What’s it like to lose your job when you’re middle class? | James O’Brien – The Whole Show

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it’s 4 minutes after 10 a very good morning to you I I can’t do this every day as we discussed yesterday but goodness me it is becoming almost unbearably accurate the way that we are at the moment crunching the news together two headlines today which I I I mean the first of which I think would have stopped the traffic not that long ago wouldn’t it millions of liters of raw sewage were illegally pumped into one of England’s most famous lakes I think I challenge that I think I would say into England’s most famous Lake if I say England’s most famous Lake what do you say well exactly England so you can’t have Lock N it’s England’s most famous Lake uh after a fault it’s a BBC report into Lake windir where United utilities have put Millions do you know I can’t even bear now to look up what their latest payouts were to shareholders and and directors cuz you you just want to hit somebody millions of L when did the phrase millions of liters of raw sewage become normal in this country when when did the joxer position of these words Millions liters raw sewage Lake windir I used to go to Lake windir as a child it it’s truly one of the shiniest jewels in the crown of the British Isles and some people at a water company are pumping Millions it’s the second time it’s happened so all of these claims about it being extraordinary or we didn’t know what was happening somehow and I again I’m not sure I’ve got the I’m not sure I’ve got the the resilience that’s the word I’m looking for I’m not sure I’ve got the psychic resilience to look into it any further they’re blaming it on a telecommunic ation failure um so there you go that’s headline number one headline number two the Public Accounts committee which is a a House of Commons committee consisting of MPS from all parties has shared its extreme concerns that the Tories will meet its 40 new hospitals pledge and uh there is a separate warning from the National Audit office actually know these two stories sit alongside Sky News have knitted them into a headline highly unlikely that Tories will meet 40 new hospitals pledge amid warning that the NHS is crumbling before our eyes so here you go which of those two stories is more important is it the millions of liters Millions not like a few flipping Thimbles full or or a kettle load millions of liters of raw sewage being pumped into Lake windir not the North Sea where there is at least the possibility that it’ll wash up somewhere else but Lake windir itself or or highly unlik I mean who here put your hand up now if you thought the Tories were ever going to meet their 40 new hospitals pledge go on I’ll wait come on no hand up in the air if you thought ever that the Tories I think it was announced under Boris Johnson which was probably all you ever needed to know about its plausibility and authenticity but how how many people honestly thought that the Tories were going to deliver the 40s how did that story evolve do you remember 40 new hospitals gosh KY I don’t believe you cuz you’re Boris Johnson but it would be nice at least and then the next stage of evolution was uh yeah well when we said 40 new hospitals what we actually meant was that we might tart up I believe is the technical term we might tart up some uh some other some already existing hospital so we might it’s it’s an old hospital but what we will do to it will entitle us to describe it as a new Hospital in the same way that if you build an extension on your house you will be living when the extension is complete in a new house that was stage two stage three is yeah it’s probably not going to happen at all and no one is surprised that’s the bit I can’t get my head around and I’ve written a whole blooming book about it no one is surprised what’s that you say millions of liters of raw sewage being pumped into the I know Wind Lake windir is is a tor I know that Mia is the is the is the Anglo-Saxon probably word for Lake but come on it’s 2024 he caught on hasn’t it we can all agree that Lake windamir as as a phrase as a description lake windir has caught on even though it may technically be torical it’s a bit like the Hoy pooy you talk about the Hoy pooy and actually Hoy means the So when you say the hooy you’re saying the the people and when you say which reminds me of course of the beat and generation one of that mind bomb one of the finest albums of my of my childhood but when you say Lake windir what you’re really saying is Lake Winder lake lake Winder lake or lake lake Winder but that it’s caught on it’s too late now uh Caroline you pedant you insufferable pedant it’s too late now to turn that back to turn back that semantic Battleship and then uh you remember Kieran the van driver who was one of the first people in 2016 to tell us about what was likely to happen at our borders he was stuck there last night there 20h hour border delays kicked in there’s a full some full thread on it on Twitter which you can see on my account at Mr James o um he is watching his livelihood crumble in precisely the ways that he told you that it would crumble while Jacob reog told you everything was going to go brilliantly and do you know what Jacob re MOG is doing today he’s calling for Nigel farage to be made a minister the men who have been proved wrong about everything continue to tickle each other toes in public while the people who have been proved right about everything like Kieran watch their livelihoods crumble before their very eyes and what does the government responsible for all this do today when we learn of 20-hour delays at the border millions of liters of raw sewage being pumped into our favorite Lake and uh I just unbelievable isn’t it and the 40 new hospitals that they actually fought the last election on alongside the brexit lies are never going to happen what’s the government looking at today I’ll tell you and I’ll tell you with a with a cautious and modest reminder that I suggested yesterday the government government had descended entirely into the territory of the lazy 1980s Radio phone and do you know the only thing missing now is the death penalty and I say that so cautiously cuz one of them will pop up with it next the only thing missing is is the death penalty so today we must have more stop and search of people but we’re doing ab absolutely nothing to address poverty uh we must have less sex education I’ve got some of the detail of this now they’re going to be teaching children about revenge porn before they teach them about sex that’s that’s that’s in the detail of the proposals being put forward to sex education for children lazy radio phoning people who don’t really understand anything ring in and get angry you say as the presenter how will an 8-year-old being abused by an adult know that what’s happening to them is wrong if no one is teaching them about what is wrong and what is right we’ll do that at 11 and then uh we’re not doing stop and search today because the Third Leg of this morning’s tripod of edsc comes from Mel stride and Jeremy Hunt and they are telling you that if you’re unemployed it’s very easy to get a job and I want to do something that we’ve never actually done before and and I make no apology for this okay I I I I make no apology for this I want to know what it’s like to lose your job when you’re middle class because I understand what Mel stride and Jeremy Hans are talking about they’re saying that you can just go and stack shelves nothing wrong with stacking shelves but they are talking about how easy it is to get an unskilled job on a wage that is cons well it’s probably even on a wage that is less than they spend on lunch every day well then they would spend on lunch every day if they didn’t have cens in the house of common subsidized by you and me so the um the claim this morning is and they’ve got all the client journalists out enforced Today front page of the telegraph Tories tell police bring back stop and search front page of the times is the one about um don’t teach pupils about gender ID schools told and the front page of where where’s the one about the the oh and there it is again front page of the times again jobs are there if the unemployed want them Min we’ve got six flipping months of this six months of them treating our lives like a sort of hollow election campaign while all of the bad stuff is happening in real time they’re making meaningless pronounce ments about lazy 1980s radio phoning topics but I did hear a it may have been Nick himself actually talking about his own experience of unemployment and it reminded me of my late father so the question is going to be and we’ve been a bit around the houses um this morning so it gives you an early better chance than usual to get on air 03456 6973 is the number you need to tell me what it’s like to lose your job when you are on what what figure should we use 50 50 Grand a year okay that I’ve never done this before what’s it like to lose your job when you’re on 50 Grand a year or more all right I know that’s more than the national average but that’s of interest to me because I don’t know who Jeremy Hunt and Mel stride are talking to today the chancellor and the work and pension secretary claiming that the economy is doing far better than many would have you believe and the way that they’re proving this is is by saying that people who are to use their rhetoric languishing on benefits could actually go out and get a job in a heartbeat so I want to do the broad question of why you haven’t got a job 0345 6060 973 that that that is the broad question why haven’t you got a job 0345 6060 973 but I want to know what it’s like to lose your job to be unemployed if your lifestyle depends upon an income of of 50 Grand or more I’m almost frightened to ask you know my late father lost his job in 1990 he was made redundant by The Daily Telegraph and one of the oddest political experiences of my life was talking to him about why he went to the job center because I didn’t think and and I know this will sound snobby um but I was only 18 I didn’t think people like my dad went to the job center I I didn’t think people like my dad went to what he would still refer to as the labor exchange God Rest his soul and he explained it to me as he often did in ways that completely changed the way that I looked at the world he said I’ve been working since I was 15 son I’ve been working since I was 15 I’ve been paying tax for for almost all of that time and one of the reasons why I have been paying my stamps as he as you called them paying income tax National Insurance and the rest of it is so that when I need it the system will support me and he needed to sign on in order to access certain services and and I think also made things like tax returns easier you need a sort of status or you did in 1990 you need a sort of status in which you can function within the system I don’t know what it’s like now I really don’t know what it’s like now thank God it’s just luck and Circumstance um so in 1990 my dad went to the job center and it helped him out a bit in that we didn’t have a photo copier at home and he needed one on a on a couple of occasions and I think he had a couple of um class is on technology perhaps there were things he was still using a typewriter uh around that time to to write his copy would you believe and uh the internet didn’t really exist so it was too early for lessons about that um I I don’t know that he was ever going to see a little card a little postcard on the wall in the kidderminster job center that would have been a job commensurate with his talents and experience he he as I say left school at 15 he went to work for the local newspaper in Shipley a suburb of Leeds but worked his way through many local newspapers via a route that barely exists anymore and is taken by even fewer people all the way to a Fleet Street title all the way to the Daily Telegraph he didn’t work on fleet Street he was the Midland correspondent and he was a brilliant journalist um about 463 times better than I would ever be and then he lost his job and that’s all he’d done since he was 15 so the likelihood of their being a job on a postcard on the wall clipped to the wall pinned to the wall in K havein the job center that in any way reflected what he had done for 40 odd years was probably zero it’s the same job center where I once applied for a job as a trainee sea lion tamer at West Midland Safari Park um but my dad didn’t like swimming um and there were jobs there would be good jobs if you know like payroll and accounts and things that would be considered white collar but which which my dad would have absolutely no knowledge of at all and and that’s a that’s a specific profession isn’t it it’s a limited profession but there’s also the the the the the livelihood it was my last year at at fee paying school it my last year at boarding school my sister still had two years to go um there’s a redundancy payoff of course but you know that is a finite amount of money it’s not like a wage and for for Jeremy hunt and Mel stride to say to the 2024 equivalent of my dad that there’s plenty of jobs out there if you want them seems to me to be missing almost every single point that I’ve just made and it and it leads me into the shiple is Bradford of course it is I’m so sorry he lived in leads he worked in Bradford please don’t ex please don’t excommunicate me from the honorary yorkman Society good god I’ve never had more texts I’ve never had more texts about anything in my life not about Mis misappropriating Shipley Shipley times and distress it was I know I know sorry sorry stop it stop it now that’s enough oh flipping um I think the Tories have such contempt for people who have slipped struggled I I really do and it’s the weirdest thing about Tor rhetoric for me is the inability to appreciate that it could be them do you know what I mean that the simple lesson of their but for the grace of God go ey they just don’t seem to acknowledge it so Mel stride and Jeremy Hunt I don’t know what melde’s personal circumstances are but Jeremy Hunt’s always going to be all right if he doesn’t even have a job anymore he’s got all his rental properties to to live off but you know the idea that you might actually actually be on your uppers you might have need of State support I thought fur might change the world in my own naive and foolish way I thought fur might make people thought well I’ll never need I’ll never need any help from the state oh and suddenly I do and you got it I don’t know um so what happens if you and I’m choosing 50 Grand you may not think that’s the right figure but you’re welcome to uh in and you pick your own but what what I mean is you can’t you can’t really afford to take the sorts of jobs that mride and Jeremy Hunt are talking about the ones that are if you like there if you want them so so regardless of your status and position what um how do you answer the question why you’re not why you haven’t taken the jobs that Jeremy Hunt and Mel stride are talking about 0345 60609 73 but the second question is if you’re if you’re earning over 50 Grand you were you lose a job worth more than 50 Grand a year what happens in in terms of unemployment because it’s one of those things about which you will know nothing until you suddenly need to to know everything 03 and I will not be accepting any more takes about Bradford or Leeds 0345 6060 973 is the number you need if you hit the numbers now you will get through it’s 20 10 James O’Brien on LBC 23 minutes after 10 is the time it is the more you read it a really nasty piece of rhetoric I think from Mel stde and Jeremy Hunt today if you’re going through one of the toughest times of your life and you’re worried about even perhaps losing your home mride and Jeremy Hunt are here to tell your friends and your neighbors and the people on the school run that it’s all your own fault and there are plenty of jobs out there and frankly if you’re kicking your heels then it’s probably a lifestyle choice I wonder how that holds As you move into the sort of territory that we might traditionally consider to be conservative voting and that is why very arbitrarily I’ve introduced a lower limit there’s no upper limit what’s it like to lose your job if you’re on quarter of a million a year I I I appreciate most of us would respond to that question by reaching for the world’s tiniest violins but if if you’re on quarter of a million a year income gross and your outgoings are you know 150 Grand a year I.E pretty much all of your net income then what happens when you lose your job unexpectedly you’re never going to get a whip around are you or a crowdfunder for a for a City lawyer who loses their job in a round of redundancies that they didn’t see coming but for them their life explodes but don’t worry because hunt and stride are here to tell you that uh there’s loads of jobs out out there Victoria’s in Richmond Victoria what would you like to say hi there um I I lost my job while on maternity leave and I was earning a really good wage that just over 990,000 a year um I suddenly lost my job and um I have been trying to balance searching for a new job um whilst looking after my daughter who I can’t afford to put into Nursery or care or anything because I don’t have any income at the moment um I work in the TV and film industry which is really at the moment the Tories aren’t really talking about it but the worst it’s ever been and and print print media as well actually q q magazine closed yesterday I don’t know if you know it got relaunched about N9 months ago they were doing a bang up job and then they just pulled the plug so again you know asking people to feel sorry for anyone in the media is quite a challenge Victoria but we are we are human too we are human too exactly and I know like we you know in in general we are paid very well but in the past if I had you know lost a staff role I would have gone on to freelance and 75% of Freelancers in the in the TV and film world at the moment are out of work that’s how bad it is so what happens well I mean what where do you go on on you know your first day as someone who hasn’t got a job what do you do Well it Well exactly what what do you do I mean I’m just spending every time that my daughter naps applying applying applying to jobs and some of which you know I’ve got 15 years experience and yet I’m not even getting uh responses a lot of the time are you registered as unemployed anywhere are you receiving Universal Credit do you have are you on the list it not Universal Credit but I did decide recently sign up for job Seekers for the first time in my entire life yes but you’re entitled to it because I’ve been paying taxes my entire life and because I have a a daughter that I need to feed and pro provide for my my husband is a junior doctor within