more you know you pay much more attention to what you say um and yeah Tessy and bossy so you become aware of it here’s a thing you can answer given your dual perspective why would British girls feel these pressures this is like the

Pressure of perfectionism more than the global average so 71% of British girls say that they have to be more perfect than boys whereas the global average is only 6% that surprised me actually well that’s huge yeah um and maybe it just is that you know it’s I don’t want to use

The word colonization but everything goes back to tends to go back to that or come will stem from that I just think the way our systems and our structures were put in place and in Britain we still we are still so seeped in Tradition and you know what sarcasm

It’s SAR I love sarcasm but it’s not a it’s not a great trait and I think in Britain we we love being sarcastic it’s part of it’s part of our character enables us to carry these things through yes maybe yeah well it’s I mean it cuts both ways it’s a good put

Down but it’s also a good self protection like self- delusion almost like you say yeah funny that’s really but actually you’re hurting inside that well I mean touched on this a little late in the day but the idea of why the British would suffer more from this British girls British young women would

Suffer more from this than other nationalities we got room for to include that in our contemplations as well speaking of which as I bid farewell to Julia Julia take care free up a phone line for you if you want to join this conversation 0345 60

6973 is a good thing um it’s I beg your pardon is the number I’m just reading a message from inevit well you tell me from a man or a woman The Pretenders have a lyric going to use my sassy which is from Brass in Pocket so it’s a good

Thing except the pretenders were singing 30 40 years ago Mike and you’ve just had a woman telling you why it’s not a good thing I Chrissy hind perhaps being a a fairly good example of a woman who succeeded in what was at the time very much a man World whereas what we’re

Talking about here is trying to create a world that isn’t but hey ho you know words are words Lucy’s in Saffron Wen so Lucy what would you like to say oh hi James sorry about the voice I’ve got a little bit of Asa at the moment going on

So sorry about that um when I first heard you talk about the word cutie I felt really angry and I didn’t really know why I kind of know why go on in my childhood I was always called cute or cute cute by every family member oh

She’s so cute look at her hair I didn’t feel cute I didn’t want to be cute and I didn’t really like it and I couldn’t really say because you’re too young um you knew you didn’t like you knew CU nobody saying it would have done it from

Anything other than a place of niceness would they it wasn’t no it was all nice it was Al it was all so nice still is but you knew you knew you didn’t like it even as a young girl that’s really I didn’t like it and I went in at 17 this

Is a long time ago so it’s not context now but I went into be a computer AED designer for Designing um machinery and factories right and I was a only girl on the course and in the apprenticeship and they they did it too and I recoiled from

That and left even though I got distinctions in my first year gosh so now well that’s exactly what this story is about I see I me literally to I mean I don’t think it happens quite so explicitly for a lot of women but you you actually almost got squeezed out of

Something that you wanted to do because of the processes that we’re discussing yeah because it made me feel like um that and and and then when I went to work in schools which I did because I wanted to change things I wanted to change things I heard a staff

Member say oh I know I shouldn’t but I’ve got a favorite in the STA room I said oh who’s that and then she said the little girl’s name she said she is so cute right I absolutely love her both I recoiled and I thought oh I know that

Little girl really well we I play with them on the playground they’re quite active we playing and I thought she’d hate that CU she’s always got hands in mud and she’s always building stuff in the sensy area she just hates that and that’s the that’s it though because if

If she was a boy they’d call her brave or they’d call her yeah yeah and she had a twin she had a twin exactly the same class everything but that wasn’t the lady’s favorite because he was boisterous he was a boy and he did Lego

And he did all that but I tell you what this girl was so Innovative and you could see she’s going to go far which is only five but you’ve picked the words you’ve picked the words in the survey the word that Innovative twice as likely to be attributed to boys while girls are

Seven times more likely to be called sweet beautiful or cute good Lord I I was going to ask you to explain to someone who’s not getting it but I think you just did anyway actually that I mean literally using some of the words in the uh in in the research itself and Joe’s

Been in touch to say actually the the lyric from The Pretender song is sidestep not sassy I’m going to have to check now Joe but it would be quite ironic if you were right which I suspect you probably are it’s 12:45 James O’Brien on LBC James O’Brien on LBC 12:49 is the

Time I I don’t I mean Emir and stock put puts it best cute implies that you should hang on I hate it when that happens um cute implies that you should be looked at not listened to it’s a very unserious word uh there’s a very unkind exchange on Twitter here suggesting that

So I think you I mean I I’m going to mansplain now and say I think you might have misunderstood this one so I I said men over 30 don’t get called cute I didn’t mean by women who fancy them I meant as in it it being a sort of

Acceptable compliment to say imagine if I do a good thing at work and someone says God you’re so cute it just wouldn’t happen um but obviously if you see a bloke you fancy you might call him cute I’m not completely silly but this exchange here says uh yeah maybe it’s

Just James that never gets called cute that’s not very nice I mean it might be true but with respect and at risk of manaing you’re missing the point and Emma has got it completely it’s it’s about implying that you should be looked at and not listened to so I would go so

Far as to say although I wouldn’t hold this against someone if they were my age or certainly older but when you are introducing your female partner to an older male friend or colleague and they immediately comment on her looks I find it really weird and they think I should be

Flattered when they oh you’re punching above your way or whatever it’s just really weird because there are so many interesting things about this person that you are arguably not going to discover or care about if you’re going to go in on gosh you’re cute Natalie’s in list Natalie what

Would you like to say hi um when I was younger well much younger I got um a Christmas card from my grandma who wrote to the most beautiful granddaughter in the world yeah and my younger brother got one saying to the most to the cleverest grandson in the world gosh oh