the NHS as we know it’s very underpaid compared to every other country very overworked and very overworked and he can’t to pay my side of the mortgage and his and all of our bills and outgoing you wouldn’t have got the mortgage on the strength of your husband’s income alone would you with the calculation can I ask how much job Seekers allowance is for someone in your position or or not that is less than1 pound a week which basic what you want before what does 90 grand a year translate into as a weekly net income roughly oh it’s about seven Grand a month or something like that so I mean Grand and a half or more yeah it’s the difference is is massive like I can’t can B they can basically afford some nappies and and and some food on that like nothing else so we we will be looking at you know if I don’t manage to get a job in the next six months we do have have to think about what we’re going to do in terms of our house whether we G we’re going to have to move or um you know rent it out I presume you’re considering immigration as well are you potentially yeah we we you know we might go to Canada or somewhere like that where my husband could get paid a hell of a lot but probably double if not triple what he would get paid here as a doctor and the house when when does that and I hate to do this to you but I know you’ve looked down this you’ve looked into this ays when does the house become unsustainable probably in the next uh in the next six months or so we would have to look at potentially renting it out and and living somewhere much smaller and it’s it’s it’s a modest house it’s not no I understand and when when Mel stride and Jeremy Hunt tell you that don’t worry there’s loads of jobs out there if you want them your response would be it’s it’s just it’s just a kick in the gut it’s it’s so it feels like they are so out of touch with what is happening currently in the job market in the economy in the every everyday people’s lives and it just once again feels like the Tories are living in their own little bubble and they really do not understand the struggle of everyday people and I am just so angry that people continue to vote for them because it just there’s it get it gets ever more extraordinary and finally Victoria if I may is this morning the first time you felt seen in your current situation uh well yeah it’s first time ever called in to a radio show ever because I feel like really passionate about this because you deserve better and and and what you’re getting from the only people in a position to to to to deliver better what you’re getting is patronizing platitudes and and and borderline lies it’s easy you go there’s a headline jobs are there if the unemployed want them H yeah don’t nothing to see here everybody move along absolutely fine what are you supposed to do um Dan writes I’d lose my if I if I lose my £68,000 a year of job and I know there are lots of people listening who who can’t even dream of incomes like Victoria or Dan but we are actually all in there you lose your job you’re suddenly identical we’d lose the house James the car would go my wife wouldn’t be able to work as a low paid nurse as she’d need to increase her income she doesn’t make much at the moment but because I earn so much more she doesn’t have the pressure of having to worry about her low pay I’ve tried many times to get her a better paying job but she just likes to be a nurse sounding a tiny bit Victor story in there at the end D but I take your central point it’s coming up to half past 10 Mel stride and Jeremy Hunt are adamant that if you want a job and you’re currently unemployed then there’s loads which seems to me to reflect the reality of almost nobody and that I fear is how the Tores are going to fight the next general election I’ve put together a little list of things they should be looking at I tried yesterday I’ve got 1 2 3 4 5 6 seven eight and a half issues on my list eight and a half issues on my list the things the government could be worrying about when today they’re trying to direct your attention to calls for Less sex education more stop and search and more abuse of unemployed people for being there through a form of Lifestyle Choice rather than either economic or individual necessity Thomas watts is here now with your headlines James O’Brien on LBC it is 10:32 you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC I think we should probably find some room for one of these today unhinged headline this is perhaps inevitably from the telegraph Britain is paying the price for surrender to the EU the UK can’t control its borders because sunak did not heed my warnings writes someone called Martin how uh on the Northern Irish protocol so you now have brexiters complaining about other people not heeding warnings about what was likely to happen to Northern Ireland if irony could be distilled and put in a bottle you’d have about 14 liters of the in fact you’d have hundreds of millions you’d have more liters of irony in bottles than is currently being pumped in untreated sewage into late Winder Mia Mia Lake we Mia I got that wrong haven’t I Lake Winder Mia like anyway that that’s today’s unhinged headline and there might be another one oh also while we’re here I’ve got a quick idiot’s Corner the Chris this is for you mate and I know that this is very popular on your uncle Keith’s Facebook page but you are part of the problem the more you subscribe to this sort of nonsense why don’t you talk about the corruption in the United Nations and the world economic Forum everything that’s happening is by Design to ruin humanity and create complete control control of whom by whom champ it’s a problem with these online conspiracy theories is you you get the little shot you get the jolt of adrenaline oh my God they’re trying to control us all who is the the United n the world I know people that work at the world economic Forum the idea it’s a bit like George Soros isn’t it or Bill Gates somehow controlling vaccines or or or or controlling the media it is absolutely Bonkers but the more you believe that the less time you spend actually blaming the people responsible for off the top of my head millions of liters of sewage being pumped into Lake windir a third of mothers on birth Wards having traumatic experiences dangerous prisoners being released early because there’s no room and the whole system is in meltdown shoplifting being pretty close to not even being considered a crime anymore while the police face all manner and of myriad other problems NHS waiting lists patient satisfaction the lowest it has ever been GP appointments as rare as hen teeths dentists even rarer border checks on fresh food making everything more complicated and more expensive and if you lie awake at night worrying about such things immigration is higher than it has been in donkey’s years but hey you focus on sex education in schools and uh unemployed people unemployed people swinging the lead because if you need a job if you want a job there’s loads of jobs out there until you actually ask people what it’s like to be out there without a job Ross is in chiping Camden Ross what would you like to say yeah good morning James um love the show don’t always agree with you but love the way you make me think about things in life in general I’ll take that thank you so a bit of background I’m a long-term Tory voter won’t be voting him again in my foreseeable lifetime I’m pretty sure okay um Jeremy Hunt used to be my local entity and I’ve had the very privilege back ground it I’ve been to a public school not a great one but a public school God that’s such a class ridden English thing to say isn’t it it really is I go and I’ve been lucky that since I was about 25 I’ve always had jobs over 50,000 a year i’ I’ve reached about 130 a year my last role was 85 Plus um and I found myself you know I feel very thankful for that however with everything that’s going on with the Tories at the moment they don’t I don’t think they really get to understand how much of a kick in the I was going to swear that you know where I’m going with that how much of a kick in the guts it actually is no yeah we’ve got houses we’ve got cars we’ve got dependents and children and it’s it’s really tough I mean I’ve I’ve spent I’ve got 25 years industry experience and I’m not getting callbacks for jobs that I’m probably well over qualified for and I’m quite happy to take the knockdown from say an 80,000 salary to 50% of that or or even less just to keep going right um and there are there is lots and there are lots and lots of jobs out there however if you’re a middle-aged man you know and I’m 45 yeah um you’re not getting call backs you’re not getting phone calls you’re not getting recruitment agencies calling you the big companies always want the youngsters they want the upand comers because they think they’re driven they where do you think where where do you think the cut off point is because I’m 52 so you know I’m toast as well when when the time comes but what where do you think where do you stop being up until recently I honestly thought it was going to be 50 55 plus but what I’m finding is there is a degree of ism and I’m not sure quite sure what the ism is you know whether it’s age related sexism or you know qualification ISM whatever you want to call it but there is definitely something you got someone who’s overqualified it seems to be against Natural Justice not to give them the job but the worry there is of course that they’ll be looking around as soon as they get there to move somewhere more more commentate with their qualification yeah and I’m quite happy to go and do something completely different you know diversify as you know using my farming friend’s language and going do something completely differently and I’ve got cross comparable skills that would go across many different Industries but because you haven’t got a background in say construction or power networks or whatever it may be that the companies just aren’t interested they’re so insular um so where do you go you know looking at the government job Bo job boards for example yes there’s next to nothing on there for a salary above £80,000 a year fine accept that it’s designed for certain people certain Trends in society morgage doesn’t your mortgage has gone up or if it hasn’t you’re lucky your your cost of living has gone up or if it hasn’t you’re lying um outgoings that are you know not easy but manageable when When the tide is in become completely impossible When the tide goes out exactly that and that’s the problem is the mental health side things nobody’s actually talking about that for middle-aged tell me about tell me about the toll so so I’m I’m currently taking medication for anxiety and depression right um I have a minor history of it shall we say but it’s been predominantly the last well since January of this year through stress of work then leaving work then the pressures of being basically kicked out the door when going to details because I can’t um and you know I have a friend of mine in the same Village and there’s probably 150 people in this Village yeah um he’s been out of work for six months he’s a software sales professional he’s done it all of his life um and we catch up for coffee every now and again a slice of cake or a biscuit whatever was going around and he he is literally on the verge of losing everything yeah um you know he he’s talked to me about he he he’s actually worth more better off dead and we’ve had some very serious conversations around this and you know I haven’t brought him back from the brink because I don’t think he’s there but we’ve had some very serious conversations and he needs a lot of support and propping up and where do these people go there there is no forum for these people it’s not as if we can go down to you know to coin a phrase from uh what was the film in the 80s of the Sheffield Steel Workers 90s sorry full that’s the one there is no job club for people like us there is no support um I haven’t looked into benefits because I’ve always assumed there’s no point I so you’re not you’re not officially signed on as unemployed then you’re no but again I was raised from a middle class is background where just doesn’t happen to people like you it was it was a dirty word we don’t do we don’t do benefits in this family that’s that’s I mean you’ll allow me one little nudge that is a legacy of being lifelong Tory voter as well because it is the Tories who created that rhetoric cuz I was the same as you and I’m I’m not for the avoidance of doubt and lifelong Tory voter but when I was 18 and my father was made redundant and he went to the job center I needed him to explain to me explain away my shame and and so I’m just stressing that I understand the association of Shame with with that but it shouldn’t be there and it’s been put there by politicians Ross and there is a huge amount of keeping up with the Joneses no matter where you are whether in a council flat in dagam or if you’re in a 5 million pound house in the cotwell or chesh you know you want to be seen to be not necessarily afterward but successful be doing well someone once said to me the happiest people the happiest people live in the biggest house on their own Street it doesn’t matter where the street and and that is sad we shouldn’t be activistic but we are it’s The Human Condition um and I have to add this into the mix cuz I’m on a bit of a a bit of a role at the moment with the with this particular generation of cabinet Minister and ministers because it was Mel stride a couple of weeks ago who was saying that people like you who are receiving treatment and medication for your mental health just need to sort of pull your socks up and and and stop swinging the lead so he’s Mel stride is not someone you would want to bump into in an Alleyway on a dark night for fear of what you might do to him R well probably not because I have been personally affected by part of his previous policies in terms of outside in terms of inside outside I 35 and the and the loan charges now I’m not going to get into that I’ve paid the charges not a problem my hands up I should have done more research not a problem however you know these these guys they live on cloud cookie l i mean well they’re telling you today that there’s there’s there’s loads of jobs out there for people like you and it’s the second bit of that sentence that is so obnoxious isn’t it but the people like it is it’s absolutely bloody offensive sorry yeah that’s fine I’ll allow that sorry because they’re looking at the lowest demographic they’re trying to Tar everybody with the same vein of of well they can all go dig holes in the road they can all go stack shelves at tesos they can all go and put pallets and forklifts and yet absolutely everybody in their right mind will’ll do that if we have to yes however what’s the point of having 25 30 years of an industry experience if you can’t even get a look in the door and that is a rhetorical question I know it is and I wish I could be of more Comfort to you I hope I hope just having some much to vent has been of use Ross I I would as a few people are saying and I know when you start in this situation you don’t think it’s going to last for long enough for it to become per but I think you need to sign on to get your National Insurance stamps paid which is something else that that can come back to bite you on the backside a little bit later if you’re not across it ear earlier but I mean there it is the uh the reality if you like of being in precisely the position that Mel stride and Jeremy Hunter are talking about today appears shock horror to be absolutely different from what Mel stride and Jeremy Hunter describing thank you Ross Take Care Louise is in Manchester Louise what would you like to say Louise and let me read carry on to the last caller really yes no there’s something wrong with your phone line Louise I can only hear about one word in 12 which um is is obviously suboptimal I wanted I you know I can’t believe someone else has made this point because I wanted to make it as well Adrian Victoria our earlier caller from Richmond is unfortunately a perfect example of what Gary Stevenson is trying to get people to understand Gary Stevenson now a bestselling author but also his YouTube Channel Gary’s economics talks about inequality not only affecting the poor anymore the economy is now becoming tilted against people on 90 grand a year natural Tory voters traditionally as Ross just alluded to it’s a great text this Adrian this all shows how important wealth distribution is yet neither conservative nor labor are interested in addressing the problem Gary’s economics needs constant plugging I’m happy to plug it but he goes further and he talks about how epic wealth is now moving on to the middle class Lawns so workingclass people have been left with next to nothing right I think everybody can agree about that they’re even on zero hours contracts the idea that you have any social capital or or or workplace dignity been completely eroded by neoliberalism culminating in 14 years of Tory rule so where do you go next if your only reason to exist is to acrw ever more money if you’re what running a fund if you’re running a bank if your job is simply to acrw money a sort of Rees moggi and approach approach to uh economics where do you go next where is the money the money’s in the middle class the middle class are next and what you’re hearing today are some of the canies down the co mine of that process which is the next uh the next stage of a re redistribution of wealth the post 20 20th century redistribution of wealth where the advances made by ordinary working people are undone by the Latter-Day aristocracy and that’s an aristocracy of wealth rather than an aristocracy of inherited privilege although it’s often very hard to tell the difference James O’Brien on LBC 1047 is the time you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC razor says can we have a jingle for idiots corner I don’t know some people pick up on me for idiots Corner they say it’s a bit unkind also it’ be like the you know this you know the bit of lawn the when you step off the patio the bit of lawn that gets really worn out that it’d be like that wouldn’t it Razer if we had a jingle for idiots corner but some people say I shouldn’t have it’s idiotic corner so it’s idiotic Behavior I don’t want to label anyone an idiot although in male strides case the Temptation is almost irresistible so no we’re not we also it takes me months to get a jingle it takes me so long to get a jingle that I forget about what the feature was before I ordered ordered before I politely and almost certainly in vain requested that somebody put together some actual production for me um Gary Stevens’s book by the way if you’re interested is the trading game and and I I’ve got a horrible feeling that in 30 years time people are going to be a bit like Ross was when he said I wish I’d understood a little bit more about loan charges and things I people I wish I’d read Gary Stevenson’s book as as a member of the middle class who thought that I was somehow immune from the vicissitudes of poverty and from the greed of Epic wealth the middle class sort of manages to plot a peaceful course between the Siller and caribdis the Siller of genuine poverty and the caribdis of acquisitive capitalism the middle class homeowner is going to be safe from those uh from those forces and and Gary’s thesis is very much that we are not uh 10:49 is the time mride and Jeremy Hunt say that if you’re unemployed get over yourself there’s loads of jobs out there the ghost of Norman tbit telling you to get on your bike um sort of in full flow this morning what is it like if you’re in that category and financially at least a traditional Tory voter which is why I’ve introduced the lower limit of about a 50 Grand a year income so anything above that what’s it like to lose your job and more importantly what’s it like trying to find a new one 0345 6060 973 is the number you need Louis is in Manchester Louise what can you tell us hi is that better yes a line betterer um my my situation is similar to to um I think it was Ross that was before me um not that I was earning as much as him okay but um I’ve been looking for work for about six months and I am on Universal Credit at the moment and I think the difficulty is I’ve I’ve applied for hundreds of jobs and like Ross was saying you just I don’t seem to get uh even an interview sometimes or you know you don’t seem to get any response and even when I have had an interview I think sometimes um I’m in my mid-50s I think age has a lot to do with it so and it’s not always about age discrimination necessarily thinking that you know you can’t do the job or you’re not suited or whatever it’s more about you know whether you’re fit in with the the team with the yeah because you know other people a work force with lower lower expectations as well I don’t know how pertinent that is but but in terms of terms and conditions and pensions and all the things that older Generations took for granted there’s a generation caught between the two isn’t there that that I can see why they wouldn’t be top of the talk to me if you would about Universal Credit because the the you know it’s it’s it’s gone up a lot just in in the figures released today we know for a fact that a lot of people on it in work but you’re not what sort of a hole does it fill in your previous income oh god um well because I had some uh um savings right I wasn’t getting the full amount um up until I think I’ve I’m du a payment this week in which I’ll I’ll get more money right but it’s a drop in the ocean so I was explaining before um you know my mortgage is600 a month yeah and I’m not living in a massive house I’m living in a three-bedroom house um in the Southeast and you know it’s it it doesn’t go anywhere near what you know the kind of money that you need to keep ticking over um so what happens next what happens when you run out of Road uh well I think I’ve got one mortgage payment left right um and then I’ll have to sell the house and I’ve even looked at you know selling it quickly to you know an or those organizations that will just buy the house um without any fees and things like that or they’ll cover the fees um I mean wor don’t make sure you’ve got your eyes wide open if you go down that road I know need to tell you that you just weren’t expecting to run out of Road you weren’t expecting to and and what about because I think the next lady we’ll talk to was on a similar income to you and has taken a job in sainsbury so what about doing something like that in the in the um yeah I mean that that’s probably what I’ll have to do but you know at the moment trying to save my house that’s all I’ve been focused on um because I’ve got I’ve got a son you know we both have to find somewhere to live if I yeah um if I if I have to sell my house um but what I wanted to say also is that the experience of being on Universal Credit is very very difficult and I think m is talking about his mental health yes but you know I’m I have to go in every week uh to see my job coach for 10 minutes yeah um you know I’m all always kept waiting um it’s no help whatsoever because they don’t really understand what it’s like to try and find a job when you’ve been you know in quite a senior position I think they’re they’re sort of used to seeing people um that that you know are looking for for a more Junior role so the advice that you’re given isn’t really very helpful no and seem to have the knowledge of what you do need so you know I was messed around with the money because I had savings I they thought I was you know trying to because my it’s not designed nothing nothing politically has felt like for me at least and I obviously have the enormous privilege of being on the outside looking in but I can’t remember the last time I heard a politician talking about unemployment as if it were a problem to be fixed by policy and and and creativity as if to to find ways in which to make sure that we can fit the right people to the right jobs it’s just a stick to hit people over the head with if you’re caught in that scenario and to inflame yet more other ring if you’re not so you know that the response would come from government and indeed from Daily Mail readers cheering on these sort of policies the response would be oh no I don’t mean you I don’t mean that’s why I’ve chosen today’s way into this conversation because when Daily Mail readers are encouraged to hate unemployed people or today times readers are encourag to believe that all unemployed people could get a job tomorrow they don’t me people like them no no no no no no good Lord if my son lost his job I wouldn’t want him uh taking up the sort of roles that Jeremy Hunt and Mel stride are talking about so everything is underpinned I’m going to construct this properly soon so every everything is done as if it’s a 19 a lazy 1980s Radio phone in show a couple of you have pointed out to me that not all phon and shows in the 1980s were lazy the great Brian Hayes was strutting his stuff on this radio station back then and setting the stand Clive bull setting the standards that we all still follow but but lazy Radio phone is oh aren’t immigrants down with the unemployed single mothers eh aren’t they terrible um late that’s the that’s the government today it’s oh we need less sex education we need more stop and search oh and unemployed people it’s very easy to get a job so you’ve got that kicks into it but then the way that they leaven it in order to keep their own people sweet is by then adding in a little whisper in the other ear I don’t mean you saw it most starkly I know I hit this button a lot but we saw it most starkly after brexit on immigration where where either even children in sons and daughters-in-law were being told by their Partners parents who’d voted for brexit to get rid of the immigrants to say no I don’t mean you I don’t mean you so these these messages the Tories deliver to Middle England about the unemployed they don’t mean you except as all our callers today are demonstrating they really do mean you Trudy is in Alton in Hampshire Trudy what would you like to say yeah so um I Was Made redundant recently I worked in the arts and culture sector so it’s really badly funded I was really senior there are a few job senior jobs actually I don’t consider myself to be middle class I was brought up in poverty but thought that education was a way out of it so I’m well educated I’ve got degrees coming out my ear including a PhD right um but now I find that actually my education is not necessarily helping me um I applied for a job in Aldi they asked me for my experience and qualifications I tried not to put all my experience and qualifications down but I had to put some down at least so that there weren’t gaps and they didn’t want to know um so I applied for a job in sains Breeze and they didn’t ask me for my education and qualifications and I I’ve got a job now that’s fine for now because I got a redundancy payout that’s going to last me for a little while so that money will help me stretch but I was talking to my partner this morning and I was the main bread winner he he earns a very very very low wage um and I said well you know when that redundancy money runs out we won’t be able to survive on that same spe of wage yeah it’s going to be difficult I don’t know what we’ll do I’m crossing my fingers that something will come up I’m getting job interviews and I’m getting feedback saying that I’m a strong candidate but there’s always something last week I had a job interview and um the wage was actually all right but it was um it was a couple of steps back and they said to me oh so how given what you did in your last role how does this fit with your career trajectory then and I tried to answer it but I don’t think they bought it um I don’t know because they wouldn’t give me any feedback and you don’t want they they don’t want someone who feels like they’re stepping down even though you’re desperate to step and I use the word advisedly I promise but but you’re well ready very very ready to step down there’s still an aura attached to stepping down that you can understand an employer not liking yeah you’re a flight risk or potentially you’re you’re going to um well you’re not going to be very happy in the job because you think it’s beneath you or something like that well I I definitely didn’t think this I know you but there’s a chance that you might show up P manager because you’ve had certain experiences maybe you’re more experienced than them who knows um so I think that can be an uncomfortable situation for somebody um anyway it’s difficult it’s really difficult and one of the one of the things that I’ve been doing is looking because there are a few senior roles in my industry looking at my transferable skills and one of the things I’m really Keen to do I’ve worked through Arts and Heritage um to look at Social mobility and do projects that further social justice and I’ve had some interviews in that area and it’s all about helping young people be socially mobile which I think is really important but I feel like no one is helping me now with my social medil no well and also you have managed to play by the rules in terms of social Mobility education had propelled you to a place that that that your circumstances wouldn’t have propelled you to Naturally by which I mean privilege to to a point to to a point and now and now the the the ground has disappeared almost from Beneath Your Feet absolutely and I’ve got no family safety net I haven’t got a bank of mom and dad that I can draw upon I’ve got a big mortgage because I haven’t got a bank of mom and dad so yeah so it’s difficult it’s really difficult what do you say to Jeremy hunt and Mel stride when they tell you cuz in a way you’re both the proof of the pudding for them and the proof of why they’re so horribly wrong for me because you’ve got a job there are jobs there but it’s not but it’s not sustainable I can’t I’m not going to be able and you know I’m really hoping that my new employer at Saints be isn’t listening and realizing this because you know I’m I can’t I can’t do that job long term because because the wheels will come off your family life and absolutely existence and I think that is true somewhat chillingly if Jeremy Hunt and mri’s advisers are are are listening um every single caller today is in danger of losing their home every single one I think I understood that correctly that that seemed to be where the current direction of traffic if it’s unstemmed would lead and there two takeaways from it the first is that when I asked you at 10:00 this morning what planet they inhabit I don’t think anyone can argue with me now that it’s it’s not a planet any of the people they’re talking about in habit and the second bit was Ross actually because when Ross I thought very uh helpfully and and I think it does take courage to talk about mental health in in in in any climate but particularly in this climate particularly if you’re a man or or or a breadwinning man it’s why suicide rates among that category of people are so high because you you you you carry burdens sometimes invisible but for him to talk about being on anxiety medication and to remember that it was the same man it was Mel stride who 10 minutes ago was denigrating people who who seek help from their doctor to deal with their mental health and suggesting that they are swinging the lead in exactly the same way that unemployed people are turning um their noses up at jobs for lifestyle reasons rather than livelihood reasons but anyway think on it’s 11:01 James O’Brien on LBC 5 minutes after 11 do you know I am going to change our plans a bit I I’ll talk about the sex education in schools tomorrow when I know more about it than I do now because at the moment the laziness of the politics is uh it’s so obvious that it almost makes every subject feel the same on that one just so that you know because anybody conducting a conversation about sex education in schools who doesn’t ask this question I think is letting down everybody what what how would an 8-year-old or a 9-year-old who was being sexually abused by an adult know that they were being sexually abused by an adult if the adult told them that they weren’t that it was all perfectly normal behavior unless somebody else somewhere is teaching them what is and what is not um perfectly normal behavior and I mean also looking at some of the detail that’s emerging and that’s why I say I want more to emerge before we get stuck into it together um they they’re going to be teaching they just I mean would you trust this lot seriously would you trust them to run a bath never mind to run something as important as as rewriting rules regarding sex education in schools which do not currently appear to be in much need of rewriting so you won’t be taught about sex itself until you’re 13 that would be contraception sexually transmitted infections and abortion but you will be taught about sexual harassment revenge porn grooving grooming stalking and forced marriage when you’re 11 he just got a touch of the Evangelical Christian agenda to it this as far as I can tell but as I say I think I will hold off on that until I know a little bit more about it until a little more I mean I think it is designed just to let them stick gender ID in a headline but I’ve I’ve told you before and I will tell you again that the the um obsession with that subject on display in some quarters is not shared for good or for ill don’t shoot the messenger I watch the switchboards when other people talk about it and it’s not shared by um the the the public public at large they are more concerned about the kind of things we were talking about in the last hour they’re more concerned about the millions of liters of raw sewage being pumped into Lake windir or the third of mothers having traumatic experiences when giving birth or the dangerous prisoners being released early because the prisons are full or the fact that shoplifting is pretty close to not being a crime anymore or the length of NHS waiting list or the difficulty of getting an appointment with a GP or a dentist or the or the cost of food going up now as a direct consequence of the brexit that Jacob ree Morgan Nigel farage told you would bring down the uh cost of those sort of things and you’re welcome to add to my list you’re welcome to add to my list but let’s have a slightly more philosophical discussion shall we pmq is on the way at 12 I I I I think did Natasha and I have a small bet last week did we bet 50 P that there’d be another defection from the conservative benches to the labor benches something on that actually if if because something really weird happened after Natalie Ali defected to the labor party which is a conservative uh revealed that when she was a conservative she asked another conservative for some sort of special treatment regarding her conservative sex offender husband’s legal case I’ll run through that again and see if you can spot what word is missing from this process so a conservative MP asked a senior conservative politician for special treatment regarding the case of her conservative sex offender husband and all of the conservatives who knew about it kept it it secret for 4 years so what have you got there conservative conservative conservative conservative sex offender secret four years conservative client media this week has tried to turn it into a scandal for the labor party that Natalie Ali reportedly or allegedly sought help from uh the then attorney general with her sex offender conservative MP husband’s legal case that that I thought was a real moment so I worry sometimes that you think exaggerating but uh I it should have been 30p my bet with Natasha shouldn’t it just to sort of a little nod towards Lee Anderson but that was for me was possibly the clearest illustration yet of uh of what client journalism looks like could you imagine taking that phone call and being told actually that’s not fair because the bloke that broke the store the bloke that broke the story is a brilliant journalist but you have to reveal the story but to reveal the story and then watch’s client journalists turn it into a problem for labor instead of saying how the hell could the conservatives if this is a scandal if what Natalie Ali allegedly did with Robert Buckland is in fact a scandal then how the hell could all of these conservatives have sat on it for four years so you find yourself thinking just how bent things can actually become before anybody presses the alarm button a conservative MP asked a conservative attorney general to intervene inappropriately in the legal case of a conservative MP who also was subsequently convicted of sex offenses um and all of the conservatives who knew about it kept it secret for four entire years but K stama has questions to answer do you want to run that by me once more K starma has questions to answer I mention that because I don’t know whether there is going to be another defection today and if there is then Natasha has to give me 30p and if there isn’t I shall give her 30p but um I mentioned that because it also became clear later in the week that the reason why they’re revealing such epic levels of hypocrisy and double standards is as a warning to any other Tories thinking of defecting so one of the sort of cheerleaders in the media actually let actually let the cat out of the bag and said a Tory Minister has told me that anyone else thinking of defecting is going to be spooked by what we’ve done to Natalie so we keep so many secrets of scandalous Behavior by so many Tory MPS that if any of them ever think of defecting then we’ll just reveal all the secrets