Blimy there it is it’s a good job you didn’t ring in first that would have shut down the whole conversation um that yeah that just really really got to me I I wanted to be clever I didn’t want to be Musical and I I think it it really did affect me

Because I I just thought well that’s that’s my role to be beautiful and I was always in his Shadows even though he was younger than me well I never how old were you when that happened can you remember roughly uh probably about 8 or I think there’s a

Real issue of agency here as well isn’t there so the earlier caller saying she was about four when she realized she didn’t like being called cute it wouldn’t really cross the average adult’s mind that that was something that you were either going to CL either going to clock or actually object to but

When you put it like that it makes perfect sense and do you know what would have happened if you’d complained oh she would have been devastated but I wouldn’t have but they called you feisty they have called you Fey true well I get called that as well

It’s crazy isn’t it and I don’t know if you can answer this because it’s it’s going to be one of those things that happens under the surface but but does it does it have I mean you mentioned your brother being prioritized over the expectations of your brother from loving

Parents and grandparents would by Dent of of gender alone would have been completely different yeah he was he was definitely pushed um academically he was pushed through the private sector through education got scholarships went on to University whereas I was just education wasn’t deemed as as important for me because I was just

Beautiful and which again people will find it very hard to some people will find it very hard to understand how anybody could be UND Desiring of being complimented for their looks but as I said a moment ago there’s there is so much more to a person than that I

Guess those of us who aren’t regularly complimented for our looks struggle the most perhaps to understand the point that you make but it it I mean it’s a point of absolute Clarity and also in terms of what you want to achieve in life and what you want to achieve in the

World being a cute child is worth absolutely butt kiss thank you Natalie Mary’s in Bristol Mary what would you like to say uh hi I was just going to recount s of you know I’m in my mid 60s now but when I was in play my early 30s

Uh my father he worked sort of in a senior position in London and he retired and they made a sort of like a you know in their company sort of newsletter they did a little sort of you know wonderful things about him kind of thing and they

Mentioned his his family life and I’ve got three older brothers and in this article they said you know his uh his oldest son is farmer his middle son is uh an engineer youngest son is an accountant and his uh daughter is married and lives in Bristol and at the

Time I was um you know i’ I’d got a degree I was a teacher i’ left teaching and then I’d actually retrained as a computer programmer now I’m not saying I mean my parents were wonderful wonderful people and I’m not saying that my dad asked them to put this in but I think

That was just the sort of supposition at the time was it was you know better to maybe describe me in relation to a man you know that that you know my status is you know linked to that of a man it’s it’s both I think this would have been a very

Different listen for for for women and men and then there would have been another distinction this whole hour on age as well but it’s both it’s somehow simultaneously extraordinary and ordinary what you’re describing isn’t it it’s perfectly ordinary Behavior but the more you think about it if you can in a

Kind of social vacuum the more extraordinary it appears your brother the farmer and his sister the wife yeah yeah exactly you know yeah I just you know yeah you are defined by sort of your relationship to a man or you were at that time I think it’s changed now I

Hope it’s changed now well it’s changing but it certainly hasn’t changed completely because there are still words that we’d never dream of applying to to little girls like or I shouldn’t say that but you are seven times more likely to be called uh sweet beautiful and cute

If you’re a little girl then you are if you’re a little boy yeah yeah I was always very careful with my daughter to sort of not to say you’re beautiful and then to my son you know your clever so you know I tried to my best to but you

Know the societal pressures are there other people say it even if you don’t say it they really do they really do I think it you know one of the things that there’s a is it called the raw back test or something like that of films where

When you’ve got two women in the film and um the instances of them talking to each other and not talking about man and quite few and far between I think no it is it is raw back or raw raw batch isn’t it test and the I mean it is absolutely

Extraordinary when you have it when you are told told about it and even films that feature a lot of dialogue between women fail the test sometimes because the dialogue is as Mary reminds us um disproportionately about men um and and listen I don’t know that this needs

Sharing but you’ve sent it in so I’ll read it out and it might be helpful up until about the 60s the most important thing a woman could be was beautiful cuz that was the only path in life they had um being a wife I I I don’t know that we

Needed that explaining but clearly it goes way way way back in history where the value of a woman was determined by her physical appearance so it became Perfectly Natural to to start at incredibly early ages describing cuteness and uh and sweetness and all of these things that actually we’ve

Discovered even when we were young were finding obnoxious the Beckel test is the one that we’re talking about I don’t know where raw I don’t know where we got raw batch is that is that the one where you show people pictures and they and ask them what the raw Shack is the ink

I’m mansplaining the beell test this is a new low for me I’m man mansplaining the backd test to a woman well anyway in for a penny if you missed any oh no hang on I’ve got a few minutes left I can’t I can’t squeeze in Natasha can I in high Wicked Natasha can

You do it in 30 seconds or would that be unreasonable no I’ll try my best go on um so essentially uh cute I was called cute my entire life and I kind of found that I thought it was unwan thing because they’re a woman that are beautiful and sexy and all of these

Things and I was quite a tomboy I’d climb things build things like a lot of things my brother also treated like the clever kid was completely impractical I could do far more than he could in the house in general but at the end of the day I became a practical person doing

Sound engineer and now I’m called sassy now I’m called the you know all this person is just a bit more attitude has a bit more is a bit harder yeah and I think that that is connected and if it was a man it would be an attribute and

Because you’re a woman it’s almost seen as a negative and that and there in lies the absolute nub of this entire conversation thank you for bringing it home so perfectly Natasha if you missed any of today’s show you can listen back on catchup on global player the official

LBC app where you can also pause and Rewind live radio download it now for free from your app store or head to Global player.com coming up at 4 on LBC it’s Tom SW but now it’s time for Sheila foger thank you very much James uh married two children I’m a radio

Presenter you know James O’Brien on LBC