that we’ve been keeping for years uh in order to embarrass their new employers at the labor party because that makes sense doesn’t it I sometimes wonder why this stuff even needs explaining and then I open the daily mail or the Daily Telegraph or increasingly I’m sad to say the times and I think yeah this stuff needs explaining um and idiots corner for this fell James she’s not a conservative MP no when she asked the conservative attorney general to intervene in the case of her conservative sex offender husband she was a conservative MP and all of the conservative MPS from the conservative whip down to conservative backbenchers who knew about it were conservative politicians as was she while they kept it secret I I I just said that um I can’t quite believe that I need to explain this stuff but there is PM popping into I don’t think it’s the PM but you never know it might be uh that’s about how desperate they are these days popping into idiot’s corner right I’ve done it twice now today and it is a very silly thing to do I’m going off on my little tangents at the top of the hour instead of halfway through instead of setting up the phone in and this actually traditionally is quite a difficult phone in to set up so I’ve probably blown it already and it will be quite a short phone in anyway because pmqs comes up at 12:00 and we like to have a little look at the runners and Riders before we cross live to the House of Commons so should we do an experiment should we try and do a phone in in the old fashioned way where I just tell you what the subject is and you ring in with your opinions before I inflict a 27 minute monologue upon you and uh do you think this will work or have you have I actually now gas lit and groomed you into a place where you won’t be able to deal with a traditional F I’m not going to invite on the political editor of The Daily Bugle because I can’t be bothered to Think Through the facts myself or have some other largely unqualified guest to try and get the get the conversation going I’m not that traditional but if I just say what the subject is if I say how worried should we be about dot dot dot and then if you don’t ring I’ll give you a 20-minute monologue after the next break how’s that does that work has everybody have what’s what’s not to like so here’s the question something about the phrase facial recognition technology chills me to the very core right but then I read that they’ve been using it in cin to make arrests for offenses including rape robbery fraud Grievous bodily harm and possession of class A drugs so this is people who have slipped through the net if you like of the authorities people whose identity is known whose photographs are on a system and who are currently despite their um despite the charges against them or the suspicions they’re facing are currently evading and eluding all Justice and scrutiny so they walk past a camera that’s loaded up with their image and the camera goes that fell over there is wanted for questioning about a rape and then the chill to my core that I feel at the very use of the phrase facial recognition technology begins to melt a bit so what do you think about the police using facial recognition technology all right and if you don’t ring in on this I’ll give you a 20-minute monologue after after the next break so it’s entirely on you I don’t want any complaints about 20-minute monologues it’s entirely on on you what do you think cuzz they’re bringing it in I should just tell you briefly that they um the Metropolitan Police is about to get £550,000 yeah I won’t buy you much will it imagine that PPE contract anyway they’re about to get £550,000 to bolster their use of live facial recognition it will be cameras fitted on top of police vans scanning the structure of our faces as we walk past and assessing them immediately against a list of wanted suspects and alerting officers if there is a match that is what is going to happen on the well it is already happening on the Streets of London and I suppose other cities it’s going to start happening a lot more under this government that is not the future that is the present what do you think of it because I could give you 52% conniptions 52% reservations 52% fears and 48% well you know if you got nothing to you’ve got which is a terrible and frightening road to go down but when they say that they’re actually arresting suspected rapists robbers frauders violent criminals suspected violent criminals and and Class A drug dealers what what’s the balance what’s the philosophical balance here it’s quarter 11 that’s the end of the monologue unless you don’t call me to tell me what you think about facial recognition technology being used by the police to identify wanted suspects in which case I’ll give give you an excellent excellent and extremely long monologue after this James O’Brien on LBC I’m receiving reports that the people who told you that we would be able to negotiate a brilliant brexit deal by threatening to walk away because we needed them more than they needed us and now turning exactly the same argument to the European convention on human rights but I am not I’m not currently prepared to believe that that even some of the characters who Rose to prominence during that era such as brexit Hardman Steve Baker and um and Mark Fran I’m not currently without more proof I’m not prepared to believe that that has actually happened so I I I I hopefully we’ll be able to bring you more on that by the time we start setting up laying the table shall we say for uh uh uh pmqs later at this hour but first well I don’t know really I don’t do you think that’s enough Keith I’m not sure that what do you reckon take some calls or do a do a 20-minute monologue I don’t know there’s a lot of pressure on Johnny Maiden head here to be fair but we we shall say it’s not not the only call but it’s not a full bustling switchboard like I would normally get at the end of a 20-minute monologue oh well okay I I’m in for a penny in for a pound Johnny Maiden head facial recognition technology what would you like to say good morning James I’ll bite um this is my world this is my industry it’s my whole career um security system so it’s a tough one is the short is a short answer this is why I have to do 20 minute monologues man so people don’t come on and say it’s a tough one of course it’s a tough one it’s why we’re talking about it okay um so I would if I was Lord of the world and had all the levers to pull I would probably set a line somewhere and I would talk to judges and police officers about where that line would need to be set because I would start with so in order to socialize the systems and how they come because they are inevitable they are coming why are they inevitable simply because the technology is irresistible here is a a here’s a database of people that are wanted here is a technology that can actually stick a flag on their heads H how can you possibly not eventually embrace it so yes but it’s inevitable because it’s commercialized and and Commercial Enterprises will be able to do it themselves you’ll find it in Macy’s you’ll find it in selfes you’ll find it in tesos and as soon as it that’s just to keep an eye on known that’s to keep an eye on known shoplifters rather than to uh rather than to apprehend them they will they will use it for their own means whatever they feel like that’s doing whether it’s managing store abuse whether it’s managing other incidents in their stores or whatever and then what you’ll happen you’ll see is then it will happen uh um football grounds it’ll be you know the best the safest grounds will be the ones that have all of this so then you’ll find that FIFA will be mandated and then they’ll turn around to the government and say why didn’t you do this already you’re too slow so it is inevitable that’s fine then we’ve got to work out how we socialize it how we make it work well the way we make it slow down a bit SL slow down a bit cuz this is really really interesting you can have all the time you want seriously cuz you you can fill all the space that would have had the interminable monologue in it so there’s no there’s no need to rush I understand the first bit the inevitability of it is going to be driven by the fact that private sector companies are going to pay for it yes um and then so what you then find is that in order to make it because there’s been some bad PR with um with these systems they in the past some of the earlier systems had an accidental racial bias and that’s now being fixed in lots of areas there’s lots of companies that have managed to get that to a point where it’s now it found it harder it found it harder to properly process Black Faces than it did white faces so you say that’s been dealt with I’m looking at an article from October of 2020 in uh from Harvard University and their science policy and social justice blog and you as someone who works in the sector is saying that that definitely was a problem but it is a problem in Retreat yes it is a problem that is being dealt with I have no doubt that further study of wider sample will find disparities that appear to be something to do with the system and it would be tough to know if it is the system or if it tough to know with if it’s you know nose shapes or if it’s to do with other other things that um hasn’t been accounted for yet but I know people that build these algorithms and I know people that um that do this and it is being dealt with so in order to deal with that because you need to um address that problem otherwise the public won’t trust you you then have got to find a way to bring it in in a way that they can trust so the way that I would do that is I would use a line of very serious crimes crimes that everybody can get behind so you’d use all the big stuff you’d use murders you’d use long outstanding warrants you’d use international um that means that I’m sitting I’m sitting in my van and you walk past and my computer starts beeping and I look at it and say it’s all right he’s only wanted for gbh or he’s only wanted for shoplifting we’ll let him go you wouldn’t you just wouldn’t turn that on because you can’t you can’t well then where is it turned on then so that’s what I’m trying to say you would you would set a line at a certain type of of crime and I don’t know where that line is I was asked by your producer about knife crime and I think knife crime could be used but I would worry about it because knife crime is something people wouldn’t be put on the database unless they’ committed a crime above the threshold you’re describing understand and then and then I would do that and I would actually legislatively lock that so that it couldn’t be changed for you know one term two terms whatever so that way there’s no worry about creep in the short term there’s just an ability to build trust in the systems what you then do is you then have the ability to say look we think this is handled X and Y and Zed crimes uh we have this evidence over this reasonable time period at which point we’d now like to blower that threshold to this to this and what you probably have to do in the first instance is maybe maybe even Define a hard stop that is never allowed to be breached no matter who it is no matter what reason because you start trying to do it for parking tickets problem isn’t it see that you’re the perfect caller because you you you are you are addressing both my perspectives on this you’re addressing my sort of warmish reception because it will help us catch bad people and that has been proved and and you know that the technology is literally designed to do that but now you’re addressing unintentionally my my co my chill my cold chill because you say all of these sensible things and I just think to myself what if suel braan is Home Secretary yes and that’s why you would need to lock it that’s why I would never turn it on until some real hard lines have been give me a second have you heard the the there’s um there’s a rules of robots or rules of AI have you ever heard those yes it goes back to Isaac Asimo I think yes and so and so as a result you’d have to have some kind of version of that for these systems in order to say you know these systems will never be allowed to do this or never be to because that would undermine the the um what would it would help fix you would need complicated intelligent Visionary and evid driven legislation provided by the current generation of politicians you would and and and then we have a whole different problem yes okay I’ve got a monologue on that but um but what we would what we would need to do is we would need to make sure that we try and work out anywhere and everywhere this can be used because what you’ll find is it will start to get used in car washes so you can pay for your car wash automatically it would start to get used in in because I’m already using it on my phone yeah exactly so it’s coming it’s already coming so so that that’s why the inevitability is is there what we need to do is work out what we’re going to allow it to be used for what we’re going to allow it to be used for for profit because ultimately anybody that has profit as their main driver is not going to have the customers well-being at their main but you say this as someone working as a security system specialist in the private sector yeah and it’s it’s worth double coming from you it’s worth double coming from you can I run something by you on the actual on the mechanics of it and I know that part of your answer will involve saying yeah but it will get better it depends yes exactly but you’re not allowed to say that have you seen the Specsavers advert where the vet uh is sort of accidentally treating a fur hat I thinking okay I think I might have yeah it has been suggested that that person looks a lot like me the person playing the vet in that spec advert personally I think anyone who thinks that needs to go to spec saers but that is a conversation for a different day there’s also a bloke in the Vikings there’s also an actor who’s an Irish actor is rather gratifyingly getting more and more work who who does look at times from a certain angle like my doppelganger okay what what is the I mean how does that get dealt with in the short answer Jame is James is that um you thinking it looks a little bit like you is a bit like saying that you look quite similar to um SK sta because to you they look similar but actually there’s so many things about your nose or your hair or your lack of it um your ears or the or or other things about you even even the way you walk the speed of your the gate stuff is absolutely fascinating truly it’s humans at the moment doing that but presumably the AI is not far behind yes so there are so many things and what the first thing that would probably happen is that you would get picked up based on behavioral analysis that indicates you are 99.9% likelihood for the person then I guess the first thing they would probably do is then do some kind of biometric confirmation check your veins check your fingerprints check whatever else that we’ve allowed them to have as part of the system in order to protect it on the street because the last thing you want to do is pick someone up Chuck them in a Cell for murder because that’s the thing they’ve been found to be only to then just check their you know driver’s ID or their fingerprint and find out it’s completely different person and this is this is the point not not 1% because that will be possible we have 7 and a half billion we’ll have more in the future that has got to be possible and how naive does it sound when I say now to you and I’m sure you’ve heard it before yeah but what about George Orwell mate um he was right and this still happens um the two can be you can hold two heads in your in your brain at at the same time and still walk and still think and still talk so he’s right and it will happen and that’s why controls are going to be part of it um what you’ll likely find is that in this fictional future world let’s say it’s 10 years away um it wouldn’t surprise me if there were independent cities where Mayors decided to not apply it and say look that’s a that’s a plus of our city that doesn’t happen we manage it by extra police we manage it by extra this we manage it by extra shop assistance you will still have the the oldy worldy feel back from the late 2020s in this city if you come here because I am paying for it you’re amazing I mean I i’ let Tim actually take up this he says James you have to love it when you have a caller who really knows their stuff says Tim and I I I I can only agree um I’m not so sure about stepen and Milton Kings who’s written in capital letters oh my God that’s it the the vet and the Specsavers advert it’s been killing me to try to work out who you look like um and then final question I promise because I’ve got to go to the news and this makes me sound a bit middle-aged but I am a bit middle-aged and I don’t like seeing young people for example sitting on trains who are clearly wearing masks for non-co or health related reasons they just they’ve increasingly got into the habit now of covering their faces yeah a do you think that is partly due to the prevalence in some parts of town of this technology already and and B doesn’t this raise the possibility of lots of people walking around with their faces completely covered it could I would have to think about that because it isn’t something that we’ve encountered in um in business in the corporate world ultimately when you walk in the front door if you had a face mask on and we were using facial recognition the security guards would inform you that in order to enter the building you you must remove it for at least the identification stage so at that point you would then have it so that um I would do it at entrances to train stations exits to train stations so you can get on a Trin but you can’t you won’t be able to get into it until you’ve done it okay fair enough then you can put it back on again and and you could possibly do it in a private booth for people who cover their face for religious reasons I suppose exactly so so it’s completely it’s completely manageable but like any toys like any technology the whole thing needs to be used and I think it might have even been said by by some radio host that’s doing quite well for himself somewh like you need to put it in the hands of your worst enemy and to put them on a bad day and see what they can do with it and that’s what you need to legislate for yeah well that that would be what you could call the Suella braan principal indeed you’re absolutely right John what a legend it’s 11 31 Thomas wats has your headlines James O’Brien on LBC 11:33 is the time you’re listening to James O’Brien on LBC so can we find the Civil Rights equivalent of Johnny maidenhead so Johnny maidenhead speaking powerfully and Incredibly uh knowledgeably from the perspective of the technological reality and and going for I don’t think an entirely irrefutable challenge uh or or or relationship between technology being available technology therefore being inevitable I think oddly the conversation about smartphones and teenagers is is in that territory in ways that I didn’t expect to happen the idea of just because you’ve got a genie doesn’t mean you’re going to let it out of the bottle so can we find the philosophical equivalent of that to put forward the opposite Point why we shouldn’t want facial recognition technology on our streets even if we accept the possibility that it might be impossible to stop it cuz you’ve got it on your phone possibly do not at me to tell me that you haven’t got facial recognition technology on your phone although the lady that did message me to say that her twin sister can’t open her phone her identical twin sister can’t open her phone kind of speaks to John’s point about it doesn’t really matter that I look a bit like a Blok in a Specsavers advert we’re not I’m not going to be arrested for any crimes that he well he’s not going to be arrested for any crimes that I may have committed so can can does anyone want to run us through do you want to run us through what the actual reservations are the philosophical reservations are why you never want to live in a country where there’s a van on the corner of your street scanning your face and comparing it to a database of of wrong wrongdoers 0345 6060 973 is the number you need because I don’t want to offend Frank or James who are waiting to talk to me but that experiment did not work dropping the monologue and speaking instead to a brilliant because I had no guarantee that that Johnny Maiden head would ring in right normally as I near the end of my monologue and I start saying and if you hit the numbers now you will get through my switchboard goes off like the Blackpool pleasure beat goes off like the Blackpool illuminations and that has not happened on this it might be that it’s not a subject you’re interested in talking about but I doubt it I think it’s because you now need the monologue to set out the various stalls to which you can then come and Shop so Johnny Maiden head had turned up and he will probably be the best caller we’ll take on this subject but what I don’t have is the quantity that I can normally rely on alongside the quality again no offense to Frank and James who are waiting to talk so that has not currently proved anything we have not received a lesson in the wisdom or otherwise of dropping the monologue but I will read these out in the hope that John’s still listening um James writes yet another top show and what a caller top man Lind writes so a listener with personal expertise doing the intro with you James fascinating H thoughts for the future no because because I don’t have my usual ground swell of contributors uh quivering in anticipation at the end of a phone line so I does it doesn’t work like that um and and uh Jamie writes you get the most amazing callers wow did he know his stuff and he really communicated it clearly um and Sarah asked could estimate V use this technology to screen out civil servants wearing rainbow lanyards so we’ll talk to Frank next and then I’ve got an update for you on something that happened on yesterday’s program which was um I think it I think it played out nicely when a Scottish national party supporter started criticizing kir starma for not having attacked richy sunak for attacking all Scottish nationalists in a speech that appeared to liken them to houy Rebels and uh anti-semites and and and Vladimir Putin and just at the end of the conversation I suddenly got spotted the Zinger and I said hang on a minute as John swinny condam richy sunak yet I’m fairly confident that he hadn’t but that may have changed and we’ll catch C up with that story shortly because I wonder whether Steven Flynn is going to bring it up at pmqs but first with gratitude Frank and and and not in any way suggesting that you’re carrying the can for the lack of response to this question Frank and Carlile what do you think about facial recognition technology hi James I don’t I don’t have a great problem with it I mean the there are some caveats obviously if they hadn’t resolved uh as your previous caller said they have they haven’t resolved the sort of racial bias yes is present in some of the early systems fine then the next thing is what do you do when you get a hit so say I’m walking down the street to car and the van spots me and thinks I look like a drug dealer and the Poli what do the police do then if they jump out and pin me to the ground and lock me in a Cell then yeah I’m going to have a problem with it but that’s the response to it that’s not the technology if they come out and ask to see my ID so that they can you know figure out who I actually am then fair enough cuz where are they getting the the pictures from in the first place that they’re comparing it against I’m assuming that if they’ve got a photo of a person that they want to have a conversation with that you know it’s you’re already on their database well I I I don’t I don’t know that I’m going to play this card with every call but it’s quite possible what about when Suella braan is Home Secretary and she decides to put you on a list a prescribed list because you attended a Palestinian peace March or because you think that fossil fuel companies you’ve protested against fossil fuel companies do do do you see what I mean but what crime you know if fair not if if my face is on they decide what a crime is they decide what a crime is that’s that’s the problem I don’t think you can separate the two you’ve got and we’ve had a really interesting crash course in since soel bravman and pretty Patel got into the home office in in just how desperate these people are to reclassify peaceful protest as crime it just makes you even less likely to protest against an oppressive government if you think that I I could be on a list somewhere 10 years later 5 years later you know what if the database is never erased what if something that’s not a crime today becomes a crime tomorrow and they and they are instructed and they empowered by an oppressive government to to round you up two years later for something that wasn’t even a crime when you did it in the in the arena of peaceful protest I totally take your point but there there’s ways for them to do that without facial recognition so the yeah but no make it easier not make it easier the question on the technology you know this is the sort of technology is is neutral but what we do with it isn’t yeah um so therefore you know if you if you’d have said on the call in uh ring in if you think Suella braan being in charge of all of this is a good idea then I’d be on the other side of this discussion and yet she would she could be yeah but you know and also are you sure about that technology Point what was the line I like the line about technology being neutral what what about what about the presum people people do you know no I know but what about the presumption of innocence until you’re proved guilty doesn’t this start from the opposite point this technology um well I mean we we we have a technology like this um you know with cars don’t really the police cars can scan a number plate um and as they drive down the motorway and if they see somebody do yes but that’s different that’s not my face yeah that’s not a face no and you can guarantee I’ve still got reservations have you watched The Great Escape the old movie yeah yeah do you remember when was it who was getting onto the train it was Gordon Jackson right getting onto the train and the Nazis asked to see his papers yeah and then they said have a nice day and he said thank you and gave himself away and they took him away and shot him did you watch that as a child yeah did you not think on some level did you not think oh gosh I’m glad that I don’t have to show my papers all the time walking around Kidd in or carile in your case well again that’s that’s also um you know in this country we don’t in other countries you do exactly but this is this is this is further than having to show your papers in a way this means that even by showing your face you’re being uh checked on by the authorities I don’t get me wrong I have I have a sort of a reservation about it but uh but I you know if if it’s a question of do we do we catch people no well down the street or don’t we if the if theci side for people who are false you know it’s not like a death sentence where oh sorry we got you wrong but you’re dead you can’t go back this is that’s true no that’s true well it depends you know have a question they use it in China they’re going to lock you up and harvest your organs for for for having stepped out of line in society but we can possibly reassure ourselves that that’s never going to happen here in which case there is a book that we should all read called it couldn’t is it called it couldn’t happen here so Sinclair Upton Sinclair anybody helping me out here anybody else got a brain like mine that just files stuff away and sometimes struggles to recover it thank you Frank strong call James is in folon James do you want to know something interesting sure I have met two people recently who moved to folon because they sort of undertook an audit of their incomes outgoings lives Ambitions and family plans and they did a sort of algorithm based upon all of those inputs and in both cases folon came top of their list so they both moved there oh nice that’s a that’s a good advertisement for folkton I guess it is isn’t it it’s nice it’s I must come and visit it sounds like it’s got a literary Festival as well I was told by one of them who is also an author so anyway that’s not why you rang in but that’s the kind of bonus content you get when you do James carry on um yeah no you should visit I’m sure so you’d enjoy your visit nice but um yeah the reason I called was whilst I understand you know the benefits that come from employing Technologies like facial recognition and it’s undeniable right it’s catching um sexual abusers uh people like the worst of society um we just have to be careful about the slippery SL because um biases exist in human beings and the data that’s been used to train facial recognition um is just going to be a reflection of the bias that exists in our society well this is exactly my worry really and you’ve got the same lot the Tor is coming out today calling for more stop and search which we all know means ignore the reasons why certain demographics may be more involved in crime than other demographics and just go after the demographics not the poverty or not not the not the social conditions yeah exactly and to be fair I wouldn’t be completely against it because I I work in the industry so I’m not going to say you know it’s completely terrible and this is probably a bit counterintuitive to my point because it doesn’t save people’s faces um if used very responsibly it can be useful tool but there’s a reason why you know open AI which is one of the leading um companies that work with machine learning and artificial intelligence okay has had an open wide B openwide ban on um police enforcement using their technology especially us I didn’t know that I didn’t know that yes yes so it is about whose hands it’s in in a way and and and and what and that’s the other point so Maran has been in touch and says the problem isn’t what happens when Police use it to police crimes but what happens when it’s used to police union membership or Union organization and you know there was you’re probably too young to know about this but there was a blacklist in the construction industry for years Ricky Tomlinson out of the royal family was was was even on it and it it just meant that if you demonstrated any previous association with Trade union activity or Trade union ideology you would be prevented from working for um various construction firms including all the biggest names in the business that there was a a test case about 2 million quid was paid out to trade unionists who’d been blacklisted by 50 50 trade units had been blacklisted and that’s just when they’ve got your name on a list if they’ve got your face on a database yeah you and you’ve in the past cause trouble for an exploitative employer or you’ve been a trade Union activist then that that could cause all manner of problems as well yeah that’s that’s really interesting I’m going to I’m going to read about that and check it out it is interesting so it’s it’s a mad Tale and I don’t I’m late for the for the um Junction that’s the only reason I’m moving on because it is Wednesday which means pmqs is is upon us um but we should have time for at least one or two more calls before that the number you need if you want to join in is 0345 6060 973 I I like these conversations they’re not fully satisfactory are they because on one side you can pile up evidence and logic even and on the other it’s a bit project fear you’re you’re saying yeah but this bad thing could happen and then the other person simply has to say yeah but it won’t happen just relax and people go oh well that’s okay then I’ll vote for it and the next thing you know we’ve done a brexit so the project fear probably deserves a little bit more attention than it gets or or should be heeded more than it gets heeded but it remains almost powerless in the face of people listing benefits uh and well no that’s not quite the brexit analogy doesn’t quite work does it making unke keepable promises would be the equivalent of that but do you see what I mean you maybe the people warning us to be fearful should be listened to more James O’Brien on LBC it is 10 to 12 you are listening to James O’Brien on LBC C do you want a little bit of insight into my personal life I mean we’re encouraged to to to share some details sometimes of our our domestic Bliss i i i my new lawn conked out at the weekend and and I’ve contacted the manufacturer I was just getting close to getting on my high horse about it Mrs obri just takes me to say I just switched it off and switched it on again it’s working fine now so that’s my life honestly I just a dear SMH um facial recognition technology hazek is in stok on Trent hazek what would you like to say hi James uh so I just wanted to talk a little bit about that like police surveillance fan stuff um because I was hearing the other caller talk about it and I mean I agree with you he’s really well clued up on this stuff um and it was really good to listen to it yes um but I knew there was a but I like big butts I cannot lie carry on yeah like obviously there’s ethical considerations right whenever we talk about this kind of stuff whether it’s AI machine learning anything like that there’s always the ethical side to it like you know you you put out this kind of model to people and obviously eyebrows are going to be raised they going to be like oh what about my privacy what about my you know that I care so much about my data but then they use Facebook you know that kind of thing um so like the police surveillance funds now we can have that scenario and this is kind of like a way they can use it with ethical considerations in mind like yeah you have a policy right so the use of surveillance funds is restricted to very high crime rate areas yeah but then then suel bran becomes Home Secretary so all of the and this is the problem with all of these clever points so so you have a specific warrants outlining the scope and duration of the surveillance but you be very transparent about it so every month every week whatever it is you publish detailed reports on the US of the surveillance funds including data of the number of scans demographics of identified individuals and the outcomes but there’s also oversight so maybe like put an independent oversight body there and be like you know you need to review the deployment of the Vans audit the collected data investigate any complaints of misuse but also there needs to be an aspect of community engagement like you know when we talk about stop and sech especially in London um the reason it’s so sort of pushed away against and you know stuff like that because the community aren’t very happy with it right they don’t like the fact that there’s a lot of racial bias and you know that probably I think it has been proven in the past that but the people bringing in people bringing in the the technology we’re talking about they love a bit of racial bias whether you’re talking about the Metropolitan Police the conservative party or the or their voter base yeah yeah and and I think that’s you know I was having a conversation with your one of your producers before I before I spoke to you and it’s can’t let anyone on Wily is it yeah um but it’s all about you know the people who uh are Behind These algorithms right like I this is what frightens me CU we can have we can have this conversation until the cows come home but at the end of the day if we’ve learned anything from Britain and America since 2016 is that you can end up with absolutely rotten people in charge you can end up with Donald Trump in the wre house Boris Johnson in Downing Street soel bman in the home office so I do wonder whether the role of of the citizenry is to prevent any government from having the kind of powers that a future Rogue government could use to hurt us and oppress us and silencers yeah no it’s a balance between catching these criminals and keeping like let’s say knife crime off the streets and stuff like that yeah or we care too much about the ethical implications about Road government that we just you know the road government’s going to be there whether we have this technology or not do you know what I mean well yes and no and and the one about knives the one that detects knives from a distance whenever a suspect passes between two points it it it sets off some sort of alert whe whether officers are there or not I I’ve got no beef with that cuz you know if if people really think you are carrying a knife because they’ve got a machine that says you’re carrying a knife then racial profiling doesn’t come into it at all does it it’s only when you’re stopping young black kids cuz they claim they can smell weed or there’s been a robbery around the corner which was committed by another black person who probably doesn’t look anything like you that’s when the community tensions come in so I’ve got no problem with that but there’s something about faces being checked by technology that just it’s all a bit it’s not minority Port but but it is 1984 yeah yeah and but I know you’re going to laugh at this but it gets better over time uh and the that’s the thing with these neural networks and the the training data sets right like yeah you start off with a certain amount of data let’s say a million cases yeah the neural network and the AI Machine model will go through this data split it into testing and training sets yeah and it will test itself right and it’ll say you know this is the this is the training set look how close I am and it’ll improve its accuracy over time it will just get better and better and better and better the more the more faces you add into it and the more you train this model and say this is what is right and this is what is wrong the better it will get and the more I mean and that’s why the early caller was confident that some of the racial uh uh problems um with the technology a few years ago were already in Retreat although having said that I know that the the rather Splendid people over at the um uh workers information exchange are looking into racially discriminatory facial recognition systems being deployed by companies like uber um although that article is from October of 2021 so whether or not the technology has improved since then uh I I I would say probably having listened to you and and to John earlier um I got squeeze in one more call but you’re going to have to be quite brief visan is in graay Vision what would you like to say hi so I think the question isn’t about whether we we are going to have it whether we should have it it’s going to be a matter of when um this technology is so incredibly powerful that the the benefits typically especially in the security industry and even in the retail sector if you go out and buy a security camera and you see what it can do with facial technology for your own home it’s unbelievable so imagine that deployed within the security sector so it’s not a question of but that’s not I mean I I haven’t got a database ban but I so here’s the point the main point that I was going to make it only takes a second for you to turn over say the passport database or the driving database and if you’ve got a government willing to do it and given our track record with some of the decisions our government made to turn that over as the training model for this technology I’m not trying to feir but you’re not be you look me in the eye and tell me that Suella braan wouldn’t sell us all up the swanny river in a flipping heartbeat if she thought it would get her the keys to Downing Street if you look at how big the industry is for buying and selling data anyway incredible it’s incredible so it would take a government literally minutes to turn something that there nothing we can do about training model there’s nothing we can do about it because we’re not going be able to crush the technology because there were private sector applications for it and then it would just at some point not if not here then somewhere if not now then when a government will use it in the most hideous and oppressive ways we’ll probably see something in China or Russia before we see it here it’s it’s already deployed within the military sector across the world at an incredible pace and consumers of the last few that Reed the benefits of this technology so you can only imagine military industrial complex vishan I think is of what you speak yeah well what a phonin thank you I I I don’t know that it would have been I think it would have been a bit better if I’d done a 20-minute monologue at the bit no I do I do and I know you do as well um but who knows it’s one of those great alternative universes now that none of us will ever be able to visit Natasha Clark is here um I’ve I’ve changed the terms of our wager you can’t do that yes no I think you’ll find I absolutely here I think you’ll find I can 30p now not 50p cuz I thought Lee Anderson has been a bit quiet lately so it’s time to we didn’t Shake on the previous bet we didn’t Shake on the previous bet does that mean it’s all off no 30p if so I will give you 30p if there is no defection okay but it was 50p yeah I’ll give you 50p do some radio theater Natasha it’s just you know light and shade on the wireless what time did the defection drop last week it’s 11:59 it is 11559 and 22 seconds so it’s looking good for you it’s looking quite good I’d say although honestly Twitter is going crazy with speculation at the moment of course love that oh I’ve seen a seat mysteriously left empty behind people were suggesting I’ve seen a conservative MP in a red dress like what does that mean interesting yeah yes so we’ll see well let’s keep an ey I think I’m going to win I think you are 30p let’s keep an eye on that and look instead or or rather look um first at what you think predictions yeah yeah I heard I heard it yesterday I do listen to it well I said mine are bad yours are worth you did go on okay uh Labour want to talk about knives today they want to talk about the criminal justice Bill coming back to Parliament um later this afternoon and about how they will crack down on zombie knives but you what you were talking about earlier in the times I’d say would be a a good safe bet for sakir starm to go on because it fits into his Narrative of the Tories are gaslighting you on the economy um over jobs figures this is this is stride and Hunt saying loads of jobs out there if if only you uh you looked a bit harder and we don’t want a culture of people languishing on benefits as they wrote in the times today we’ve also just in the last few hours had the news that thej have triggered yet another emergency measure to stop overcrowding in prisons that’s something that K starma likes to talk about the crisis in our justice system that’s another potential yes that is um and we’ve also had some news about sewage being pumped into Lake windir as well this morning as well as our own LBZ exclusive about how there are thousands of miles of of unchecked waterways pipes as well so could that be something that K decides to raise potentially I’m hedging my bets yeah that’s four for four four yeah probably not going to pick up on the speech which has been redacted now have we got time for you to explain why that happens the speech he gave at policy exchange which there been complaints that he shouldn’t have used the government logo when he was delivering a speech at a secretly funded think tank that was clearly political rather than than governmental I don’t think that Kama will pick up on that because it’s the Scottish nationalists that would be most upset about it that the S SMP MPS so I think Steven Flynn will probably go in on richy sunak trying to well well we’re about to find out I don’t even need to make a prediction thank you Mr Speaker on Monday the Prime Minister treated us to his seventh relaunch in 18 months he vowed to take on the dangers that threaten the country so it was good to see the minister for Common Sense immediately take up that mantle by announcing a vital Crackdown on the gravest of threats colorful lanyards meanwhile in the real world after 14 years of Tory government the prison system is in chaos does the Prime Minister think that his decision to let prisoners out 70 days early makes our country more secure well Mr Speaker Civil Service impartial ity is an important principle that we’re right to support but and perhaps he could ask his chief of staff about [Applause] that but uh actually on Monday what I did do is outline the serious security threats that our country faces from an axis of authoritarian States Russia poisoning people on our streets China targeting our democracy Iranian proxies firing on British ships and yet he won’t back our plan to increase defense spending now we all know why especially with the deputy leader and indeed the shadow foreign secretary who voted to scrap our nuclear deterrent it’s clear that you simply can’t trust labor with our country security well I I I appreciate he’s been busy on the front line of the war against lards but it must he must have missed this I was the first to call for 2.5% on defense spending the last time it happened was under last Labor government but it needs a credible plan not his fantasy economics but I am disappointed to see that version 7.0 of his time in office doesn’t extend as far as answering questions or giving any information on those prisoners he is releasing early basic details like how many where are they what crimes have they committed so will he at least guarantee that none of the criminals he is instructing prisoners to release early are considered high risk yeah Mr Speaker there are strict eligibility criteria in place with exclusions based on public safety and no one will be put on the scheme if they were deemed a threat to Public Safety but he talks about 2 and a half% Mr speaker so if he does think it is important as I think he just actually stood up acknowledged that it was the right thing to do we’ve got a fully funded plan to actually deliver an increase in defense spending and and it’s him and his party who have refused to match that commitment just like is 46 billion fully funded if anyone was looking for the perfect metaphor for this shambolic government we saw it on Monday the Prime Minister woke up deciding his latest Rebrand was Mr security but within hours the Tory party was being investigated for accidentally publishing the personal details of hundreds of people Mr Speaker he must be the only techbow brother on the continent who can’t work a debit card or send an email but he’s not answered my question so I’ll try it again are any of the prisoners he is currently letting out early considered to be high risk Mr Mr Speaker he keep he just showed spectac why he’s just not fit to lead this country into the future this this country this country has a proud tradition of leading the world we led the world when it came to the Industrial Revolution but if he was around if he was around he would have probably called James W the steam bro Mr Speaker but what we’re doing is preparing the country for the future but when he talks about the prison scheme let me be crystal clear no one would be put on the scheme if they were deemed a threat to the public offenders are subject to the toughest of Licensing conditions and if those conditions are broken they are back in prison for considerably longer but what’s his record on this he voted against tougher sentences for violent criminals he actually opposed opposed new powers for the police to tackle violent crime voted against new laws that have arrested a thousand criminal people Smugglers the message is Crystal Clear he can’t be trusted to keep this country safe I I appreciate that all this rebranding is taking all of his time but he may want to read the recent inspection report into Lewis Prison on this topic I’ve asked him twice about it documents it documents page five highrisk prisoners being released at short notice without sufficient planning page 46 a high-risk prisoner had his right release date brought forward despite a history of stalking domestic abuse and restraining order their words he was a risk to children do the early release of stalkers domestic abusers and those considered a risk to Children sound like the work of someone who is making the country more secure well Mr Speaker as I’ve said as I’ve said no one should be put on this scheme if they are a threat to the public and let me be crystal clear it does not apply it me be absolutely spit it does not apply to anyone serving a life sentence anyone convicted of a serious violent offense anyone convicted of terrorism anyone convicted of a sex offense and crucially in contrast to the system that labor had put in place Mr Speaker governors in the prison service have an absolute lock so that no one is put on the scheme who shouldn’t be but thankfully Mr Speaker it their scheme let out thousands upon thousands of violent offenders onto our streets and even two terrorists thankfully we’ve toughened up sentencing against those criminals with new legislation but he voted against it Mr Speaker well I’m glad to hear that those of life sentences aren’t being released early and he may not think that releasing domestic abusers is a problem but labor has repeatedly called for domestic abusers to be exempt from his scheme to release prisoners early his government has shamefully ignored those calls so now now we have the evidence that demestic abusers are being released early the Lewis report prime minister will he finally change course and back labors calls Mr Mr Speaker as I’ve been Crystal Clear there is an absolute Governor lock on people who were put on the scheme and in contrast to the last Labor scheme prisoners were let out with no supervision No Electronic tags in fact 80,000 offenders were let out 16,000 were violent Mr Speaker leading to multiple murders committed we fix that system but when it comes to this question not only are we building the bus biggest prison program in history we’re also deploying rapid deployment cells and Mr Speaker because on this side of the house we understand the importance of prison unlike one of his front benches who said one of his front benches and I said Who quote prison doesn’t prevent crime it’s always the same with the labor party soft on crime and soft on [Applause] criminals he’s literally letting criminals out early a Mr Speaker the only answer to the question I asked whether domestic abusers should be exempt from his early police scheme from anyone serious about security is yes perhaps the most ludicrous part of the Prime Minister speech on Monday was where he said he won’t accept the idea that any of the problems people are facing are caused by the 14 years of conservative government he won’t say how many prisoners they’ve released early he won’t say if they’re burglars abusers or stalkers he won’t say where they are or what support their victims are getting yet he thinks he has the right to tell people they can’t blame his government for any of it doesn’t he think that rather than confiscating lanyards like some jumped up milk monitor he should stop issuing get out of jail cards free to prisoners considered a risk to Children Well Mr Speaker another week with no ideas and absolutely no plan for the country they’ve had they’ve had 14 years to think about nothing but the future but all they can do is talk about the past Mr Speaker but I I am surprised because what he didn’t bring up that has happened in the last week since we met is that statistics confirm that we have now had the joint fastest growth rate in the G7 this year Mr Speaker the bank of England said that the economy had turned a corner iany said our growth was impressive the chief Economist of the independent office for National statistics said the economy is going gang busters m speaker now the shadow Chancellor may want to copy and paste their comments into her next speech or does she think they’re all gaslighting the British public too thank you thank you Mr Speaker uh while I while I understand the need to upgrade our Broadband infrastructure it cannot be right that a company called brisk is proposing to erect Telegraph polls in the squirrels estate in Haley Green in my constituency so would the Prime Minister agree with me that residents are 100% opposed to these proposals and they they go against the guidance so would the Prime Minister agree with me that they should abandon these proposals that they should um rev that that we should have a review of permitted development rights in relation to this type of infrastructure and he should he should and he should and he should give off cob greater power to investigate breaches well can I thank my honorable friend for rightly championing the views of his constituents on this important topic Network operators have to follow legal obligations when deploying their networks and ofcom can in fact investigate reports of failure to follow these obligations and I know that the minister for digital infastructure has met the sector and ofcom recently to raise concerns about reports of poor p cting asked operators to share infrastructure and I will ask her specifically to provide my honorable friend with a more detailed update he leader Steven fli Mr Speaker on Monday the Prime Minister outlined what he considers to be extremist threats to our society and in doing so he actively compared North Korea Iran and Russia with those people in Scotland who believe in Independence so can I ask him to rise once to the standards befitting of his office and apologize for those pural and pathetic remarks Mr Speaker that’s not what I said but I would say to The Honorable gentleman that his party is indeed a threat to the Integrity of the United Kingdom and I hate to remind him but that’s literally their entire purpose Mr Speaker because when the people of Scotland accepted the referendum in 2014 it was the SNP who didn’t they went on creating a minister for Independence focused on constitutional wrangling ignoring the needs of the people education standards falling taxes Rising so actually finally he should do the right thing in end the obsession with Independence and put the needs of the Scottish people first well Mr Speaker let’s be clear what the Prime Minister did was not just equate my colleagues and I to despotic and dangerous despots across the world he proactively compared almost half almost half of the Scottish population with a war criminal like Vladimir Putin and he did so he did so as their prime minister is the man who represents them on the world stage and the man who on eiles is tasked with defending their Liberties and their democracy now we know that his sorry time in office is rapidly coming to inclusion is this really how he wants to be a m Mr Speaker as ever distracting from the actual record of what the S SMP are doing in Scotland and this obsession with Independence means that Scottish school children are being let down plummeting down International League tables the Scottish NHS the only place in the United Kingdom where funding is actually falling in real terms and taxes going up for ordinary hardworking families and small business businesses that is what the S&P are doing in Scotland while this UK government is delivering for them yeah than you prime minister the leader of the SMP and the leader of the opposition have managed to do something today that I pull off about twice a year and I have several hundred goes at it they’ve hit the break bang on time James O’Brien on LBC 17 minutes after 12 is the time pmqs continues of course and uh we generally try to keep one ear on it lest anything of particular interest should unfold um I you were kind of right I you put so much on the table Natasha Clark that it would have been frankly miraculous if Richi zun hadn’t picked any of it up but but I beg your pardon if K sta hadn’t picked any of it up but he did go in pretty hard on prisons with a side order of knives yeah not bad I’ll take a point there good um and yes if we’d had time to discuss what the Prime Minister would have wanted to talk about is obviously the economy um and he thinks it’s going gang busters I’d love to hear more evidence of of that um but yes going going in on prisons is something that K has done a few times I think quite successfully you know our prison system or the ministry of justice is in an absolute crisis and everybody knows it but um richy Senate seemed not to know the details of this report from yesterday that was done by the Chief Inspector of Prisons into lose prison which you know richy said it was wrong what he said at Prime Minister’s questions just now when he said that high-risk offenders would not be released earlier that is categorically not the case according to this report that was released yesterday about lose prison which says that high-risk offenders were part of those cohort which were being released early and you know it completely Destro St bring that point home strongly enough do you think um yeah no I think so he did repeat it back to himself but richy didn’t have the answer he didn’t have the details on what that report said and he just said they should not be being really silly of course they shouldn’t but they are but they are and and it completely you know K AR was was very uh tactical in in choosing to go on this because it destroys vishy Sak’s argument from earlier this week that he is a risk to Britain’s security and it was a nice tie in with that speech that rishy Sak gave on Monday what what did we think about this Gambit I I mean when he says 7.0 he’s talking about a sense that Rishi sunak is a little bit like a detached showerhead bouncing around in the bottom of your bath and that you don’t know what direction it’s going to spray in next and and the idea of actually getting washed underneath it is it’s slim um because that you know he was the change candidate we’ve spoken about that and then and now he’s the safe candidate the security candidate all of which whatever costume he puts on is undermined by the fact that they’ve been in power for 14 years he’s failed to sort of detach himself from that Legacy he tried that earlier this week by sort of talking about LZ TR in terms but but why do you think usually there are focus groups involved although we’re in such Uncharted Territory now with this 6mon long election campaign why why do you think he is putting so much energy this week because we don’t know what version 8.0 will be into trying to portray kir starma as unsafe a former DPP as being unsafe I think they’ve just they think it’s a a good they clearly think it’s a good strategy to go down whether it will work I really don’t think so I don’t think the public going to buy it purely because I don’t think you can you could accuse someone who you know a top lawyer who worked as as DPP for many years as being somebody that doesn’t care about the criminal just justice system that doesn’t care about keeping our country safe I just don’t think that comparing K starma and Jeremy Corbin are you know it actually feeds into his do land it doesn’t land and it feeds into the narrative that K sta himself wants to portray which is that labor has a changed party and that he is no longer this is the Mad thing like Jeremy Corbin know Jeremy Corbin isn’t in the labor party anymore you can’t make is yeah and you know whether you yeah you agree with that or not the LA party is not the same labor party it was in 2020 when K starma inherited it and he will absolutely relish making the point but equally is is choosing today to pick holes in Rishi Sak’s argument that the life would be unsafe under Kama government because just look at the amount of prisoners that you’re you’re letting out that are high risk onor arguably an even bigger story this week than than Lewis Prison it’s quite easy to remember because the governor who has resigned following a prison inspection this week or last week last Thursday somewhat felicitously for people who Str struggle as they get older to remember names is called KY price which is a name that is not going to slip out of your mind anytime soon indeed some coverage includes the brackets not to be confused with the reality star just in case you thought she might have been Moonlighting as the governor of wesworth prison but the the idea that the state of Prisons or the state of Criminal Justice is something that richy sunet can hit K Arma with is let’s say optimistic what about National Security what about the idea that he would be less effective against threats from Russia or China cuz I I’d like to see a little bit more flesh on these B I don’t understand what he thinks he’s doing really so his argument which he’s been trying to set out on Monday is that because the labor party haven’t committed to his timetable of 2.5% of 2030 that’s going to as he quote said embolden our enemies like Putin right yes it’s a bit of a step is it’s a bit of a stretch Natasha there’s Vladimir cracking open the Wine sellers can’t believe it you know what Putin’s going to say when he reads this is what richy sonak said I don’t think um he’s paying too much attention but I could be wrong um but look it just it doesn’t wash because I think Rishi Sak’s late to the party on talking about security I don’t think it’s he’s been particularly on the front foot on defense on defense spending as Chancellor we were constantly hearing about Ral of him blocking more money for defense and and he wasn’t a priority for him at all he he was the chancellor he was the guy in charge of that’s what that’s where the show analogy comes he does his just spraying everywhere that’s why I was speaking to somebody who was used to work in number 10 this week and that’s what they fear that is actually going completely wrong with the sonak operation is that the messaging is all over the place scatter gun it’s completely scatter gun approach and you know they they pointed back to elections you know 2019 was the election they pointed back to where they said that that our messaging was really strong and even if you remember the early days of the covid pandemic you know we we all remember and it was all drilled into our into our heads the the sort of wash your hands messaging that came from the government and arguably that messaging was incredibly strong at the time people did buy into it and it worked um and that’s something that you can’t say about this government and you can’t say about this prime minister you can we can talk about what Rishi sonak ism is and wants to stand for but yeah I don’t think anybody if you if you have asked a voter on the street what do you think the message coming out from the government is going to be and what what do you think of the things that Richi sen will want to talk about in the election I don’t think and even though we are so far away from an election this is exactly what the government needs to be thinking about what their messages are going to be because they need to hammer them home every day from now until polling day if they’ve got a chance of winning and and and that laser likee focus on something even if it’s complete roxs like get brexit done just makes campaigning so much easier don’t stop to examine the truth of the claim or the truth of the promise um I I don’t know if you follow John burn Murdoch at the financial times he’s the king of grph brilliant he’s great isn’t he honestly too clever for me I I he he he put something up earlier this week about perceptions on crime crime and the way that we are all I mean our local crime experience is actually not bad I and most people uh their genuine experience of crime in their local area is pretty steady and it hasn’t got particularly worse um and and on it carries the figures are falling in fact they are yeah but 2third of people think crime is on the rise it’s actually at its lowest level for 30 years uh and the national picture when people are asked they think the national picture is getting worse so they they and it’s media this is a largely a creation of media but both Party leaders have kind of handcuffed themselves to a bandwagon heading in the opposite direction soon has somehow tried to turn it into crime will be worse under K starma and K starma has to argue crime is terrible under the conservatives so for both of them are now in a space that doesn’t exists a social trends report shows 2third of people think crime is on the rise the statistics reveal it it’s it’s at its lowest level for 30 years mad politics isn’t it yeah and there’s there’s obviously there’s two there’s two levels of reporting crime the actual crime data that comes in but also rep uh I can’t remember it’s the crime survey of England and Wales I believe it’s called on on on whether you have reported or or seen crimes but not reported them so it’s two different slight slight measures and I think I think I believe they’re both falling um and but yes it’s obviously a perception that K starm wants to get into because if his strategy to try and win over Tory voters and like I say the conservatives they are the people that you say usually have gone on on crime tough on crime um but and you know richy s wants to say look I’m I’m locking prisoners up for longer I’m putting I’m not releasing anybody before two-thirds of their sentence that’s something that they’ve produced and they consistently want to be seen as the people that are tough on crime we’ve got now you know the results of that are now in our prisons which are now overfilling you know arguably a success of government to keep dangerous prisoners up for longer but yes I think it is and potentially is the media’s Fault when um everybody thinks it’s terrible and it’s actually getting better we can we hold some responsibility for that to point out you know there are part parts of the country that live crime is going up for is going up shoplifting is going up and people do have legitimate concerns about ly yeah it’s almost I don’t mean your territory isn’t it crimes absolutely awful but I don’t mean where you live um and then Steven Flynn now on this one are you were correct to call prisons but I think I almost got this word for word on what he would go his question well because I thought it was a wide open goal that if the Prime Minister stands up and Compares you to the Russians the Iranians and the hooty Rebels well that was what yesterday’s phone was about inclusive it was inconclusive I think that Rishi sonak is correct to describe the SNP as a threat to Britain to the United Kingdom yes but possibly not possibly not do it in the same breath as those other threats and it wasn’t in the same breath it was significantly later on in the speech a good four par ARS i’ say afterwards so I don’t think you can I think the Scottish nationalists will seize an opportunity to to hit the prime minister with that but I I personally thought think that it it was slightly overhyped by them it was an odd Exchange in a way because they’re both speaking to completely different audiences Steven Flynn’s followers will completely agree with everything he said and richy Su next follow they’re both right aren’t they well precisely I mean you you do seek the destruction of the United Kingdom in its current form but paragraph placement not withstanding the Russia and China there was a deliberate conflation I think I me it wasn’t a coincidence it was a very odd thing to stick into the speech at all he was trying to scatter G absolutely there was nothing he didn’t talk about in that back to the shower analogy it’s good that right it’s quite good I like it we can use that again but yeah he he absolutely um tried to talk about everything in that speech from education the NHS crime security culture wars you know I’m surprised didn’t mention the lanyards but you know which was again what going back to pmsq is one of K’s funniest off the jokes I think this week was when he was uh saying you know the prime minister’s on the front line of the culture war against lards and I think he’s been busy with that which was mil was quite good as well mil monitor was s James do you did you have a milk monitor when you were at school Margaret Thatcher took away our milk did they yeah you not know that that you’re FY no I me I don’t even know what a milk monitor is we have free milk fre milk You’ have a little mini bottle I know that but what’s a milk monitor the person making sure he didn’t steal two bottles of milk right it’s the same way of any monitor okay I bet you know actually they’re all too young so before my time it is I I can’t you that a thatch of milk snatch actually I was at private school so I think we carried on get milk we carried on having milk actually long after marget probably still get it in fact how the other half live isn’t it right free milk um Nat Clark thank you so much it’s coming up to half 12 you are listening to James O’Brien on LBC couple of interesting interviews for you on the way um it’s becoming a rather gratifying tradition on Wednesdays we need to have a proper look at sanctions uh and who better to look at sanctions against Russia as the situation in Ukraine worsens from a Ukrainian perspective um who better to help us in that field than our old friend Bill Browder who’s been at the front line both of highlighting the criminality of course and worth of Vladimir Putin’s regime but also of the financial impact that s sanctions could have with ripple effects moving everywhere and then a really interesting guy who is essentially the scientist behind the medical technology that is delivering these new Miracle drugs that look set to not just help with obesity but also heart disease and uh and dementia even perhaps addiction and the story of of of how this uh Journey began and is unfolding is just riveting I I’m not going to lie to you I heard it somewhere else and I thought well KY my listeners deserve to hear this as well so shortly after 12:45 today you will but before all of that Amelia Cox has your headlines James O’Brien on LBC it is 12:34 I’m not in invoking the curse of O’Brien uh because I am about to say something vaguely positive about a conservative politician albe it not one currently in government but Tobias Elwood um took a a lot of ribbing yesterday after posting a photograph of the new uh head of Russian’s military effectively in a um a uniform that had actually been cut and pasted from the rather brilliant Amando yucci film The Death of Stalin and and the subject of the comedy was all the all the ludicrous medals he almost looked like a member of the British royal family he was wearing so many medals that he’d done nothing to uh nothing to earn um and and unfortunately that that withdrew attention from Tobias Elwood’s Central Point which was that someone who doesn’t have a military background but has instead an economic background has now been put in charge of Russia’s military which is a very important point and speaks to how the country by putting defense procurement is almost the country’s top priority um moving ever further to a full War footing is something which if this government were not so concerned with lanyards and the sex education of 9-year-old children this government should be pretty bloody worried about um but despite to Elwood’s best efforts yesterday it is arguably not worried enough and that is a theme that bill Browder has also taken up from a slightly different angle bill you will know if you listen to this program and indeed many others uh is the head of the global magnitsky Justice campaign who has been campaigning for years now for financial penalties to be brought against Vladimir Putin’s plutocracy long before the invasion of Ukraine and and Bill was before the commons treasury select committee yesterday because there’s there’s there’s a pins movement here bill on on the one hand it looks as if Russia is prioritizing defense procurement above everything else and on the other the things that we were supposed to doing on this side of the world to to hamper that process and to stymy the the financial side of the Putin regime is not going as well as you might have hoped yeah I mean event essentially what we have going on here is um there there’s two fronts to the war there’s the actual shooting front the the guns and bombs and missiles and then there’s the financial front and um uh and what’s happened is that that um Ukraine um is weaker on the financial front and and the military front than Russia and um uh and and the only way that they can survive is with our help and what we’ve seen in the last um year or so is the US withheld for six months uh $61 billion of military aid to Ukraine uh because of um uh a few people in the House of Representatives that didn’t want it Hungary um uh held up EU funding for a number of weeks um in the in the late last year and and Ukraine is suffering and um and and there’s going to be more of this because Putin as as you’ve just rightly pointed out has got some uh he will use all the money he has he’ll take money away from everybody else um in order to uh in order to fight this war and he’s got more staying power than we do and and that was one of the main uh the my main objective in front of the um treasury select committee was to talk about conf skating $300 billion of Russian money which has been frozen since the beginning of the war and giving that to Ukraine because that would even the balance and that would give the ukrainians uh a Fighting Chance at winning and this is something that that that you and um I care a ridic of course the the Ukrainian politician and many others have been calling for pretty much since since Russian boot landed on Ukrainian soil what what what are and I know this is a more complicated question than the time we have together allows you to answer in full but what are the main sort of headline reasons under your understanding as to why this hasn’t happened why what strikes many of us as as as not just um good politics but also natural justice has hasn’t happened yeah well let’s first just say the reasons why it should happen which is that that that Putin has caused some somewhere between 500 and a billion 500 billion in a trillion dollars worth of damage to Ukraine um he’s he’s launched an illegal war of aggression and um and under international law he should pay for that that that’s the simple legal moral and political reason why it should happen but then you have all sorts of people um running around flapping around I should say saying things like oh my God the the financial system is going to come to an end if this happens um oh my God it’s not legal we can’t do that and and and other other arguments like that and and my response to that and I and I said this very clearly in the um treasury select Comm yesterday is that the world will not come to an end there is no the only people that have to worry about having money confiscated are countries that launch illegal Wars of invasion where they they destroy hundreds of billions of dollars of property of their neighbors then they do have to worry and and there’s actually one country that that has the potential to do that that’s got a lot of Foreign Exchange reserves and that’s China and so I think one of the the best uh consequences of this is that China may be um uh looking at this and saying well actually you know we don’t to have that our money confiscated that’s being held in central banks around the world in terms of the in terms of the uh counterargument about is this legal um well to the extent that there’s any legal ambiguity and there is some that that Russia uh can say that this is these are sovereign reserves that are protected by sovereign immunity like their Embassy the way you can deal with that is by passing laws and that’s why I was in Parliament yesterday among lawmakers to say why don’t you like the Americans just pass the law law to say that if there’s a conflict between two laws one is the law that you’re not allowed to destroy your neighbor’s property and the second um the law the money is protected by sovereign immunity pass a law to say that in in situations like this that that the law of not destroying your neighbor um prevails and and that could be easily done in Parliament and then there is no legal ambiguity um uh but most importantly and this is something that that I really should and it’s thank you for having me on your show because I want to say this to all your listeners is that um whose money is more important the the British taxpayers money who are going to have to pay for this stuff or Putin’s money and I would say that there’s not a single person listening to this who would want to pay for this before Putin pays for it and we have his money um Frozen which we can confiscate let me nudge you now I suppose both some people might answer if they were feeling mischievous we could take Putin’s money and spend some of our money as well and then hopefully speed up the process of of of Ukraine repelling the the Russian inv even more so but it’s also the failure of the sanctions that we’ve already got in place that’s moved front and center both as as a consequence and before your appearance before the treasury select committee it sits alongside some work by Ed Conway at Sky News back in February about um British companies still exporting hundreds of millions of pounds of equipment and Machinery which almost certainly ends up in Russia how how big and Harriet Baldwin the conservative chair of the committee has spoken about how sanctions are failing to hamper Russia’s economy I was surprised to read the IMF forecasting it’s going to be big one of the biggest one of the strongest economies this year that’s arguably an even bigger problem isn’t it than the funding of the Ukrainian defenses well well first of all we we we shouldn’t believe the numbers that come out of Russia to be the truth Russia lies at every step of the way they they pass it off to the IMF they put their impr premature on it and everyone says oh oh my god look how good the Russian economy is doing that that’s not the case Russian economy is suffering very very profoundly but you’re right there are there is sanctions evasion that’s happening on on a regular basis one of the things that that um bothers me the most and I think it’s one of the most important things is that Russia continues to sell oil into the international markets they they get between half a billion and a billion dollars a day from the sale of their oil and they sell it to Indian Turkish and Chinese refineries and then guess who those refineries sell the refined product back to us us here here in the UK in Europe we’re buying so we’re we’re we’re basically indirectly sending money to Russia so that they can buy bombs to kill ukrainians and then we’re sending money to the ukrainians um to to fight back on the Russians is that partly because of the pressure that’s put on British put on Western governments by energy costs I mean people looking the other way because the alternative would be to have ever higher energy costs here well um that’s the reason why we can’t embargo Russian oil outright but but there’s no reason why we should be buying refined products from from uh an Indian Refinery that’s buying Russian oil and then selling it back to us I think that we can easily say you know there’s this stuff is all fungible we’ll buy it from somewhere else and the price cap is not working either is it really Bill the US LED oil price cap on Russia’s oil sales absolutely not it’s not working at all Russia gets and Russia’s making a lot of money from their oil sales and so that and that’s the huge loophole that’s the elephant in the room that that’s what has to be dealt with because it doesn’t mean that we that Russia can’t export their oil but we don’t want them to make any money off their oil exports and if we make it all contentious and difficult and and clog up their system um hopefully they they they get less money and they have less money to spend on this war how how many focus on Britain and I know you’re not really in the business of speculation but but how many British companies would have consciously dirty hands in in in some of the processes that we’re talking about not just with oil but in the in the failure of sanctions in the exporting of um equipment and Machinery that might be ending up in people still doing business because I can sometimes read about fancy handbags but but I’m more interested in the less glamorous core how many British interests would be actively working against the process of sanctioning Vladimir Putin’s Russia well I I I don’t have an exact number but but but but but definitely some and the one the one that that that sort of um stands out is BP BP said that they were going to withdraw from from Russia they they sold down a few projects here and there but they still have this huge investment um in rosn the uh Russian Oil Company the Russian state owned oil company and um and that and their they uh their shares in that investment has generated uh according to numbers I’ve seen last year $3 billion do of profit and so um you know you can’t you know they either that that there should be some type of windfall tax on BP to take that profit that that they’re making in Russia and use it for Ukraine or something similar but we certainly can’t have any of our companies making money in Russia paying taxes in Russia um that that’s just can’t be can’t can’t be allowed to happen it final question um we we we catch up relatively regularly um obviously the conversation since the invasion of Ukraine has changed the the the big picture is Bleaker than it has been pretty much since the first shells was were fired in the direction of of keev I think Bill yep well but but one thing I should I should um I should say is that everybody always exaggerates the good and exaggerates the bad we all thought that the war was going to be lost in three days and the ukrainians bravely and valiantly fought back and and then they they they ended up regaining 52% of their territory and um and we thought oh my God they can just go for 100% be a counter offensive and then and then and and and then it took a while for them to get their equipment the Russians dug in and then that that didn’t work and then we had this big delay on the $61 billion of Aid and they’ started running out of bullets and ammunition and and and how the Russians are getting some advantage and and they’re taking a few Villages here and there um you know don’t by no means should you count the ukrainians out I mean they they’re they are literally fighting for their lives if the Russians take over the women get raped the men get tortured and the children get kidnapped and and any Ukrainian doesn’t want that to happen and they will you know back I remember when the first day of the invasion the uh you know the babushkas the Granny’s were were like loading up Molotov cocktails everybody’s going to get involved in fighting off the Russians they’re not going to win in Ukraine but there could be a lot of dead people between now and then and we could be doing a lot more to help as you have highlighted in in in characteristically clear fashion Bill Browder thank you head of the global magnitsky Justice campaign who was speaking yesterday at the commons treasury select committee about these issues it’s just gone 1247 some good news next I think we all need good news these um weight loss drugs that are potentially changing the world certainly changing the medical world and also changing individual worlds given the impact that they may have on everything from um diabetes to dementia the the tale of the scientists who have done most to bring them into the public space is a is a rather uplifting one and and and we will speak to the um the head of that team Jen Jules H Jen juel Hol a professor at the department of bi bi medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen after this James O’Brien on LBC 10 to one is the time what’s the opposite of a moral panic I I don’t I was thinking about this on the way into work this morning so a moral Panic is when oh my God something’s happening and it’s going to make everything awful it’s going to be the end of civilization as we know it whether it’s video video games or or whatever it may be but in in in medical terms every now and then something comes along which is portrayed more by the media than by the scientific community as a miracle drug and yet of course as as with moral panics um sometimes it might be accurate and the response to weight loss drugs um such as where they theyve become known as OIC and and wovi um seems to get more exciting with almost every passing day this week it was the um the news that they may help treat addiction and dementia and other conditions as well that reopell them into the news which is why I thought it would be worthwhile uh digging back into the story and do you know what this is a bit of a personal position but when you start looking for the for the roots of good things happening in the world or or or good ideas being implemented on on populations it’s surprising how many routes lead back to Denmark and to Copenhagen in particular on a completely different subject we were of course talking about Urban cycling yesterday where where they have led the way but that has absolutely nothing to do with Yen y Hol who is a professor at the the department of biomedical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen and more pertinently for our purposes today is is the scientist who sort of started this story although Yen Yul thank you for your time today the story doesn’t start with a search for a weight loss drug does it no it doesn’t uh it it started quite differently and it many years ago actually uh that was when people didn’t talk about type 2 diabetes very much and also when we didn’t have obesity to a major extent at least not in Denmark uh so what was on everybody’s mind was duodenal ulca disease gastric ulca disease that was that’s what everybody had you know pain in the stomach and yeah so so we were interested in that and we I was a young surgeon I was working in a surgical Department we did operations for this dual ulca disease and some of our patients developed hypoglycemia low blood glucose levels after the operation and this was clearly because they produced too much insulin so we want why is it what what factor from the gut is it that stimulates the insulin secretion in these individuals and then causes their hypoglycemia and uh so we started to search for that uh rather systematically really um and and we found some cells uh in the in the in the intestinal epithelium in the lining of the gut and they were would light up with an antibody against glucagon and we thought that they were interesting those cells so uh we tried to find out what was in those cells and it took about 10 years so so around 1993 we had found out what it was it was a a peptide of 69 amino acid that contained glucagon uh but it didn’t work uh to stimulate insulin secretion but it was clear that this was part of a precursor of and other hormones a precursor of glucagon of course but also something else and that’s where that’s where we started looking for what was in the remaining part of this precursor molecule and that’s where there was a sequence there which is now called glp1 glucagon like peptide one which we then pulled out of intestinal extracts and put on a perfused pancreas that we had in our laboratory so that we could see whether it would stimulate insulin secretion and it didn’t this is I mean a story that you’re taking us back I think almost 50 years aren’t you only 30 or 40 can I ask you a silly question please do how how how often in that period do you have a day at work which which actually counts as a high five moment because I mean it sounds like a really slow grind and and it was even slower than that because you know one thing was to identify a peptide that would stimulate insulin secretion there were several peptides that could do that in in those days the idea was to try to see what you could use it for so everybody knew that type two diabetes that they had a poor beta cells I mean the insulin cells they were not good they couldn’t react to glucose and uh there was no no signs of any you know repair mechanism that was possible so so it was not it was not in the written in the in the in in the stars that that this new peptide would do anything like that so so it we had to go the long way to try to find out what does this new peptide do and we found out that it also had effects on on on glucose production in the liver via another hormone and we found out that it also EMP the inhibited the G emptying of the stomach and we found out that it had a number of activities in the end we also found that it inhibited appetite and food intake and now it began to be really interesting in spite of you know the suspicion that this wouldn’t probably work so we started treating people with this and this is that was a day in 1993 where we gave this as infusion into the blood vessels to people with diabetes and found that we could completely normalize their blood glucose levels in 4 Hour that was the day of the high five you could say because then we knew that we were on to something very very special but but then came a lot of more problems and the first problem was we then started to inject people with you know simple subcutaneous injections with this peptide and it they they didn’t work really and the reason was that the peptite was destroyed in the body within minutes so so it couldn’t be done that way and you couldn’t even give them more you know higher doses because then they started to puke all over the place that so that didn’t work either so we have to find out what was wrong wrong it turned out to be an enzyme called dpp4 that broke down the peptide and then we found out that you could in inhibit that enzyme and that actually ended up in what we call the dpp4 Inhibitors uh clytin so that’s another that’s another high five that’s that’s two in 30 years that’s two in 20 or 30 years yes yes yes absolutely so so but we could also stabilize the peptide itself and we did that and that worked also to some extent but not enough and that’s that was because the kidneys also eliminate this new hormone and and so you have to do something about that and that’s where the pharmaceutical industry came into the picture right Nova nordis they had found out how to do this how to prolong the activity of these peptides by adding a facd fatty acid chain to it then it would bind to albumine in the circulation and then have a much longer half life so we went from two minutes to 1 hour uh to 12 hours I’m sorry good Lord so so so it was a really radical change and that was the lype molecule that came on and and that that’s that’s the sort of I mean apart from for people with diabetes whose lives you’d already transformed this is where the the ramifications that the applications become become almost infinite and it’s why because of Novo Nordisk as the the drugs company and its relationship with the Danish government this is impacting not just upon obesity around the world but also upon Denmark’s actual economy I when you when you hopped over from surgery to Academia you couldn’t even have dreamt of having an impact like this upon the world could you no not at all it was not possible remember that on one hand we had this idea this experience that if you gave too much of the peptide people would be feeling bad and they would they would have nausea and vomit and all that so that has had to be solved and and and you had to have these long acting uh molecules to be able to work with this at all so it turned out that very very slow scaling up of the dozing was the solution to the problem and today you know it takes half a year to get to the to the final dose of these agents and if you if you break that then you will have the problems with the side effects so that all of that had to be worked on and understood and and you know they had to do even longer acting versions of the molecule the weekly ones and all of that then took you know very particular studies where you carefully look it’s an it’s an incremental process the world discovers it and it looks like it looks like an overnight success yel when the world discovers it but I think you’ve made it clear to us today that this is uh I that most of the iceberg is under the ocean isn’t it I think I think you have a great gift for for communication as well as for science clearly I I I I have to ask you finally how you feel about all the speculation that a that a Nobel Prize may be heading in the direction of your yourself and your team you’ll have to ask somebody in Stockholm about that I think I have absolutely no idea I have nothing you know there’s no chance to think about that but the discovery as such of course is a good one for this because it this really will help a lot of people millions of people and will be really I mean it has already transformed diabetes therapy very very profoundly and of course it’s the first time in history that we can treat obesity yes so it’s incredible yeah it is it is quite quite unusual I a long long way from that from that first moment when you uh when you saw this possibly on the horizon it’s been an absolute privilege to talk to you Professor thank you so much for your time you’re very welcome you’re very welcome thank you y your host the professor at the department of biomedical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen and although he’s clearly far too modest to ever say so himself one of those scientists who is likely to go down in history as having changed the world I told you it was a good story that’s it from me for another for another day if you missed any of today’s show you can listen back on catchup on global player where you can also of course pause and Rewind live radio on the official LBC app download it now for free from your app store or head to Global player.com coming up at 4 on LBC it’s Tom swri but now it’s time for Sheila foger